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[ PREFACE ]

The lectures on which this book is based were delivered at Hosei University in Tokyo in October 1979, on the announced subject of “Marxism Today.” As explained at the beginning of the first lecture, my interpretation of this title was somewhat specialized, not to say idiosyncratic, and I think it would have been misleading to use it as the title of a book.

Hosei University celebrated its hundredth anniversary in 1980. During this whole stormy century of Japanese history, Hosei has been a leading center of humane scholarship and learning. I was therefore honored when its president, Mr. Akira Nakamura, and the Department of Economics invited me to give a series of lectures on Marxism, which is recognized in Japan, to a far greater extent than in my own country, as embodying and carrying on the finest traditions of Western philosophy and social science.

In working over the original texts of the lectures, I have benefited from suggestions, and even more from reassurances, from a number of friends, including Donald Harris, Professor of Economics at Stanford University; Teodor Shanin, Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester; Samir Amin, until recently Director of the African Institute of Economic Development and Planning; Sol Adler, one of my fellow graduate students at the London School of Economics nearly fifty years ago who helped to introduce me to Marxism; and Harry Magdoff and Jules Geller, my colleagues at Monthly Review and Monthly Review Press. I have added two appendices to the second lecture on subjects which could not be encompassed within the lecture framework.

I owe a particular debt of gratitude to my good friend Tokue Shibata, now Professor of Economics at Tokyo Keizai University and formerly head of the Tokyo Metropolitan Research Institute for Environmental Protection. Professor Shibata handled all the arrangements for the visit to Japan and acted as a most gracious host while I was there.

—Paul M. Sweezy

New York City

May 1, 1981