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PORTSIDE CULTURE

ALBERT EINSTEIN’S “WHY SOCIALISM?”  
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David C. Perlman
December 8, 2025
Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
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_ "The essays in this book," writes reviewer Perlman,"bring out
Einstein’s deep humility, anti-racism and socialist commitment." _

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_Albert Einstein’s “Why Socialism?”: The Enduring Relevance of
His Classic Essay_John Bellamy Foster (ed)Monthly Review PressISBN:
9781685900991

In the current era in which anti-science ideology, disinformation and
‘the destruction of reason’ are again increasingly being utilized
as key components of a broader anti-materialism which reinforces a
transition from neoliberalism to neofascism in response to crises of
capitalism, _Albert Einstein’s ‘Why Socialism?’: The Enduring
Relevance of His Classic Essay _is timely. It brings to the fore the
links between science and the struggle for justice, a rich meaningful
life, and environmental sustainability of humanity and other
species. 

The book consists of an extended introduction by John Bellamy Foster
entitled ‘Einstein’s ‘Why Socialism?’ and _Monthly Review:_ A
Historical Introduction’, Albert Einstein’s essay ‘Why
Socialism?’, and an essay by John J. Simon entitled ‘Albert
Einstein, Radical: A Political Profile’ which was previously
published in _Monthly Review_ in May 2005. While Einstein is
universally considered one of the brilliant minds of the 20th Century,
his socialism has been actively obscured. This book helps to rectify
this mystification, demonstrating both that he was a lifetime
socialist, made his socialist conception public, and took actions to
advocate for socialism. 

The book provides readers with a subtle demonstration that socialism
generally, and Einstein’s socialism specifically, understands mind
and body, individual and collective, and humanity and the rest of
nature as dialectically related. Collectively, the essays in the book
demonstrate that while Einstein’s scientific work was centered on
the materiality of the universe and the dialectical unity of energy
and matter, he understood the dialectical relationships of humans,
their individual and collective work and thinking, and the rest of
nature (although perhaps not in these exact terms). Further, the
essays richly demonstrate that Einstein understood science as a
process integral to, rather than as something abstracted from, social
relations. 

In the Introduction, Foster provides a brief history of Einstein’s
belief and involvement in socialism from 1911 forward. This discussion
is valuable in clearly demonstrating the potential for positive links
between science, scientists, and advocacy for progressive social
change. He puts Einstein’s escape from Nazi Germany and emigration
to the US in the context of the post-World War II United States ‘red
scare’ (which among other things targeted higher education),
prevalent antisemitism and anti-Black racism, and legal
‘segregation’ (i.e., apartheid). Foster shows how Einstein saw
education as ‘directly linked to the advancement of the socialist
cause’ (18) and that while engaged in cutting-edge scientific
research understandable by few, Einstein was also actively engaged in
efforts to make educational opportunities available equitably to the
many, including to oppressed groups historically excluded from such
opportunities. By highlighting this, the book sends a strong message
to scientists, and by extension to all scholars, that their roles as
scientists and scholars can and should extend beyond the conduct of
their own research. 

Foster discusses Einstein’s active involvement in the founding of a
university (Brandeis) which he hoped would be led by its faculty,
promote independent scholarship, and be open and made accessible
(including through scholarships) to all. Foster recounts the roles of
additional socialists, including economist and _Monthly Review_
co-founder Paul M. Sweezy, in trying to establish such an educational
institution, and the bounds put on these efforts by corporate
executives on the board of directors who were supportive of, or
responsive to, the McCarthyism of the times. This discussion
effectively demonstrates that ‘Einstein’s creativity as a
scientist and his universalism were never separate from his commitment
to a more egalitarian society’ (15). Further, this discussion is a
potent and timely reminder that the struggles over educational content
and access, and over the focus and findings of research, which are a
key focus of the attempts at _Gleichschaltung_ (‘bringing into
line’) in the United States under the Trump regimen and elsewhere
under increasingly neofascist regimes, and consequently also of
progressive efforts to counter this, have a long history, and that
scientists and scholars continue to have important roles in the
struggle for socialism.  

After summarizing Einstein’s essay and its reliance on thinkers
including Karl Marx and Thorstein Veblen, Foster succinctly and
productively engages with published scholarship which has ignored,
downplayed or fully denied Einstein’s socialism. He focuses much of
his critique on the collection _Einstein on Peace_, edited by David E.
Rowe and Robert Shulman, which he appropriately characterizes as
endeavoring to misleadingly ‘transform Einstein from a socialist
into a liberal’ (38). Foster convincingly demonstrates the weakness
of Rowe and Shulman’s (and by implication others’) efforts to
reframe Einstein as a traditional liberal and ‘naïve moral
philosopher’ and to dilute Einstein’s critiques of capitalism
through their own supposedly ‘proper contextualization’ (38-40). 

Foster demonstrates that Rowe and Schulman, while praising
Einstein’s efforts to counter antisemitism, downplay his efforts to
counter anti-Black racism, and to support socialist Black activists.
They do not, for example, discuss that Einstein’s offer to testify
at W.E.B. DuBois’ 1951 trial for advocating for a complete ban on
nuclear weapons contributed to the dismissal of the case. Foster notes
that _Einstein on Peace_ did not draw attention to Einstein’s brief
but important 1932 piece in DuBois’ journal _The Crisis_. In that
piece Einstein critiqued US racism and the way this led many oppressed
people to see themselves as ‘inferior,’ reflecting what today
might be called internalized stigma. This discussion very effectively
demonstrates the ways that some scholars, whether intentionally or
through their own internalization of class, race or other blinders,
serve the interests of capital by erasing aspects of history and the
scholarly contributions and actions of
socialists.             

Foster highlights that Einstein, rather than writing a piece about why
he personally became a socialist, instead wrote a general rationale
for socialism. Einstein, in his essay, engages with core aspects of
socialism in a subtle and convincing manner. He succinctly discusses
the central role of violence in primary accumulation (without using
either that term or the misnomer ‘primitive accumulation’). In the
essay Einstein adopted a voice of calm reason, writing perhaps less
for convinced socialists or Marxist scholars, and more for others who
might be less convinced or less aware. Foster effectively positions
Einstein’s essay neither as autobiography nor as charting new
territory in Marxist scholarship, but rather as ‘a straightforward
objective case for choosing a socialist path’ (33) framed at a high
level of abstraction. In characterizing the essay thusly, Foster
captures both the intent and the core value of Einstein’s essay.
Further, Foster appropriately notes that the essay ‘took on a
scientific character,’ (29) an important point which again
emphasizes the potential for scientific reason, and for clear
communication by scientists, to potently contribute to the struggle
for an equitable, just and meaningful world.

Einstein effectively uses Veblen’s concept of a ‘predatory
phase_’_  of human development to stress the exploitative essence
of capitalism, to undercut conceptions of capitalism as eternal, and
to highlight the intrinsic inability of capitalist ‘economic
science’ to point or move towards richer human development. He
denies that science by itself can constitute the path forward, saying
that ‘[s]cience … cannot create ends and, even less, instill them
in human beings; science at most, can supply the means by which to
attain certain ends’ (52). Einstein argued for the inclusion of
non-experts in societal decision-making, favoring a non-elitist,
bottom-up participatory process. Here again, in a clear manner
accessible to a wide readership, Einstein effectively argues for a
role for science in socialist struggle that navigates around the
Scylla and Charybdis of scientific elitism and one-sided conceptions
of technologic solutions to socially created problems (such as the
environmental destructiveness of capitalism) on the one hand, and
irrational, anti-materialistic rejections of science and reason on the
other.  

In his essay, Einstein identifies the increasing alienation people
experience as a result of capitalism’s alienated production and
social relations, and the existential threats to humanity posed by
nuclear war. Einstein exemplifies this with an anecdote about someone
who asked ‘Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the
human race?’ (53). Rather than advocating for existentialism or
nihilism, Einstein derives from these concerns sound arguments for
socialism, highlighting that each human is ‘at … the same time, a
solitary being and a social being’ (54). Einstein characterizes
‘the crisis of our time’ as ‘the relationship of the individual
to society’ in which humans experience social relations not ‘as a
protective force, but rather as a threat’ (57) due to the
‘economic anarchy of capitalist society’ (58). He argues instead
that humans can best meet minimum needs, develop ‘innate
abilities’ (61) and ‘find meaning in life … only through
devoting … [oneself] to society,’ (58) and through ensuring
equitable, democratic social relations of production. In this
argument, as throughout the essay, Einstein here engages very
concisely with a wide range of issues central to many disciplines.
While some specific points may be imprecise or touch on significant
debates (e.g., such as referring to ‘innate abilities’ rather than
universal human potential), the level of generality Einstein adopts
allows him to make a compelling, widely accessible, case for
socialism.   

Simon’s essay discusses Einstein’s opposition to war credits to
support Germany’s entry into World War I. Einstein (unlike many
other scientists) refused to sign the _Manifesto to the Civilized
World_ which relied on racist, ethnonationalist and proto-fascist
language to justify German militarism, and instead joined just three
other scholars in signing an alternate manifesto opposing the war.
Simon demonstrates that Einstein’s position was not that of a
mainstream liberalism, nor even that of the German Social Democratic
Party, but was in fact closer to that of Rosa Luxemburg and V.I.
Lenin.

Both Foster and Simon briefly discuss how Einstein actively supported
struggles for free, humane, progressive education. Both highlight that
Einstein, while engaged in university teaching, also offered free,
after-hours physics classes at the Marxist Workers School in Berlin in
the 1930s and Simon recounts how Einstein ‘steadfastly refused to
accept’ honorary degrees yet made one exception for a historically
Black university. Einstein’s acceptance speech condemned US racism
in which ‘equality and human dignity is limited to men of white
skins’ (72). Simon points out that this speech was ignored by most
media, valuably demonstrating how the socialism and anti-racism of
scientists and others are often erased by elite media in the service
of capital. 

Simon’s piece highlights that Einstein was deeply committed ‘as
were a number of other left-wing scientists, to mass education in the
sciences as a tool against obscurantism and mystical pseudo-science,
often used then – and again today – in aid of political and social
reaction’ (80). The emphasis these essays place on the role of
science and scientific education is vital now as forces of neofascism
endeavor to undermine reason though defunding research, through the
control of curricula, and through the promotion of various forms of
irrationality.  

The essays in this book bring out Einstein’s deep humility,
anti-racism and socialist commitment. Simon’s essay recounts an
interaction in which Einstein met with singer, actor and socialist
activist Paul Robeson. When someone who had accompanied Robeson to the
meeting commented to Einstein that it was an honor to be in the
presence of a great man, Einstein replied ‘but it is you who have
brought the great man.’ (79) By highlighting this poignant
interaction, the book subtly makes the point that the accomplishments
of scientists deserve perhaps as much but certainly no more respect
than the contributions of those working constructively in other
domains. 

Of course, there are key ethical questions about science, its
applications to capitalist and military production (such as the
development of nuclear weapons), and the alignment of nuclear
detonations with the onset of Anthropocene that are critical and are
not deeply engaged with in this slender volume. Nor does the book
engage with the philosophical and historical links between
Einstein’s physics and the writings of Ernest Mach, Alexander
Bogdanov, and V. I. Lenin. Another consideration about the dialectics
of science is Christopher Caudwell’s critique of Einstein’s
physics as still bourgeois and mechanistic, and as perhaps not
centering Epicurus’s swerve. However, these issues are well
discussed elsewhere by Helena Sheehan and others. Engaging deeply with
these issues would have had additional value for scholars, but would
also have had the disadvantage of undercutting Einstein’s goal of
concisely conveying the importance of the movement towards socialism
to a wide audience which this book very effectively
centers.       

Overall, this book demonstrates that Einstein had a conception so
broad as to both prove the dialectical unity of matter and energy (a
dialectic of nature independent of human agency), and to understand
and act on the dialectical unity of the ‘natural’ and social
sciences as articulating, via agency and historical contingency, with
humanity’s systems of production and social relations and social
metabolism with nature. 

In our current time, Einstein’s essay, the breadth and totalizing
scope of his life’s work, and the essays in this compelling book,
serve as a strong call for both the voices of scientists, and for
science, evidence, and reason, as vital counterweights to, and
components of, a united front in opposition to rising neofascism and
the destruction of reason, and in support of the essential need for a
transition to socialism.

* socialism
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* Science
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* Albert Einstein
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* McCarthyism
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