As we pirates attempt to rescue reason from the clutches of Cthulhu's minions who are of course driven by the mirages of Cthulhu, we sometimes find interesting true things along the way. There is room for a series about these things, exposing some of the more interesting treasures buried under chowder, myth and Cephalopoda scat.
Today the topic is "Marx was anti-semitic", it sounds bad to any socialist ear and to anyone with a basic understanding of mid 20th Century history, but to especially those not familiar with the many works of Karl Marx, Das Capital is well known, but his life and works are, shall we say less known to many. Less still is an 1844 work called "On the Jewish Question". At that time some were questioning whether European Jewish people could be really free in Europe and Russia, and still be, well... Jewish. Marx thought it a pertinent question and offered his opinion on this very question. The upshot of which was yes, Jewish people can indeed be free and Jewish in Europe, and there should be no need for them to abandon their religious consciousness in order to achieve that freedom. This may sound terrible to some, but I find it tricky to imagine them being Jewish at least without developing some sort of cognitive dissonance, the same way some in an oppressed class identify with the ideology of their oppressors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jewish_Question
The claim gets a little silly when we look further, as Marx himself was ethnically Jewish, his maternal grandfather a rabbi, and his father's family having rabbis through the century before his birth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx
It seems strange that anyone might accuse, in anything other than jest, Marx of antisemitism, given Marx's personal history and expressed opinions.
Marx made a study of, and extensively wrote on alienation in capitalist society and he like many of his time was a fan of the aims of the French Revolution, as he grew up in a French-German border town. He could not, however, ignore that capitalism was showing signs that it was incapable of meeting the high expectations placed upon it. And in just 50 years, it was already showing signs of developing similar issues to those it was intended to resolve. Including the entrenchment of wealth and power, and the crushing power exerted on working people, who frankly if it were left to them would not be likely to build mansions and castles from the fruits of their labor. Even today, it is fair to ask if Amazon workers would prefer to use the value they create to send their boss by rocket to the moon as Mr. Bezos uses the portion of that value which he claims to do just that.
Marx pointed out that the alienation of minorities was a way of scapegoating to serve those that those who held political and economic power and to maintain their status. Such behavior appears to have bothered Marx, in part because he was "sent out" of his home town in which he had the job he desired as a student - that of professor, and was put on a train to Parish. His terrible crime was community organizing in a region with a lot conservative and wealthy people who seemed likely to have been concerned that they might be required to engage in fair dealing with employees, the terrible specter of labor rights, occupational health and safety, or the curtailing of child labor.
A further discussion of the life and work of Karl Marx can be found here, with Richard Wolff - Economics Professor Emeritus at MIT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU-AkeOyiOQ
In the conversation that brought up the Marx antisemitism claim, another claim was made "socialism collapses quickly". We can be sure that that one would give our Norwegian friends quite the chuckle, after all, they came up with the hashtag #shitholeUSA and they have enjoyed a socialist politic for the best part of a century. And in Germany, the only reason the word "Socialist" appeared in the NAZI party name, was because the German public would never have given Hitler's party the time of day without it. None the less, Hitler and his following turned out to be a terrible fraud and worse but is generally identified as a fascist phenomenon, not simply for the jackboots, militarism, varied misanthropies, and empire building by conquest, but for the unity of public and private sector interests. Hyperinflation and a collapsing economy brought about by the extraction of war reparations led to desperation in German populace, this means populist style rhetoric even when fake was very appealing. World Bank Policy and IMF loans have by similar means caused great distress in many countries in the last 50 years, and these nations have had issues with radicalization. And now, the 1% is essentially applying similar pressure on industrialized nations, causing great inequality, social/political tribalism, and a mass migration of red hats manufactured in low wage China, to make nests in North America on those who hunt squirrels accused of ruining the economy as the billionaires laugh all the way to the too-big-to-jail banks as they point in random directions shouting "squirrel" any red hats with an AR15 poking the sky they see.
David Pakman's Debunked: "Socialism has never worked" is a useful place to start. And can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k79wCaFgU40
Norway's socialism goes back almost a century, and collective labor organization operated successfully for 300 years in Aztec society prior to the arrival of Columbus in the New World.
As always, praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster for she is noodly, and play nice ok. Ramen.
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