Remember Marx for How Much He Got Wrong
His 200th birthday is no time to downplay the disasters his ideas spawned.
Cut down to size.
Photographer: Thomas Wieck/AFP/Getty ImagesOn May 5, admirers of Karl Marx celebrated his 200th birthday. Marx didn’t make it to 200, but the ideas he injected into the global conversation and the ideologies that bear his name far outlasted the German economist and philosopher.
As socialist ideas grow in popularity in the U.S., and as the memory of the Cold War fades, respect for Marx is enjoying a bit of a resurgence. In the New York Times, philosophy professor Jason Barker declared that Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement are carrying on Marx’s legacy of social critique (a point of view shared by conservatives, who are naturally less happy about it). Meanwhile, writing at the Week, Ryan Cooper said that it was time to normalize the man many consider to be the founder of communism.