Karl Marx: 10 great quotes on his birthday

[HiPointDem]

35. There are no utopias in Marx. He was an analyst of capitalism, not a designer of utopias.

The Communist Manifesto, originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party, is a short 1848 publication written by the German Marxist political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It has since been recognized as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts.

Commissioned by the Communist League, it laid out the League's purposes and program. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and present) and the problems of capitalism, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_manifesto


Among the things that Marx supported in his *political* life as an activist and theorist were:

1. The 8-hour day. (success, though capital is trying to extend working hours & there is still no universal 8-hour day in the developing world)

2. A progressive income tax (success, though capital has been steadily eating away at it)

3. Universal free education (success, though capital is trying to privatize it)

4. Abolition of child labor (success, though there are indications of capital going there too)

He didn't see these as evidence of communism, though. He saw them as goals of labor under capitalism, as prerequisites to the transition to a communist society.