Karl Marx's memorial has been vandilised

Our heritage?

Are his remains there, physically speaking?

He lived in this country for a large chunk of his life and did most of his important work here documenting capitalism.

Thinking about digging him up?

You've been to the Red Lion, haven't you?

He lived in this country for a large chunk of his life and did most of his important work here documenting capitalism.

Our heritage?

Has anyone here even read The Communist Manifesto? He can have done as grand a job as you like "documenting capitalism", but his philosophies were truly evil.

No kidding, I visited a so-called 'pantheon' once where several historical characters were supposed to be and they weren't. McDonnell could have him in a cupboard, for all I know.

you have to pay to enter highgate cemetary. That thing is bringing money in to pay for maintenance for hundreds of other graves.

Like "workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains"? How exactly is that 'evil'.

There's an awful lot of right wing nonsense on this thread. Marx was a powerful, insightful thinker who analysed the economic situation of his times more deeply and accurately than any other of his day. He is still widely admired by serious economists on both right and left and has, for example, often featured positively in The Economist (centre-right and hardly a Marxist rag), the NY Times and other bastions of Trot radicalism, haha. The fact that his ideas led to massive upheavals is probably unsurprising, the fact that the results of those upheavals was sometimes very negative is also hardly unpredictable, given human nature and what happens in revolutions. None of that means that Marx shouldn't be admired as a leading thinker of the 19th century. It's actually pretty poor that Britain doesn't honour him more, we could for example have a Karl Marx Day, or similar, without suddenly becoming a collapsed Stalinist state.

That isn't our heritage though. Also, define his important work?

When I went into Highgate Cemetry, it was free. But then, that was 23 years ago. Either way, that's not really adding to our heritage; it's maintaining tombs. How exactly is gloryfing the dead "heritage"? Marx's own words on this are quite clear: In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past.

(Note: I am not saying we shouldn't honour the dead.)


How about abolition of the family? Or removal of the individual's right to personal possessions or wealth? Marx wrote at length of how the "modern" family was founded on the acquisition and growth of wealth, and how parents exploit their children; how children are to receive their entire education from the state and their parents are to have no hand in it at all? He also speaks of how the men of wealthy families are essentially doomed to seduce other women or use their money on prostitutes.

See what's already happening in our country. Parents are forced by circumstance into putting their children into the care of others from an increasingly early age. When I was a child, one might go to a day nursery for a year or so prior to starting school, so they could get used to it (but many didn't go), but now it's quite common for parents to take children as young as two into nursery, especially where I live. Children are being stripped of individuality by the state, and it's observable by anyone with eyes that they don't have the respect or love for their parents that they did when I was a child.

And then, in the same chapter (chapter 2), Marx writes: The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination. What's he saying? Bear in mind that his work is philosophical and ideological, and then take note that he says that charges made ... are not deserving of serious examination. He's saying quite literally that anyone who thinks differently isn't to be taken note of; they are to be ignored. Or, more plainly, "I'm right and everybody else is wrong". He doesn't want his own work examined by people who disagree.

Yes, Marx said some true things. Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power. Yes, and that's a bad thing, but there are other ways of putting that right than doing away with capital completely. Stop it being a social power, take away its power to influence. Doing away with capital and wealth completely is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. That's all Communism is when you get down to it; it's an overreaction to the notion of radix malorum est cupiditas*.

*

When I went into Highgate Cemetry, it was free. But then, that was 23 years ago. Either way, that's not really adding to our heritage; it's maintaining tombs. How exactly is gloryfing the dead "heritage"? Marx's own words on this are quite clear: In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past.

(Note: I am not saying we shouldn't honour the dead.)


How about abolition of the family? Or removal of the individual's right to personal possessions or wealth? Marx wrote at length of how the "modern" family was founded on the acquisition and growth of wealth, and how parents exploit their children; how children are to receive their entire education from the state and their parents are to have no hand in it at all? He also speaks of how the men of wealthy families are essentially doomed to seduce other women or use their money on prostitutes.

See what's already happening in our country. Parents are forced by circumstance into putting their children into the care of others from an increasingly early age. When I was a child, one might go to a day nursery for a year or so prior to starting school, so they could get used to it (but many didn't go), but now it's quite common for parents to take children as young as two into nursery, especially where I live. Children are being stripped of individuality by the state, and it's observable by anyone with eyes that they don't have the respect or love for their parents that they did when I was a child.

And then, in the same chapter (chapter 2), Marx writes: The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination. What's he saying? Bear in mind that his work is philosophical and ideological, and then take note that he says that charges made ... are not deserving of serious examination. He's saying quite literally that anyone who thinks differently isn't to be taken note of; they are to be ignored. Or, more plainly, "I'm right and everybody else is wrong". He doesn't want his own work examined by people who disagree.

Yes, Marx said some true things. Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power. Yes, and that's a bad thing, but there are other ways of putting that right than doing away with capital completely. Stop it being a social power, take away its power to influence. Doing away with capital and wealth completely is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. That's all Communism is when you get down to it; it's an overreaction to the notion of radix malorum est cupiditas*.

*

I note that you didn't respond to the workers of the world unite sentence, which is of course the most famous aspect of the Manifesto. Perhaps because they unarguably should?

I note that you didn't respond to the workers of the world unite sentence, which is of course the most famous aspect of the Manifesto. Perhaps because they unarguably should?

Never mind that. How about the most banal proposals such as making secondary education compulsory and banning child labour. We are evidently well on the way to communism!

Even the basic points, like the existence of class systems, class conflict and the defence of class privilege seem unarguable nowadays.