Karl Marx was born 202 years ago today.
Debate still rages about the relevance or otherwise of his thought and new commentaries and books appear regularly.
Marx’s thought was once claimed almost as holy writ by the countries in Eastern Europe that claimed to be ‘actually existing socialism’ and doctrinal disputes as to the precise meaning of a formulation by Marx went on as if Marxism was a religion.
That certainly is not the tradition of marxism in which I stand and have stood for well over 40 years, although I am always up for a discussion on productive and unproductive labour…
The late David Widgery talked of a ‘post-electronic’ marxism and I suppose I’m in that more libertarian strand.
That doesnt mean I think that the Young Marx is more interesting than the later Marx. Rather I dont think Marx is to be understood mechanically as someone who had a prophecy that capitalism would end and that to find out how one should study his work.
Rather I see Marx as someone who tried to analyse what made capitalism tick as it were, to really get underneath its surface appearance and what that means and where it might lead. That ensures his ideas remain relevant because market capitalism is still with us as it was in his day.
Marx was not just a theorist, but also an activist, keen to promote his strand of thought in the nineteenth century labour movement, based on the principle that the working class must emancipate itself.
In 1865 while he in Holland he filled in a questionnaire, a popular pastime of the day. He gave his favourite aphorism as De Omnibus Dubitandum (doubt everything). Indeed.
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