Torkil Lauesen The Principal Contradiction

BOOK REVIEW

Kersplebedeb, Montreal, 2020, 172pp, £11.98/$14.95
ISBN 9781989701034

Reviewed by Joshua Moufawad-Paul

Marx and Philosophy Review of Books | November 21, 2020

One of my frustrations with contemporary Marxist philosophy is the way in which the word ‘dialectical’ is often employed like a magical wand to sanctify various relational phenomena. Such vague employment is reflected in radical theory adjacent to Marxism as well where theorists pepper their work with the term ‘dialectical relationship’. Why such relationships are precisely dialectical is usually never explained, nor is the precise meaning of dialectical reason. This leaves me with the impression that dialectical and relational are taken to be synonymous––that the term ‘dialectical relationship’ is a tautology. In this context, Torkil Lauesen’s The Principal Contradiction is something of a breath of fresh air since it is concerned with centering and demystifying dialectical reason and, specifically, its iteration as dialectical materialism.