Anti-Postone, a year on – where we’re at and what we’re planning next

Anti-Postone, my English translation of Michael Sommer’s demolition job of Moishe Postone’s antisemitism theory, was published by Cosmonaut Press a little over a year ago. So I thought it might be time for an interim balance and a quick glance into the future.

First off, it was disappointing for me that so many left magazines and individuals who had already agreed to review the Anti-Postone flaked out. Apart from Paul Demarty’s typically insightful review in the Weekly Worker – home of two contributors to the booklet, Mike Macnair and myself – we only got a review from Nathaniel Flakin of the Trotskyist Left Voice journal (but only on FB and Goodreads) and another one by Deborah Maccoby for Jewish Voice of Labour. Both reviews were favourable, but the authors stressed that they had difficulties following parts of the political-economy argument based on Marx’s Capital Volume 1 and Grundrisse.

‘Anti-Postone’ available now

You can now order my English translation of Michael Sommer’s Anti-Postone directly from Cosmonaut Books or from Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon Germany, Amazon Italy, and so on. You can also find it in selected left-wing bookshops, such as for instance Modo Infoshop and Punto Input in Bologna.

Michael Sommer’s text is a systematic demolition of the late Moishe Postone’s pretentious and useless antsemitism theory, which has influenced so many domesticated leftists, not least the movement known under the misleading moniker “Anti-Germans”. It really is a fantastic and very rewarding read, and if you want to get an idea of its contents, read my translator’s preface and Mike Macnair’s introduction to the English edition on the Cosmonaut website.

Here’s our promotional blurb for the book:

“Around the turn of the century, anti-fascism in Germany underwent a transformation. Instead of denouncing the prevailing social order as the natural breeding ground of fascist movements, the focus of the critique shifted onto regressive, unenlightened, or “abridged” forms of anti-capitalism. Asserting that capitalism is “abstract rule,” it set out to accuse its various adversaries of easily sliding into antisemitism, construed by anti-fascists as a “hatred of the abstract.”

The theory behind this new type of anti-fascism was originally devised by Moishe Postone in his seminal essay “Anti-Semitism and National Socialism.” However, as Michael Sommer convincingly demonstrates, Postone’s arguments are based on a misreading of Marx and are theoretically unsustainable. What is more, they have provided the groundwork for an “uncritical critique”, aiding in the degeneration of anti-fascism from a left-wing endeavor into an ideology that is fully affirmative of liberal capitalism.

This translation of Sommer’s German-language text of 2014 comes with an extensive new introduction by Mike Macnair that links these changes to more recent developments in the Anglophone world, as well as situating Postone’s theory in a broader historical context.”

By the way, prices for the book on Amazon seem to vary from week to week, ranging from a steep 20 EUR to a about 5 EUR. We’re just honest businessmen trying to offer you a fair deal, but some hidden hand causes our prices to fluctuate – I really don’t understand this abstract side of capitalism… (joke).