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London, Ncw Left Books Mamilieim, K. 19721c\E'ol(lgy :l~ London, Routledge & Kegan Paul AltJlUsser, L. 1969 For Marx, London, Penguin; 1974 Elements Marx, K. 1968 'Theses on Feuerbach' in Selected Works London, Lawrence d'autocritig~, Paris, HacheUe and Wishart; 1973 Grundrisse London, Pcnguin Arato, A. 1972a 'Lukacs' Theory of Reification', Telos 11, pp25-66; Merleau-Ponly, M. 1962 The Phenomenology of Perception, London, 1972b Notes on 'History and Class Consciousness', Philosophical Forum Routledge & Kegan Paul; 1974a Adyentures of thc Dialectic, London, Vol. JII, pp386-400 Heinemann; 1974b The PI"OSe of the World, London, Heinemann Colletti, L. 1973 Marxism and Hegel London, New Left Books Paci, E. 1972 The Function of the Sciences and the Meaning of Man, Fecnberg, A. 1971 'Heificationand the Antimonies of Socialist Thought' Evanston, Northwestern Univcrsity Press Telos Phillips, D. 1974 'Epistemology and the sociology of knowledge', Theory and l- ~Vol.l Glucksmann, A. 1972 'A Ventriloquist Structuralism', New Left Review Piccone, P. 1972 'Dialcctic and Materialism in Lukacs', ~ 11, ppl05-33 72, pp68-92 - Ranciere, J. 1972 'Althusser and Ideology', Radical Philosophy 7 Goldrnann, L. 1971 Reflections of 'History and Class Consciousness' in Revai, J. 1972 Review of Georg Lukacs' 'History and Class ConSCiousness', Mes7.'Uos (ed. ) AspE'cts of Histo!'y and Class Consciousness London, Merlin Theoretical Practice No. 1 Hindess, B. 1972 'The "Phenomenological" Sociology of AUred Schutz', Sartre, J":P. 1949 The Psychology of the Imagination London, Rider; E£Q.!]pmy and Society Vol.l ppl-27; 1973a 'Transcendentalism and History', 1957 Being and NOUJinilllg§ji, London, Methuen; 1960 Critique de la Raison E.£Quomy and SO("i('ty Vol. 2 pp309-42; 1973b The Use of Official Statistics dialedigue Paris, Gallimard; 1963a The Problem of Method, London, in SOciology, London, Macmillan Methuen; 1963b Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions, London, Methuen Hirst, P. 1972, 'Marx, Law and Crime', Economy and SocjPty Vol.l pp28-56. Stedman-Jones, G. 1971 'The Marxism of , the Early Lukacs, New Left Husserl, E. 1970 TIle Crisis of European Science and Transcendental Review 70 pp27-64 Plwn(lmenolor;y, EV;J.nston, Northwestern University Press Westergaard, J. 1970 'The Rediscovery oE the Cash Nexus, Socialist Lukacs, G. 1971 IIistory and Class Consciousness London, Merlin; Register 1970 :reviews- THE NEEDS OF MaRXISM Kate Soper Agnes Heller, The Theory of Need in Marx, explanation for their choice either within the text translated from the German, Introduction by Ken or in a glossary would have been welcome. So too Coates and Stephen Bodington, Alison & Busby, would have been more indications (if only in the London, 1976, 135pp, hardback £5.25, pb £2.95 form of section headings and bridge passages) of the overall direction and design of the wou. ,As it As Hemingway, I seem to remember, somewhere is, we are offered the pieces of a jigsaw - which is said of Pernod, so it is with this book: it takes you tantalizing because we are not sure if we have all up as much as it brings you down. The analogy, the pieces, and wearisome because so much of the however, is perhaps too frivolous for a work whose work of assembly is left to a reader who has little scholarly sobriety borders on dryness; moreover, idea of the final picture to be constructed. it suggests an ease of absorption that might mislead There are two further general features of this readers who are unaccustomed to that strange brew book which some may find disappointing. In the first of half-developed concepts, potent good sense and place, there is scarcely a reference to other work flights of fancy that can be concocted from Marx's bearing on the question of needs, by which I mean works and labelled (somewhat euphemistically) 'a either to work outside historical materialism in theory of needs'. For it does not seem to me that anthropology or psychology or biology, all of which Heller has managed to offer us anything much more are pertinent studies, or to attempts by other Marx­ readily digestible than Marx himself on this subject, ists to confront the vexed question of needs. Ad­ even though her project is largely one of exegesis mittedly in the latter case there are a few directly and synthesis - a~d I speak as one who has spent relevant works, and it may be that Heller has not some time in the attempt to ascertain the meaning had much opportunity to assess them 1 - here I have and coherence of Marx's various remarks on the in mind such writers as Seve and Timpanaro, and subject of needs. On the other hand, it may be true the debate on Marx and Fretld. Yet she also never that I have approached Heller's book with too many mentions- either Sartre or Marcuse nor any of the preconceptions and expectations about what a work economic studies that bear on the issues she on the theory of needs should achieve, and that raises (Mandel, Betteiheim, Rubin) and there is others less steeped in this aspect of Marxism will scarcely a reference to any work by Lenin or find a good deal to interest and inspire them in this Trotsky or Stalin. In other words, there is no book, if only because it sketches out an area for attempt to place her contribution in the context of consideration that is scarcely ever discussed in any developments in Marxist study either in the East or detailed way, and because it is the product of a good the West, though her debt to Lukacs is obvious. deal of reflection on that area. All the same, I sus­ There is an advantage to this in the sense that her pect that many readers will wish that Heller had book is refreshingly unparasitical; it also means provided more opportunity to share in this process that it avoids any facile classification in terms of of reflection. As it is, she tends merely to chart allegiances within current Marxology (it does not, its results, and these are often presented in an for example, adopt either a straightforward human­ over-condensed and disjointed form. ist or anti-humanist stance and cannot be located In all fairness, it should also be said that she has easily in terms of such disjunctures. ) Its dis­ not been well served either by her translator or by advantage is that it is restricted to Marx's work her editor in this English edition. There is a nerv­ alone, and thus to a large extent remains a piece ous recourse to literal rendering in the translation of academic Marxology - an exegesis of texts which which betrays a failure to have construed Heller's themselves are regarded as self-sufficient ends: precise meaning (and in several instances I have getting at Marx's meaning, rather than assessing still not managed to decipher this). Even where the its worth or relevance to contemporary events, meaning is clear, it is frequently couched in rather stin seems the dominating concern. Since it scarcely bizarre expressions, and the reader is confronted ever ventures beyond Marx's own dicta either for with an array of undefined concepts (eg 'community its substance or its exe~plification, the book re- structure', 'society of associated producers', the -1 Though her book was ori(tinally published in German, Heller is herseU 'antinomies' of capitalism, its 'formation', and so Hungarian and associated with a group of Hungarian philosophers of Lukacian inspiration 'Who have rel'ently been subject to a certain amount on). In the case of these and other terms, some of persecution in Hun~ary. 37 mains in a kind of double political abstraction - this distinction in terms of 'fulfilled' and 'unful­ from the internal politics of Marxist study and from filled' needs, since there would be considerable the politics of the concrete conjuncture. overlap between the two categories. Thus the con­ This point connects with the second line of criti­ sumption of certain goods would seem indispens­ cism the book might invite, namely to its unclassi­ able to any form of society (eg. food, clothing, fiable nature from the standpoint of the humanism energy, m~dicine, recreation etc). The distinction versus anti-humanism debate. I suggested that this is rather that of effective versus possible demand. was not in itself a bad thing, but the trouble is that Here again, our theory of needs can restrict HelIer is not a ware of its implications, either as itself to charting patterns of actual or possible these touch upon the debated issue of the continuity satisfaction. That is to say, it can concentrate on of Marx's problematic, or as they affect our inter­ needs as consumption. Alternatively, it can raise pretation of Marx's work in the light of the tradi­ the question of the production and determination tional fact/value antithesis. Or if she is aware of of needs. In this event, the theory will have to them~ she chooses not to spell them out. More exte'nd itself beyond economic determinants of precisely, in regard to the first issue, I am unsure supply and demand to consideration of the biologi­ what to make of her appeal in the last analysis to cal and psychological factors determining the kind the concepts of the Economic and Philosophical of goods and services that are produced and the :Manuscripts ('Species being', 'alienation') within role that such fact ors play in shaping reactions of the context of a study whose implications suggest in acceptance, rejection and indifference to such pro­ many respects enormous difficulties about the ex­ duction. This is need as the concept of interaction tent to which a Marxist theory of needs can be pre­ between production and consumption, r~ther than sented within the problematic of the early works.