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most people agree that we need to

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improve our economic system somehow yet
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were also often keen to dismiss the
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ideas of capitalism's most famous and
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ambitious critic Karl Marx this isn't
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very surprising in practice his
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political and economic ideas have been
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used to design disastrously planned
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economies and nasty dictatorships
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nevertheless we shouldn't reject Marx
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too quickly we ought to see him as a
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guide whose diagnosis of capitalism's
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ills helps us to navigate towards a more
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promising future capitalism is going to
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have to be reformed and Marx's analyses
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are going to be part of any answer Marx
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was born in 1818 in Trier in Germany
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soon he became involved with the
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Communist Party a tiny group of
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intellectuals advocating for the
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overthrow of the class system and the
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abolition of private property he worked
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as a journalist and had a flee Germany
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eventually settling in London Marx wrote
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an enormous number of books and articles
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sometimes with his friend Friedrich
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Engels mostly Marx wrote about
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capitalism the type of economy that
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dominates the Western world it was in
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his day still getting going and Marx was
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one of its most intelligent and
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perceptive critics
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these were some of the problems he
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identified with it modern work is
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alienated one of Marx's greatest
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insights is that work can be one of the
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sources of our greatest joys but in
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order to be fulfilled at work Marx wrote
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that workers need to see themselves in
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the objects they have created think of
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the person who built this chair it's
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straightforward strong honest and
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elegant it's an example of how at its
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best labour offers us a chance to
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externalize what's good inside us but
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this is increasingly rare in the modern
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world part of the problem is that modern
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work is incredibly specialized
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specialized jobs make the modern economy
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highly efficient but they also mean that
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it's seldom possible for any one worker
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to derive a sense of the genuine
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contribution they might be making to the
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real needs of humanity Marx argued that
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modern work leads to alienation
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femdom in other words a feeling of
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disconnection between what you do all
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day and who you feel you really are and
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what you think you'd ideally be able to
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contribute to existence modern work is
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insecure capitalism makes the human
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being utterly expendable just one factor
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among others in the forces of production
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and one that can ruthlessly be let go
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the minute costs rise or savings can be
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made through technology and yet as Marx
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knew deep inside each of us we don't
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want to be arbitrarily let go with
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terrified of being abandoned communism
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isn't just an economic theory understood
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emotionally it expresses a deep-seated
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longing that we always have a place in
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the world's heart that we will not be
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cast out workers get paid little while
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capitalists get rich this is perhaps the
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most obvious qualms that Marx had with
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capitalism in particular he believed
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that capitalists shrink the wages of the
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laborers as much as possible in order to
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skim off a wide profit margin he called
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this primitive accumulation of shmulik
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accumulates on whereas capitalists see
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profit as a reward for ingenuity and
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technological talent Marx was far more
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damning profit is simply theft and what
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you're stealing is the talent and hard
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work of your workforce however much one
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dresses up the fundamentals Marx insists
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that at its crudest capitalism means
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paying a worker one price for doing
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something and then selling it to
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somebody else at a much higher price
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profit is the fancy term for
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exploitation capitalism is very unstable
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Marx proposed that capitalist systems
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are characterized by a series of crises
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every crisis is stressed stopped by
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capitalists as being somehow freakish
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and rare and soon to be the last one far
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from it argued Marx crises are endemic
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to capitalism and they're caused by
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something rather odd the fact that we're
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able to produce too much far more than
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anyone needs to consume capitalist
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crises are crises of abundance rather
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than as in the past crises of shortage
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our factories and systems are so
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efficient we could give everyone in this
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planet car-house access
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a decent school in a hospital and that's
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what so enraged marks but also made him
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so hopeful too few of us actually need
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to work because the modern economy is so
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productive
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but rather than seeing this need not to
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work as the freedom it is we complain
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about it masochistic ly and describe it
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by a pejorative word unemployment we
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should call it freedom there's so much
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unemployment for a good and deeply
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admirable reason because we're so good
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at making things efficiently we're not
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all needed at the coalface but in that
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case we should thought Marx make leisure
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admirable we should redistribute the
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wealth of the massive corporations that
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make so much surplus money and give it
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to everyone this is in its own way as
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beautiful a dream as Jesus's promise of
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heaven but a good deal more realistic
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sounding capitalism is bad for
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capitalists Marx didn't think that
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capitalists were evil for example he was
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acutely aware of the sorrows and secret
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Agony's that lay behind bourgeois
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marriage Marx argued that marriage was
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actually an extension of business and
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that the bourgeois family was fraught
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with tension oppression and resentment
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with people staying together not for
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love but for financial reasons Marx
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believed that the capitalist system
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forces everyone to put economic
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interests at the heart of their lives so
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that they can no longer know deep honest
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relationships
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he called this psychological tendency
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commodity fetishism bargain fetishes
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muss because it makes us value things
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that have no objective value he wanted
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people to be freed from financial
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constraint so that they could at last
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start to make sensible healthy choices
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in their relationships the 20th century
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feminist answer to the oppression of
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women has been to argue that women
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should simply be able to go out to work
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but Marx his answer was more subtle this
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feminist insistence merely perpetuates
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human slavery the point isn't that women
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should imitate the sufferings of their
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male colleagues it's that men and women
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should have the permanent option to
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enjoy leisure
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why don't we all think of it more like
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Marx an important aspect of Marx's work
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is that he proposes that there's an
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insidious subtle way in which the
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economic system
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the sort of ideas that we end up having
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the economy generates what Marx termed
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an ideology a capitalist society is one
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where most people rich and poor believe
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all sorts of things that are really just
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valued judgments that relate back to the
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economic system for example that a
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person who doesn't work is worthless
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that leisure beyond a few weeks a year
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is sinful that more belongings will make
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us happier and that worthwhile things
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and people will invariably make money in
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short one of the biggest evils of
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capitalism is not that there are corrupt
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people at the top this is true in any
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human hierarchy but that capitalist
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ideas teach all of us to be anxious
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competitive conformist and politically
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complacent Marx didn't only outline what
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was wrong with capitalism we also get
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glimpses of what Marx wanted the ideal
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utopian future to be like in his
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communist manifesto he describes a world
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without private property or inherited
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wealth with a steeply graduated income
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tax centralized control of the banking
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communication and transport industries
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and free public education Marx also
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expected that communist society would
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allow people to develop lots of
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different sides of their natures in
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communist society it's possible for me
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to do one thing today in another
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tomorrow to hunt in the morning fish in
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the afternoon rear cattle in the evening
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criticise after dinner just as I have a
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mind without ever becoming hunter
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fishermen herdsmen or critic after Marx
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moved to London he was supported by his
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friend an intellectual partner Friedrich
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Engels a wealthy man whose father owned
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a cotton plant in Manchester angles
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covered Marxist debts and made sure his
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works were published capitalism paid for
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communism the two men even wrote each
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other adoring poetry Marx was not a
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well-regarded or popular intellectual in
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his day respectable conventional people
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of Marx's day would have laughed at the
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idea that his ideas could remake the
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world yet just a few decades later they
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did his writings became the keystone for
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some of the most important ideological
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movements of the 20th century but Marx
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was like a brilliant doctor in the early
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days of medicine he could recognize the
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nature of the disease although he had no
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idea how to go about curing it at this
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point in history we should all be
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Marxists
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the sense of agreeing with his diagnosis
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of our troubles but we need to go out
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and find the cures that really will work
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as Marx himself declared and we deeply
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agree philosophers until now have only
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interpreted the world in various ways
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the point however is to change it
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you