![]() That’s because his theories are based in steady observation of material reality. The ideas that he develops in Capital, his masterwork on economic theory, apply today more than ever. Marx’s writing shines in its ability to describe that world clearly and without sentimentality. The world which Marx describes, in other words, has a good deal in common with the world we know today. ![]() ![]() ![]() Workers live in squalid conditions and work long hours. Skilled workers are losing their jobs to machinery and have to compete for unskilled work which pays far less. Both Wage Labor and Value, Price and Profit describe a world in which capital needs to constantly expand in order to stay competitive. Wage Labor and Capital describes, in familiar detail, the impact of technology on social relations. Cheap goods are flooding the market in Europe and beyond. Technology is steadily taking over the workforce. People are leaving their farms and flocking to the cities. The Communist Manifesto describes a world which is dominated by materialism. One way to answer this is by looking at the similarities between Marx’s world and ours. Is Marx still relevant today? Do we still have something to gain from reading the great man’s thoughts about economic structures? To put this question another way - if Marx was wrong, in the end, about what communism would look like, then why do we still read his writings? ![]() Whenever a collection of Marx’s works is published, a few questions inevitably arise. ![]()
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