Was Marx Right?

Via Mark Thoma, Umair Haque asks if Was Marx Right?

Haque considers the following areas:

• Immiseration
• Crisis
• Stagnation
• Alienation
• Flase consciousness
• Commodity fetishism

Haque concludes that:

Marx's critiques seem, today, more resonant than we might have guessed. Now, here's what I'm not suggesting: that Marx's prescriptions (you know the score: overthrow, communalize, high-five, live happily ever after) for what to do about the maladies above were desirable, good, or just. History, I'd argue, suggests they were anything but. Yet nothing's black or white — and while Marx's prescriptions were poor, perhaps, if we're prepared to think subtly, it's worthwhile separating his diagnoses from them.

And, as always, the ideologues of Capitalism conclude that the system needs tweaking not replacing. All of the areas investigated by Haque exists because of the class structure of a Capitalist society. It is this exploitation of one class by another that causes these problems. Removing the cause goes a long way to solving the problems.

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