István Mészáros (, , ; 19 December 1930 – 1 October 2017) was a Hungarian

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

philosopher. Described as "one of the foremost political philosophers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries" by ''

Monthly Review The ''Monthly Review'', established in 1949, is an independent socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. The publication is the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States. History Establishment Following ...

'', Mészáros wrote mainly about the possibility of a transition from

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

. His ''

magnum opus A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...

'', ''Beyond Capital: Toward a Theory of Transition'' (1995), was concerned not only with this theme but provided a conceptual distinction between capitalism and capital, and an analysis of the current capitalist society and its "structural crisis". He was interested in the critique of the so-called "bourgeois

ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...

", including the idea of "

there is no alternative "There is no alternative" (TINA) is a slogan strongly associated with the policies and persona of the Conservative British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. In a speech to the Conservative Women's Conference on 21 May 1980, Thatcher appealed ...

", and he also elaborated analysis on the failures of "

real socialism Real socialism, better known as actually existing socialism or developed socialism (), was an ideological catchphrase popularized during the Brezhnev era in the Eastern Bloc countries and the Soviet Union.

Biography

Early life in Hungary

Mészáros was born in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

. He was raised by his

single mother A single parent is a person who has a child or children but does not have a spouse or live-in partner to assist in the upbringing or support of the child. Reasons for becoming a single parent include divorce, break-up, abandonment, becoming wid ...

and his maternal grandmother, and at age twelve falsified his birth date to work along with his mother in an airplane factory building engines. The poor working conditions would later arise "his lifelong hatred of exploitation and oppression". When he was 15 or 16, Mészáros was introduced to the Marxist philosophy during visits to a bookshop. After having contact with

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

's ''

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon ''The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon'' (german: italic=yes, Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon) is an essay written by Karl Marx between December 1851 and March 1852, and originally published in 1852 in ''Die Revolution'', a German mo ...

'',

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Anti-Dühring ''Anti-Dühring'' (german: Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, "Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science") is a book by Friedrich Engels, first published in German in 1878. It had previously been serialised in the newspaper ''V ...

'', and Marx and Engels's ''

The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Comm ...

'', he became interested in the works of

György Lukács György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and ae ...

about Hungarian literature. Mészáros liked Lukács's works "so much" that he even sold personal belongings to buy them and decided to enter the

University of Budapest A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

. He did so in 1949 when he won a scholarship with the emergence of a Communist state in Hungary. At the university, he affiliated himself to the so-called "

Budapest School The Budapest school, or documentarism, was a Hungarian film movement that flourished from roughly 1972 to 1984. The movement originated from Béla Balázs Studios, a small-budget filmmaking community that aimed to unite the young avant-garde an ...

", a group of Hungarian philosophers who were taught or influenced by Lukács, including

Ágnes Heller Ágnes Heller (12 May 1929 – 19 July 2019) was a Hungarian philosopher and lecturer. She was a core member of the Budapest School philosophical forum in the 1960s and later taught political theory for 25 years at the New School for Social Res ...

and

György Márkus György Márkus (13 April 1934 – 5 October 2016) was a Hungarian philosopher, belonging to the small circle of critical theorists closely associated with György Lukács and usually referred to as the Budapest School. Biography Márkus w ...

. During this period, Lukács was very criticised by the

Hungarian Communist Party The Hungarian Communist Party ( hu, Magyar Kommunista Párt, abbr. MKP), known earlier as the Party of Communists in Hungary ( hu, Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja, abbr. KMP), was a communist party in Hungary that existed during the interwar ...

and

Mátyás Rákosi Mátyás Rákosi (; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892
– 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian

's government banned some of his works between 1949 and the mid-1950s. Because of his allegiance to Lukács and his attendance of Lukács's seminars, Mészáros almost got expelled from the university. Later, Lukács nominated Mészáros as his assistant at the Institute of Aesthetics because of his public contestation of the censorship of

Mihály Vörösmarty Mihály Vörösmarty (archaically English: Michael Vorosmarthy 1 December 180019 November 1855) was an important Hungarian poet and dramatist. Biography He was born at Puszta-Nyék (now Kápolnásnyék), of a noble Roman Catholic family. H ...

's play ''Csongor és Tünde'' denounced as a "pessimist aberration". His pro-Vörösmarty essay, published in the literary magazine ''Csillag'', earned him the 1951

Attila József Prize The Attila József Prize is an annually awarded Hungarian literary prize for excellence in the field of belles-lettres. It was first presented in 1950 in honour of the poet Attila József. Another major Hungarian literary prize is the Kossuth Prize. ...

and helped the reincorporation of the play in the National Theatre's repertoire. During the 1950s, Mészáros was an active member of the

Hungarian Writers' Union The Hungarian Writers Union (also known as The Free Union of Hungarian Writers) was founded in 1945 at the end of World War II. Initially the union was intended to be an organizational body through which the interests of writers in Hungary could be ...

and was involved in artistic and literary circles, notably in the

anti-Stalinist The anti-Stalinist left is an umbrella term for various kinds of left-wing political movements that opposed Joseph Stalin, Stalinism and the actual system of governance Stalin implemented as leader of the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1953. T ...

Petőfi circle—a group associated with the

Hungarian Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...

. This interest for cultural issues reverberated in his 1955 doctoral dissertation in philosophy entitled ''Szatíra és valóság'' ("Satire and Reality"). In the following year, he was made editor of the cultural magazine '' Eszmélet'', created by Lukács, composer

Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music ed ...

, and other personalities. Mészáros was also chosen to be an associate professor of philosophy and Lukács's successor at the Institute of Aesthetics. However, after the defeat of the revolution and Lukács's imprisonment for supporting it, Mészáros verified that "there was no hope for socialist transformation in Hungary". So, after the Soviet invasion in 1956, he left the country, becoming one of the first citizens from a Communist country to criticise

Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...

Academic career in the West

Mészáros moved to Italy and was a professor at the

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the oldest universities in Europe and continues to play an impo ...

. During his time in Turin, he wrote a book of memoirs about the Hungarian uprising titled ''La rivolta degli intellettuali in Ungheria'' ("The Revolt of the Intellectuals in Hungary") that was published in 1958 by

Giulio Einaudi Editore Arnoldo Mondadori Editore () is the biggest publishing company in Italy. History The company was founded in 1907 in Ostiglia by 18-year-old Arnoldo Mondadori who began his publishing career with the publication of the magazine ''Luce!''. In 1 ...

. He worked in Italy until moving to the United Kingdom, where he worked at

Bedford College, London file:Bedford College in York place - photographer is unknown but guess 1908.png, Bedford College was in York Place after 1874 Bedford College was founded in London in 1849 as the first higher education college for education of women, women in th ...

(1959–1961) and the

University of St. Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

(1961–1966). In 1964, he released the book ''Attila József e l'arte moderna'' through the Milanese publisher . He joined the

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

in 1966, where he held the Chair of Philosophy. His 1970 book ''

Marx's Theory of Alienation Karl Marx's theory of alienation describes the estrangement (German: ''Entfremdung'') of people from aspects of their human nature (''Gattungswesen'', 'species-essence') as a consequence of the division of labor and living in a society of strat ...

'' established his reputation in the English-speaking world, and won him that year Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize. Receiving the award, he got the opportunity to do the first Isaac Deutscher Memorial Lecture at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

in the following year. Originally conceived as "Alienation and Social Control" in late 1970, the lecture was renamed "The Necessity of Social Control". In 1971, it appeared under the title "Alienation and the Necessity of Social Control" in the ''

Socialist Register The ''Socialist Register'' is an annual socialist publication. It was founded in 1964 by Ralph Miliband and John Saville. They had criticisms of the ''New Left Review'' (''NLR'') after Perry Anderson became editor of the ''NLR'' in 1962. Miliband a ...

'', and was also published by Merlin Press in book-format as ''The Necessity of Social Control''. In late 1972, Mészáros was appointed professor of philosophy to teach political theory courses at

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...

, Toronto, and then resigned his position at Sussex. However, he had his visa refused by the Canadian government because his entry was not "in the best interests of the country" and he posed a "security risk". Sussex's fellows

Tom Bottomore Thomas Burton Bottomore (8 April 1929, England – 9 December 1992, Sussex, England) was a British Marxist sociologist. Bottomore was Secretary of the International Sociological Association from 1953 to 1959. He was the eighth president ...

, Roy Edgeley and

Laurence Lerner Laurence Lerner (12 December 1925 – 19 January 2016), often called Larry, was a South African-born British literary critic, poet, novelist, and lecturer, recognized for his achievement with his election to The Royal Society of Literature. Biogra ...

spoke against the government decision, as well as did York university officials, and 30

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

's faculty members and students led by historian Jan M. Bak. After accusations of being a "Russian spy" for

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

, a letter to Prime Minister

Pierre Trudeau Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau ( , ; October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), also referred to by his initials PET, was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada The prime mini ...

by political scientist

C. B. Macpherson Crawford Brough Macpherson (1911–1987) was an influential Canadian political scientist who taught political theory at the University of Toronto. Life Macpherson was born on 18 November 1911 in Toronto, Ontario. After graduating from the Univ ...

, Mészáros's deportation, and the change of immigration minister from

Bryce Mackasey Bryce Stuart Mackasey, (August 25, 1921 – September 5, 1999) was a Canadian Member of Parliament, Cabinet minister, and Ambassador to Portugal. Born in Quebec City, Quebec, he was elected as a Liberal candidate in the riding of Verdun i ...

Bob Andras Robert Knight (Bob) Andras, (February 21, 1921 – November 17, 1982) was a Canadians, Canadian politician. He represented the electoral district (Canada), electoral districts of Port Arthur (electoral district), Port Arthur from 1965 to 1979, a ...

, Mészáros was allowed to enter Canada legally in January 1973. After that, he worked as a senior professor of York's Social and Political Thought Program for three years before returning to Sussex. Mészáros collected and edited thirteen 1958–1976 essays by Philippine historian

Renato Constantino Renato Constantino (March 10, 1919 – September 15, 1999) was a Filipino historian known for being part of the leftist tradition of Philippine historiography. Apart from being a historian, Constantino was also engaged in foreign service, working ...

in a book titled ''Neo-Colonial Identity and Counter-Consciousness: Essays in Cultural Decolonisation''. First published by Merlin Press in 1978 and then by

M. E. Sharpe M. E. Sharpe, Inc., an academic publisher, was founded by Myron Sharpe in 1958 with the original purpose of publishing translations from Russian in the social sciences and humanities. These translations were published in a series of journals, the ...

in 1979, it contained a 23-page introduction, which would be later re-published in ''

Journal of Contemporary Asia The ''Journal of Contemporary Asia'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering Asian studies. It was established in 1970 and is published 5 times a year by Routledge. The editor-in-chief is Kevin Hewison (University of North Carolina at Chapel H ...

'' as a part of a tribute done in 2000 after Constantino's death. Mészaros was appointed

emeritus professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

by Sussex in 1991, and he won the Lukács Prize in 1992. In 1995, he retired from Sussex, was nominated for the Michael Harrington Award for his work ''Beyond Capital'', and was also elected a member of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( hu, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, MTA) is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. Its ma ...

. In the late 1990s, he became an advisor to ''

'' editors

Harry Magdoff Harry Samuel Magdoff (August 21, 1913 – January 1, 2006) was a prominent American socialist commentator. He held several administrative positions in government during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt and later became co-editor of the M ...

and

John Bellamy Foster John Bellamy Foster (born August 15, 1953) is an American professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and editor of the ''Monthly Review''. He writes about political economy of capitalism and economic crisis, ecology and ecological crisis, ...

, and also contributed to the magazine and its parent Monthly Review Press. In 2009, he won the Venezuelan Premio Libertador al Pensamiento Crítico ("Libertador Prize for Critical Thinking") for his work ''The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time''. After this work, he also published the two-volume critique of "bourgeois ideology" ''Social Structure and Forms of Consciousnes'': ''The Social Determination of Method'' in 2010 and ''The Dialectic of Structure and History'' in 2011. Following the publication of latter, he planned to write a sequel for ''Beyond Capital'', entitled ''Beyond Leviathan: Critique of the State''. Meszáros drafted three volumes, ''The Historic Challenge'', ''The Harsh Reality'', and ''The Necessary Alternative'', with the first volume almost completed. However, in 2017, he died in

Margate Margate is a seaside resort, seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay and Westbrook, Kent, ...

, where he was being cared for after a stroke in September made him leave his home in

Ramsgate Ramsgate is a seaside resort, seaside town in the district of Thanet District, Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century. In 2001 it had a population of about 40,000. In 2011, according to t ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

Thought

Mészáros was a critic of politicians and philosophers who constantly used the sentence "

". Usually associated with conservative figures like

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

, Mészáros stated it reached

Labour parties Labour Party or Labor Party is a name used by many Political party, political parties. Many of these parties have links to the Trade union, trade union movement or organised labour in general. Labour parties can exist across the political spectrum, ...

, Communist statesmen like

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

, and former radicals turned post-modernists. Because of this, he believed

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and litera ...

was an important philosopher to whom "Marxists owed a great debt to". Critical of Sartre's

existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

, Mészáros praised his opposition to the "there is no alternative" motto and affirmed, "I don't embrace his ideas but I embrace the aim". Mészáros declared, "Sartre was a man who always preached the diametrical opposite: there is an alternative, there must be an alternative; you as an individual have to rebel against this power, this monstrous power of capital. Marxists on the whole failed to voice that side". This was reflected on Mészáros's ''The Work of Sartre: Search for Freedom'', first published in 1979 and expanded in 2012 with a new section, "The Challenge of History". Mészáros believed it was important to do a distinction between

and

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

to theorise about a transition to socialism. He posited that capital appeared "thousand of years" prior to capitalism and that it can continue without capitalism, which is the case of

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

(USSR) in his understanding. In this sense, a revolutionary upheaval can overthrow capitalism in a limited area by the

expropriation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

of the capitalist class, but the power of capital can still control the system through the division of labour and the "hierarchical command structure of capital". Mészáros defined capital as "command system whose mode of functioning is accumulation-oriented". In his conception, the extraction of

surplus value In Marxian economics, surplus value is the difference between the amount raised through a sale of a product and the amount it cost to the owner of that product to manufacture it: i.e. the amount raised through sale of the product minus the cost ...

can be done in a "political way"—like in the case of USSR—or through "an economically regulated extraction of

surplus labour Surplus labour (German: ''Mehrarbeit'') is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It means labour performed in excess of the labour necessary to produce the means of livelihood of the worker ("necessary labour"). The "su ...

and surplus value"—like in the West. Mészáros argued that the accumulation process "was done in a very improper fashion from the point of view of productivity" and in a 1982 essay said that it would eventually collapse because of this fact—and not because of US-backed anticommunist military policies.

Personal life

Mészáros met his Italian wife, Donatella Morisi, in 1955 in Paris; they were married on 14 February 1956; she died in 2007. They had three children: Laura, born 1956; Susie, born 1960; and Giorgio, born 1962.

Works

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

* * *

External links

István Mészáros Archive
at

Marxists.org Marxists Internet Archive (also known as MIA or Marxists.org) is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Enge ...

"Mészáros István" – Lukács György Alapítvány
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meszaros, Istvan (philosopher) 1930 births 2017 deaths Academics of the University of Sussex Academic staff of Eötvös Loránd University Hungarian philosophers Marxist theorists York University faculty Attila József Prize recipients Academic staff of the University of Turin Deutscher Memorial Prize winners Writers from Budapest