Dr Claude Crabtree was the first to apply Marx’s ‘Theory of Alienation’ to This Iron Race. Dr Crabtree was a member of the Communist Party from 1921 until his suicide in 1948 shortly after the Russian invasion of Poland. While accepting he had the courage of his convictions and the decency to know when he was betrayed, much of Dr Crabtree’s analysis of This Iron Race is biased. However, it has gained considerable traction in certain left-wing Oxford institutions so we must counter it as best we can.

We shall take the obvious point first: Marx’s Theory of Alienation was written in 1844, when he was still a young man, but did not appear in print until 1927, half a century after MacGregor’s death. It follows whatever connection This Iron Race may have with Marx’s Theory of Alienation there was no direct influence. It is true MacGregor read Marx’s Communist Manifesto shortly after its publication in Germany in 1848 and acquired a copy in translation for his library at Arbinger; however, despite recognising many of the same ills in society, MacGregor was not sympathetic to Marx’s theories, as proven by the criticisms MacGregor wrote in his copy of the Manifesto.

First, we must describe Marx’s Theory of Alienation as it is unlikely to be familiar to many readers. Essentially, in an industrial society the majority of workers are alienated from their own labour: that is, there is no natural connection between labour and livelihood, such as exists in an agrarian society where food production is the primary employment. Instead of acquiring through labour the means to sustain himself, the worker is paid in money. This he exchanges for the material goods he needs to live, or rather, survive, since in Marx’s view the necessity of labour means the individual is no longer a free man but a waged slave without an independent life of his own. Moreover, at no point does the employed man own the thing he makes, either in a legal, moral, or artisanal sense, or receive its full value in his wage. Rather, it remains the property of the owner of the land, machinery, or materials with which he works. Your editor confesses sympathy with this aspect of Marx’s theory, though it is rather more pertinent today than in Marx’s time. One cannot imagine, for example, the staff at a call centre or a supermarket enjoy rich and satisfying employment compared to the farmer or woodsman working on the land; however, I believe Dr Crabtree was mistaken to see much of Marx’s Theory of Alienation in This Iron Race.

The principal conflict for the characters in This Iron Race is not concerned with their employment; rather, the character’s natural abilities or inclinations conflict with their expected role in society. Thus, Captain Wolfe, Bheathain Somhairle, Lord MacDonald, Sir David Mackenzie, and Paavo Jukola are in some degree conflicted between what they are or wish to be and what society requires of them. Only Eolhwynne and, to a lesser extent, Màiri Mulcahy, have reconciled their nature with their role in society. At this point we must recall Marx’s famous maxim From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, for several of the characters in This Iron Race are unwilling to use their abilities and therefore do not have what they need. However, as in a number of cases these abilities are supernatural in nature, they hardly fall within Marxist Theory which regards magick, along with religion, as “the opiate of the people”.

There is, however, one character in This Iron Race to whom Marx’s Theory of Alienation applies very well: the admirable Uilleam M’Illathain, the last kelp gatherer of Staffin Bay. Rather than using kelp to manure the land, M’Illathain burns it to make soda ash, a substance used in glassworks and soap manufactories. He has no direct use for soda ash—it is in fact toxic—nor does he own what he produces since the greater share of its value goes first to the estate and then to agents who broker it to industry.

The kelp industry was a major source of employment and profit in the Highlands and Islands during the Napoleonic Wars, but the end of the war brought access to better sources of soda ash overseas and the value of kelp dropped by a quarter in the following decades, bringing mass unemployment to coastal communities. It seems likely M’Illathain personifies MacGregor’s oft-stated criticism of the management of highland estates, but we cannot conclude MacGregor was sympathetic to Marxism. After all, one can acknowledge society’s ills without seeking to overthrow the established order and nothing in MacGregor’s writing indicates he harboured revolutionary ideals. Rather, he wished the existing order had more compassion and took it upon himself to indicate where it was most needed.