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The problem with this treacly presentation is that it responds to petty character assassinations of Marx by bourgois apologists with a hagiographic paen. Look, Marx wasn't Jesus and his ideas weren't about him or "Marx's Ideas" as the salvation of humanity. Rather Marx should be understood in the historical context of the development of revolutionary struggle in the wake of the French Revolution and the emergence of industrial society and the industrial working class. It was in that context, as an activist in the incipient labor movement that the ideas of Marx and others emerged from the struggle of these masses and the ideas of precursors like Saint Simon, Owen, Fourier, Feuerbach, Babeuf and others and revolutionary activists he knew like Moses Hess and Wm. Weitling. Edmund Wilson in "To the Finland Station" gives an excellent overview of this period. One scene that captures the spirit of these times is a scene Wilson describes of a Communist League meeting in the mid 1840s, where a young Karl Marx slams his fist down on the table, berating proletarian militant Wilhelm Weitling regarding his continued affinity for Jacobin phraseology like Liberte! Egalite! Fratenity! as outmoded pablum that didn't give the working class the right program of "scientific socialism". Previously Marx had questioned Weitling about his obsessive habit of rubbing his ankles. Where did that come from? FROM THE TIME I SPENT IN PRISON WITH SHACKLES ON MY ANKLES!, Weitling basically responded. Yeah right, I'm a dumkopf, Weitling is going poised to kick Marx's punk ass as the meeting breaks up in an uproar with Engels trying to calm things down and prevent a brawl. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
