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The discontents of civilization have led men, since the beginnings of recorded literature, to formulate systems of utopian thought that in one way or another propose an ideal society free of conflict and replete with human satisfactions. Plato's Republic, More's Utopia, Butler's Erewhon, and Skinner's Walden II are but a few representatives of this long line of Western thought. Such systems are all rooted in a belief in man's perfectibility and a conviction that, given ideal social conditions, his powers will keep pace wth his needs and permit him the fullest realization of his capacities.
Kalin, a philosopher himself, places Karl Marx firmly within this tradition. Marx's utopianism, he demonstrates, derived from and was of a piece with his theory of man which ascribed all ills to social and economic constraints. Freud, on the other hand, offered an antiutopian theory founded on his view of man's behavior as directed primarily by instincts which stand in dialectic opposition to social reality and which cannot, within the framework of civilized life, ever succeed in attaining full satisfaction.
In support of his argument, Kalin presents brief comparative critical exegeses of Marxian (as opposed to 'Marxist') and Freudian theories. This reviewer cannot speak for the accuracy of the first, but it appears to be thorough, scholarly, and penetrating. His grasp of Freudian theory is basically sound, though it bespeaks an academic approach that lacks grounding in clinical experience. This results in a somewhat unbalanced emphasis on the more speculative aspects of Freud's social theory and, in particular, a rather literal espousal of the death instinct theory that leads Kalin to advocate a return to a monistic drive theory based on identifying the pleasure principle with the Nirvana principle. In addition, there are a few