The long and winding road
Growing up in a capitalist society means induction into a set of taken for granted concepts that seemingly get realized through the way that world works. As a result, a grasp of the very different fundamentals of Marxism has to be a lifetime pursuit. For the author, it started in secondary school for reasons that were both personal and intellectual. In terms of the overall geohistorical trajectory of the author’s life, it bears emphasis that it is unlikely that that would have occurred in the US as it was at that time. Nevertheless, the American university system would then allow, often unintendedly, a deepening of that understanding. There have been diversions and distractions, most notably the distributional emphasis of much critical work in the 1970s and then critical realism in the 1980s, but overcoming them served to further enhance a critical grasp. A visit to South Africa in 1982 played a part in that. The trajectory has been simultaneously geohistorical and dialectical.