Karl Marx was a prolific writer/journalist for the New York Daily Tribune from August 21 1852 - February 1861. Below is just on of the hundreds of articles he wrote for that newspaper. Published in: The Peoples Paper, No. 45, March 12 1853; The Duchess of Sutherland and Slavery London, Friday, January 21, 1853 During the present momentary slackness in political affairs, the address of the Stafford House Assembly of Ladies to their sisters in America upon the subject of Negro-Slavery, and the affectionate and Christian address of many thousands of the women of the United States of America to their sisters, the women of England, upon white slavery, have proved a god-send to the press. Not one of the British papers was ever struck by the circumstance that the Stafford House Assembly took place at the palace under the Presidency of the Duchess of Sutherland, and yet the names of Stafford and Sutherland should have been sufficient to class the philanthropy of the British Aristocracy a philanthropy which chooses its objects as far distant from home as possible, and rather on that than on this side of the ocean. The history of the wealth of the Sutherland family is the history of the ruin and of the expropriation of the Scotch-Gaelic population from its native soil. As far back as the 10th century, the Danes had landed in Scotland, conquered the plains of Caithness, and driven back the aborigines into the mountains. Mhoir-Fhear-Chattaibh, as he was called in Gaelic, or the Great Man of Sutherland, had always found his companions-in-arms ready to defend him at risk of their lives against all his enemies, Danes or Scots, foreigners or natives. After the revolution which drove the Stuarts from Britain, private feuds among the petty chieftains of Scotland became less and less frequent, and the British Kings, in order to keep up at least a semblance of dominion in these remote districts, encouraged the levying of family regiments among the chieftains, a system by which these lairds were enabled to combine modern military establishments with the ancient clan system in such a manner as to support one by the other. Now, in order to distinctly appreciate the usurpation subsequently carried out, we must first properly understand what the clan meant. The clan belonged to a form of social existence which, in the scale of historical development, stands a full degree below the feudal state; viz., the patriarchal state of society. Klaen, in Gaelic, means children. Every one of the usages and traditions of the Scottish Gaels reposes upon the supposition that the members of the clan belong to one and the same family. The great man, the chieftain of the clan, is on the one hand quite as arbitrary, on the other quite as confined in his power, by consanguinity, &c., as every father of a family. To the clan, to the family, belonged the district where it had established itself, exactly as in Russia, the land occupied by a community of peasants belongs, not to the individual peasants, but to the community. Thus the district was the common property of the family. There could be no more question, under this system, of private property, in the modern sense of the word, than there could be of comparing the social existence of the members of the clan to that of individuals living in the midst of our modern society. The division and subdivision of the land corresponded to the military functions of the single members of the clan. According to their military abilities, the chieftain entrusted to them the several allotments, cancelled or enlarged according to his pleasure the tenures of the individual officers, and these officers again distributed to their vassals and under-vassals every separate plot of land. But the district at large always remained the property of the clan, and, however the claims of individuals might vary, the tenure remained the same; nor were the contributions for the common defence, or the tribute for the Laird, who at once was leader in battle and chief magistrate in peace, ever increased. Upon the whole, every plot of land was cultivated by the same family, from generation to generation, under fixed imposts. These imposts were insignificant, more a tribute by which the supremacy of the great man and of his officers was acknowledged, than a rent of land in a modern sense, or a source of revenue. The officers directly subordinate to the great man were called Taksmen, and the district entrusted to their care, Tak. Under then were placed inferior officers, at the head of every hamlet, and under these stood the peasantry. Thus you see, the clan is nothing but a family organized in a military manner, quite as little defined by laws, just as closely hemmed in by traditions, as any family. But the land is the property of the family, in the midst of which differences of rank, in spite of consanguinity, do prevail as well as in all the ancient Asiatic family communities. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/03/12.htm
great article! . I definetly love the comparison of the American south to englands wage slavery and concept of fuedal/lochean property rights, especially this part "If of any property it ever was true that it was robbery, it is literally true of the property of the British aristocracy. Robbery of Church property, robbery of commons, fraudulent transformation, accompanied by murder, of feudal and patriarchal property into private property — these are the titles of British aristocrats to their possessions. And what services in this latter process were performed by a servile class of lawyers, you may see from an English lawyer of the last century, Dalrymple, who, in his History of Feudal Property, very naively proves that every law or deed concerning property was interpreted by the lawyers, in England, when the middle class rose in wealth in favor of the middle class — in Scotland, where the nobility enriched themselves, in favor of the nobility — in either case it was interpreted in a sense hostile to the people." Would this comparison be valid today?
While it would appear that's more towards arguments in court, I would say yes. Look at student debt loans and how hard they're to be declared insolvent. If we look at how subsidizes affect big business and hurt smaller businesses then yes, that too.
Marx abandoned work on Das Capital when Carl Menger and others published their economics papers, which is why it wasn't until after his death that Engels largely fabricated the last two volumes of that work, and deliberately used faulty math to boot. Why there are still 'Marxists' around is a curiosity, probably they exist because they know few people will ever actually read the long discredited gibberish and they can feign being 'higher authorities' of some sort. But, some of the Marxist annalists have done some good to excellent work on historical economic analysis on occasion, particularly some of the French 'Marxist' historians, even if they almost invariably reach the wrong conclusions and interpretations; they are still valuable to history buffs for the research and history they have done, far better reads than the usual libertoon gibberish and Bircher style right wing conspiratard fare by a long shot. Marx is exactly right on immigration as a tool to drive down wages and keep poverty levels high, for instance, among other things.
We studied Marx, Engels, and many others very heavily in both political science and history because of their contributions in not only economic theory but the development of political ideology during their time. It was quite a powerful movement but their theories have largely been proven to not be accurate.
I'm not sure he ever claimed to be able to see the future. But no matter, what I'm interested in was his ability for analysis and his grasp of history. He wrote during the 19th Century, a vast catalogue of ideas which have informed us in the centuries following.
Volume I is the one worth reading. Engels is actually the better writer, and his book on the origins of the state probably his best. Reading Hayek's The Fatal Conceit as a companion book helps highlight where both Marx and Engels go wrong, largely because of their belief in rationalism. Hayek's critique of 'logic' and 'rationalism' re market and consumption behaviors in that book is pretty spot on, even if one doesn't buy into the Austrian school theories. Hayek is pretty annoying to many right wingers' pet theories as well, since he also critiques the 'Chicago School' fantasies.
Well, he claims capitalism inevitably leads to certain patterns and results, so he kind of did claim to be predicting the future, both social and economic. Yes, he was great at critiquing capitalism's flaws and offered a new perspective on interpreting historical events in more 'modern' terms.
Apparently, Reagan, both Bushes, John McCain, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were heavy into Karl Marx.
