Karl Heinrich Marx was a revolutionary socialist, economist, philosopher, sociologist, and historian from Germany. He had brilliant theories that influenced the advancement of social science and social movements. Marx wrote a variety of books during his career, the most popular of which were the Common Manifesto and Money. Friedrich, a friend, and German revolutionary sociologist co-wrote several of his works.
With the global economy in a state of emergency and professionals all over the world grappling with joblessness, debt, and declining wages, Marx’s incisive indictment of capitalism cannot be overlooked. If he would have been around reminded us of the unjust and self-destructive system of capitalism. Marx estimated that the framework of capitalism would definitely ruin the majority as the world’s wealth become concentrated in the hands of a few who are greedy, causing the financial crisis and start clash between the rich and common laborers. “Aggregation of riches at one shaft is in the meantime misery accumulation, desolation of work, subjection, ignorance, fierceness, mental corruption, at the opposite pole.
Currently, Marx can be justified right because of what is going on earth. It is so sad that those who are rich are getting richer and those that are poor are not changing the status or are getting even worse. The countries like China that turned its back on Marx have started to look into his ideas and realizing their mistake.
Concerning the struggling class, Marx would have said: “I told you”. There is a widening gap in inequality as Marx had predicted before. Globally the workers are getting angrier every day demanding for their fair share of the economy. Starting from the United States Congress to Athens’ streets to southern China Assembly lines the shape of the events taking place in the economy and politics is escalating tensions between labor and capital to a degree unseen since the 20th-century revolution of communist. This struggle is likely to still impact the global economy negatively, the future welfare is still uncertain and deteriorating the political stability of China. The income gap level has gone so high that it is not easy to recover.
In the United States, the economic class between the rich and the poor is widening. The conflict between the rich and the poor is very strong that we cannot ignore. The society is perceived to have split between 99% and 1%. Which means that those who are struggling to continue to struggle more and those who rich are getting richer. In France, they elected the president who once said: “I don’t like the rich” he proved it when he stood by his words as he started to extract more from the rich to maintain the welfare of France. If Marx was alive he would have still told us “I told you”.
Marx called dictatorship bourgeoisie which is meant to benefit a few who want to stay in power because of their selfishness. This kind of leadership would bring about internal tensions which would lead to its internal self-destruction and replaced immediately with a new system, socialism. In socialism, Marx predicted that the society would be run by a few working class, what he named “dictatorship of the proletariat” or “the state of workers”. He believed that communism would later replace socialism where we shall have a stateless and classless. As he believed in communism, this is what Marx fought for during his time. If Marx could be alive he would have told us to carry out organized revolutionary and push out capitalism and replace it with an economy that is social
So far globally, the workers are facing the same problems and the only mistake they are doing they are not coming together to resolve the mistakes. The revolution is yet to materialize in most countries around the globe. If Marx was alive he would have told the worker to come together and make the revolution happen. The current economic crisis has led to the decline of the union membership in the United States. Those who are in power are not ready to support the replacement of the current leadership with those in just as Marx had predicted. They are trying to reform it instead. The protesting is not calling for the destruction of the capitalism and replacing it with socialism but instead, they are talking of replacing the systems. The conflict class is calling for fixing the current system so that they become more viable and sustainable in the long run, redistributing the created wealth.
The class tensions are still rising with the current economic policy despite calls for capitalism replacement. In countries like China, the reforms have been dodged that could bring revolution. The welfare programs in Europe have been slashed due to high debts and the population that is jobless is rising at a very high rate as development growth has sagged. All efforts that are put to eliminate capitalism have seen it rising. Those who are organizing for revolutions have been pressured to drop their bids and dismantle their protection on workers and remove regulations set on local markets.
According to Marx, those who support capitalism take advantage of the gap between the market and labor market for any product that might be available. The value between the input in an industry which is lower and the output price which is higher, Marx called it “surplus value” and went ahead to say that this surplus had is a source which he called surplus labor. This is the difference that can keep the laborers alive and what they can be able to produce. This can be seen as the leaders in capitalist tend to sack the blood of the workers. The injustice and capitalist cannot simply go against this system.
If Marx was alive he would have told us how the new society would have looked like. Communism would see the end of self-alienation, the labor market would be no longer be there to deny people their freedom. The society would be democratic and every citizen will have justice. The state will stand no chance for alienation. The period of a dictatorship of the proletariat when working class will be ruling the society by using the power of production will face revolution and fall off. Finally, there would be peace transition in some countries with structures of strong democratic systems.
References
Allman, P. (2001). Critical education against global capitalism: Karl Marx and revolutionary critical education. Greenwood Publishing Group.
Marx, K. (2000). Karl Marx: selected writings. Oxford University Press.
Milanovic, B. (2011). Global inequality: from class to location, from proletarians to migrants.
Karl Marx’s Revenge: Class Struggle Grows Around the World | TIME.com, retrieved from;
