Book Review: Labour Regimes and Global Production

Musto reconstructs from Marx’s correspondence the 72 days he spent unsuccessfully seeking relief from ill-health in Algiers. The death of Marx’s eldest daughter Jenny in January 1883 (at the age of 39) is the cruellest blow, followed shortly afterwards by Marx’s own demise. Despite the heartbreaking tale, Musto ends the chapter on an inspirational note of which Marx himself would surely have approved, speaking of the message ‘that radiates incessantly from the whole of his work: organize the struggle to end the bourgeois mode of production and to achieve the emancipation of the workers of the world from the domination of capital’ (p. 125). Making very good use of Marx’s extensive late notebooks, Musto’s important volume constitutes an excellent addition to the literature: it will provide insight and inspiration to all students of Marx and his work.