Istvan Meszaros

Istvan Meszaros, one of the most important Marxist philosophers of our times, passed away on 1st October. I was introduced to his writing through his “The Work of Sartre: Search for Freedom”, one of the finest theoretical commentaries on Sartre, which I engaged with in my thesis. His prose was dry and often obtuse, but rich with critical insights. This book is also a good example of how to do intellectual history. I had planned to read his “Marx’s Theory of Alienation” earlier this year, but owing to other projects, this was put on the back-burner. I hope to begin that soon in Meszaros’ honor.

In an interview about 2 years back he said “There can be no such thing as “historical inevitability” in the direction of the future. History is open-ended, for the better or worse” and further that “The greatest and most perilous irony of modern history is that the once championed “productive destruction” has become in the descending phase of capital’s systemic development an ever more untenable destructive production, both in the field of commodity production and in the domain of nature, complemented by the ultimate threat of military destruction in defence of the established order. That is why the socialist alternative is not only possible – in the earlier mentioned sense of its historical sustainability – but also necessary, in the interest of humanity’s survival.”

Let us work towards that socialist alternative. Even better, let us properly theorize it.

Rest in Power Istvan Meszaros. See you in communism.