Dear Banjo,

Marx suffered during his life. Some people can suffer and transcend that suffering. Marx was not one who could.

You see the Marxist view as becoming bipolar, Manichean and distorted. Such a view yielded an expected result.

An ideology built on class hatred is no more noble than one built on race or religious hatred.

Lenin, Stalin, Mao and the rest of the crew essentially followed Marx's prescription.

The corpses were a logical outcome of Marxism.

Advocating a philosophy based on hate and supporting a state with no limits led to a more terrible yoke than capitalism. The tyrants followed the prescription.

The corpses were no accident.

Dear Banjo,
I agree wholeheartedly with the first eloquent half of your post; beautifully put.
But I disagree in equal measure with some of the rest. That his vision "became bipolar, Manichean and distorted" for instance, though I don't have time to take this to task now.

"He saw no middle class"? The rising bourgeoisie was the middle class, as self-seeking and exploitative then as it is today--only today it has perfected the mantle of respectability it has contrived since the beginning and forms a thoroughly complacent majority in wealthy countries.
"Grey disappeared. Everything became either black or white. His positions were chiseled in rock and he turned extremely authoritarian."
If you have the time, I'd be interested to know how you arrived at these conclusions.
I'm researching and writing about Marx at the moment and will try to put a small section up for debate when I can.

Dear Banjo,
just to add, Marx is not a "closed book", he remains relevant as ever, more so! His whole critique was of capitalism, which it is now a far greater obscenity than it was even then. We still need Marx, not as doctrine or to put faith in as a guru, but to help us to open our eyes and see the appalling human world capitalism has created.

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Dear David F.,

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"Marx suffered during his life. Some people can suffer and transcend that suffering. Marx was not one who could".

I don't know about you David, but I am no superman either.

"You see the Marxist view as becoming bipolar, Manichean and distorted. Such a view yielded an expected result".

Marx was an intellectual, a sociologist and a journalist. The "expected result" which was, indeed, "yielded" was that his mania permeated his writings. As Marx never put his ideas ino practice, that was as far as it got so far as he is concerned.

"An ideology built on class hatred is no more noble than one built on race or religious hatred".

True, but that does not apply to Marx. He did not build an "idiology on class hatred". Those whom I refer to as "a bunch of ruthless opportunists" built class hatred on Marx's idiologies. There is absolutely no obligation to indulge in "class hatred" in order to apply Marx's idiologies. The existing class structure was the result of the application of capitalism. There was no manifestation of "class hatred" when capitalism was installed.

"Lenin, Stalin, Mao and the rest of the crew essentially followed Marx's prescription".

"Marx's prescription" indicated "what" not "how". The "bunch" decided that, free of any possible influence of Marx whether through his writings or orally as he was more than thirty years dead when they made those decisions.

"The corpses were a logical outcome of Marxism"

They were a "logical outcome" of the Marxism practiced by the "bunch". We have no way of knowing how Marx would have practiced Marxism. His life indicates he was a quiet, peaceful man and a good father. He was not aggressive and is not known to have caused harm to anyone.

"The corpses were no accident".

No, but to quote one of my favourite authors on this thread: "Karl Marx is not guilty of the actions that people committed in his name".

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Dear Banjo,

The way a person acts to his family and acquaintances has little to do with his public acts. I think George W Bush is kind to his family and well liked by his acquaintances. He might be a good neighbour. Yet he lied his country into war and is responsible for possibly a million deaths.

I agree with Squeers. Marx's ideas live on. Right now I'm going to bed with a book and listen to Joplin's rags.

Good night. The banjoes are playing.

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Dear Squeers,

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I am sure I have no lessons to give either you or David F. regarding Marx. My interest is not that of a connoisseur, but that of a dilettant.

I simply offer myself here as a sparring partner in the hope that some of your's and David's science may rub off on me.

From my point of view (not formal studies), the bipolarity and Manicheism of Marx permeates his writings and leaves me with the impression he observed the social strata through this prism, thus obtaining what I consider to be a distorted image of reality.

He seems to have been so bent on having his theories accepted that he either brushed aside or downplayed anything that did not fit with the image he had in mind.

He looked at the middle classes but chose to ignore them considering they would gradually disappear. He wanted to keep it simple: the strata was polarising into two classes: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The others were not to be considered.

Of course, by the time the "bunch of ruthless opportunists" came on the scene, the middle classes had grown quite considerably, contrary to Marx's predictions.

You remarked:

["Grey disappeared. Everything became either black or white. His positions were chiseled in rock and he turned extremely authoritarian."
If you have the time, I'd be interested to know how you arrived at these conclusions]

I have in mind, in particular, the confrontation between Marx and Bakunin during the meeting in London of the International Workers Association (the so-called First International) which resulted in the exclusion of Bakunin from that organisation.

Ann Robertson's article sheds some light on this aspect of Marx's personality:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/bio/robertson-ann.htm

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