When is capitalism going to end? The sighs over its resilience could be heard under the surface in Britain, where I spent the month of June. Its demise has been sought ever since the Great Recession, and even before, since 9/11. A good cross-section of the debate was provided at the Hay Festival in Wales, the top literary fair among Britain’s 301 formal book festivals, which is now also being held in several other countries. The random range of material presented by authors with new books is a good way to discover which way the thinking on the ground is going. It was telling that when Terry Eagleton, the stalwart Marxist, brought out a new book entitled Radical Sacrifice, the organisers asked him to rather talk again on a previous book, the best-selling Why Marx Was Right. Eagleton is also known for his lifelong project to reconcile Marxism with Christianity. Marx’s statement that religion was the opium of the people had to be seen in context, he said. Marx rather meant that religio...
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