‘We are free when, like artists, we produce without the goad of physical necessity’ Karl Marx

For Marx, freedom entailed release from commercial labour. In this highly engaging account, Eagleton outlines the relationship between production, labour and ownership which lie at the core of Marx’s thinking. Marx’s utopia was a place in which labour is increasingly automated, emancipating the wealth of sensuous individual development so that ‘savouring a peach [is an aspect] of our self-actualisation as much as building dams or churning out coat-hangers’.

Combining extracts from Marx’s revolutionary philosophy, along with insightful analysis, this is the perfect guide to one of the world’s greatest thinkers.