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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
In recent years many scholars have contributed to the development of Marxist analyses of urban political economy. At the same time, a smaller number of social and political theorists have examined Marx's political theory and identified his theory of public and private life as a central component of his politics. Too often, Marxist analyses of urban political economy do not fully incorporate Marx's political theory. Analyses of Marx's politics, on the other hand, tend to overlook the dimensions of the modern city which illuminate his theory of public and private. This article brings together Marx's urban theory and political theory and suggests that they are, in fact, very much intertwined.
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32 “The people sinks partly into political superstition, partly into political disbelief, or completely turning away from political life, become a rabble of private individuals” (Ibid., 1:168). Here Marx makes explicit the effects of the failure to distinguish clearly between public and private, i.e., the inability to recognize and defend one's interest, a denial of the public realm, and the failure of political imagination.
33 Ibid.
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35 Ibid., p. 177.
36 Ibid., p. 243.
37 Ibid., p. 334.
38 Ibid., p. 337.
39 Ibid., p. 354.
40 Ibid., 5:214–15.
41 Ibid., p. 438.
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