In fact, Camus had nothing good to say about capitalism and clearly disliked the United States. The Rebel is Camus's most ambitious book, and it suffers from its ambitiousness. Despite such mystifications, however, there does exist at the core of the book a well-argued essay against the notion that the sins of Russian Communism should be excused because the Soviet Union is on the right historical track. That is its strength, its deliberate significance, and its importance in our history. Camus, it should be stressed, is not arguing here that the idea of social justice should be dismissed altogether, but that the notion of absolute justice advanced by Marxist-Leninists is a formula for tyranny.
Absolute justice denies freedom.
In 1952 Sartre also had the difficult task of assigning a reviewer for Camus's book. Despite political differences, the two were still on reasonably good terms and Sartre had, in fact, published a chapter of The Rebel in his magazine. Stung by the review, Camus replied in a long letter that appeared in the August 1952 issue, along with a response from Sartre himself, commenting both on the particular charges made in Camus's letter and on Camus's politics in general. The Fall is a bleak novel, yet a curiously exhilarating one. Laced with witty observations about the perversities of human conduct, it is very much in the French moraliste tradition, a descendant of Montaigne's Essays, La Rochefoucauld's Maxims, and Diderot's novella, Rameau's Nephew.