Marxism(s) and Postmarxism(s)

In the era of "third ways" Sean Sayers book Marxism and Human Nature represents an attempt t develop a historical humanism that is intended to steer between the Scylla of essentialism and the Charybdis of anti-essentialism. While Sayers is concerned to distance himself from the idea of a 'universal human nature that is not subject to social variation', he does not accept the view that 'social relations transcend the natural world and are purely conventional and arbitrary: the products of pure unfettered will' (p. 160). Sayers solution, however, is rather unconvincing and, through a kind of sleight of hand, ends up reproducing yet another version of the idealist paradigm.