David Harvey has done me a great honor by reviewing my book, Marx’s Inferno: The Political Theory of Capital. Harvey’s wide-ranging response highlights a number of disagreements of broad significance, not only for academic Marxologists, but for the political left.

He claims that my book will be “a first salvo in what promises to be a grand battle to redefine Marx’s legacy, both intellectual and political.” I certainly hope that he is right.

At present, the Left is energized but weak. Young people are widely disenchanted with capitalism and the post–Cold War global order, and are open-minded about socialism. At the same time, the political and economic organizations of the Left are in shambles, and there is no theoretical or tactical center of gravity. I think this is precisely the moment to reread the history of socialist theory, to return to and rework first principles.