Largely the work of Engels, it’s an analysis of human history as a series of class struggles. For some reason, this approach had never occurred to anyone before.
Stalin was bad.
Yes, I know.
Glad we’re on the same page. Continue.
Thanks. In this book, published in 1848, Marx and Engels accurately predicted the consumer culture of the twentieth century, and that as an inevitable consequence of capitalism, corporate interests would seek to disempower labour using any means necessary,
So they were right about everything?
No. They could not have predicted outsourcing slavery to developing nations (called “globalisation”) or the extent to which labour could be bought off in a strongly materialist consumer-driven economy.
This is making me feel uncomfortable. Go back to saying Stalin was bad.
Stalin was bad. Although if you’ve read Game of Thrones and you can’t handle being uncomfortable occasionally, you should present yourself to the relevant authorities at first light.
What should I say to make people think I’ve read it?
“Workers should control the means of production.”
What should I avoid saying when trying to convince people I’ve read it?
“Stalin.”
Should I actually read it?
Yes. This is a book full of simple, logical arguments motivated by nothing more than compassion. If it doesn’t make you re-think your ideas on the relationship between capital and labour, you’re not reading it properly.
E é por isso que eu aceito os meus de muito bom grado. Não sou dono do desejo de minha amada, nem preciso recorrer à musica sertaneja comercial para aliviar um dor que eu nunca terei. Corno e orgulhoso de sê-lo.
“Karl Marx is most famous as a critic of capitalism, but at the heart of his critique can be found a desperate plea for the transformation of work. People, he argues, express themselves and create the world through creative and collective activity. This natural tendency is twisted into something unrecognisable in work under capitalism. He didn’t just think work around him was bad because it took place in noisy and dangerous conditions, or for low wages and long hours. The problem of work was a fundamental one: under capitalism, work takes something human and turns it into something monstrous. The forces of capital become ravenous, eating up all that is human, sucking on the very lifeblood of society.”
