Karl Marx (1818-1883)May 5 is Karl Marx’s Birthday.
In USA, practically nobody knows Marx, outside of the academia. In India, corporate powers have done their best to ridicule this great philosopher. And in this era of Post-Truth or Post-Rationalism, curiosity, let alone studied admiration, is a thing of the past.
Communists in power, through their inefficient, violent and corrupt administrations, have also contributed greatly to people’s misunderstanding. Joseph Stalin is an example. Stalin in Soviet Union had undone what the Bolshevik Revolution achieved, under the leadership of Lenin. The Gang of Four had undone what Mao achieved in China.
Even though I am not a Marxist, on many of his analyses, I feel as if he is speaking on my behalf. Media would not want us to know about them.
Marx Quote #1. — “You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.” (From “The Communist Manifesto,” 1848).
Marx Quote #2. — “In every stock[market] swindle every one knows that some time or other the crash must come, but every one hopes that it may fall on the head of his neighbor, after he himself has caught the shower of gold and placed it in safety.” (From “Capital: Critique of Political Economy,” 1867).
Marx Quote #3. — “If the laborer consumes his disposable time for himself, he robs the capitalist.” (From “Capital”).
Marx Quote #4. — “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions…” (From the “Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” 1843).
Marx Quote #5. — “If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.” (Quoted by Friedrich Engels, in a letter to Eduard Bernstein, 1882).
VERY ENLIGHTENING.
Know this great man who revolutionized human history, on behalf of the have-nots.
Sincerely,
Partha Banerjee
Brooklyn, New York
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Humanity College 