马克思的知识遗产：共产主义之后的马克思

《经济学人》2002年12月19日
（戴开元译 转自新语丝）

作为一种政治制度，共产主义已经死亡或正在死亡；作为一种思想体系，共产主义在未来的地位似乎依然稳固。 

苏联共产主义在20世纪末的分崩离析，绝不是因为技术上的原因。它是一种在道德、物质和知识上的最全面或
最丢脸的崩溃。共产主义残暴地统治和掠夺其子民，杀害了数千万民众。过去数十年内，在苏联及其卫星国，
如果有人谈到平等、没有剥削和真正的正义等共产主义教义所公开宣示的目标，只会引起人们辛辣的嘲笑。共
产主义制度最终崩溃以后，马克思的塑像就像列宁、斯大林塑像的那样，被人们轻蔑地摧毁。共产主义的理论
和实践皆被否定。无论是共产主义的理论奠基者，还是共产主义国家的统治者，皆被人们抛弃。

大多数西方人没有在马克思主张的政治制度下生活过，他们没有受到这种生活的影响，得出一种更为不偏不倚
的看法。他们倾向于认为，马克思被人误解了，苏联和东欧的共产主义歪曲了马克思的思想。在这些黑暗国土
上发生的事情不仅使他们感到震惊，而且会使马克思本人感到震惊。但这些共产主义国家的所作所为与马克思
思想的正确性毫无关系。

他们认为，在很多问题上，马克思的看法确实正确。例如，马克思关于资本主义的许多弊端，全球化和国际市
场，商业周期，经济决定意识的原理等问题的看法是正确的。他们不断地念叨：马克思是一位先知。应该完全
抛弃苏联东欧（还有中国、北朝鲜和古巴，以及实行它的任何地方）实行的共产主义，但请不要抛弃马克思。

给马克思应得的荣誉

这似乎没有任何风险。1999年，英国政府资助的英国广播公司(BBC)曾经搞了一系列民意测验，让人们推选二十
世纪最伟大的人。当年10月，在柏林墙倒塌十周年的前后数周，BBC宣布，民众选出的二十世纪最伟大思想家正
是马克思，而物理学家爱因斯坦居第二，牛顿和达尔文分别排名第三和第四。BBC说：“虽然整个20世纪的独裁
统治歪曲了（马克思）原来的思想，但作为哲学家，社会学家，历史学家和革命家的马克思，其著作今天仍受
到学术界的尊敬。”
至少BBC这段话的第二点没有说错：马克思现在仍然得到人们的尊敬。

应该承认，作为一个学术领域本身，马克思主义的政治和经济理论已经越过了它的巅峰时期。可以假定，迄今
为止，马克思所提出的，或者他实际上提出的，或者他可能会提出的，或者人们以为他可能会提出的大多数观
点，已经经受了充分的、虽然远非结论性的争论。但是，对于篇幅惊人的马克思原著的学术研究日渐稀少，并
不能成为衡量马克思持久不衰的思想影响的最佳标准。

在西欧和美国，面向本科生和非专业人士的介绍马克思的书籍仍有销路，关于马克思的最新著作仍在出版。例
如，Verso最近出版的英国伦敦经济学院经济学教授德赛伊的《马克思的报复》一书，受到了热情的评论。德赛
伊认为，马克思被人误解了，这位伟人的正确性远远超过他得到的荣誉。牛津大学出版社今年8月出版的英国伦
敦大学学院教授沃尔夫的“为何今日要阅读马克思？”一书，也是一本有吸引力的读物。沃尔夫是一个技巧特
别高超的政治哲学解释者。他在该书中也说，马克思被人误解了，这位伟人的正确性远远超过他得到的荣誉。

英国著名历史学家、终身的马克思主义者和毫不悔悟的共产党员霍布斯鲍姆，最近出版的回忆录也值得注意。
实际上，对此书的评论好坏参半，但很少有人不表示尊敬，许多人称赞他研究学问的坚定性。霍布斯鲍姆也说，
马克思被人误解了，这位伟人的正确性远远超过他得到的荣誉。

可以说，亚当·斯密与自由资本主义（一种相对比较成功的经济秩序）的关系，大致相当于马克思与社会主义
的关系。搜索亚马逊等售书网站之后发现，关于马克思的书籍的数量是关于亚当斯密的书籍的五至十倍。在经
济学院系本科生的阅读书单中，亚当·斯密的著作却远远超过马克思。这很有趣，因为马克思认为自己首先是
最重要的经济学家。在社会科学和人文学科的其他领域，情况恰恰相反，不出人们所料，虽然亚当·斯密在这
些领域的著作比他的经济学著作多得多，却很少有亚当·斯密的著作，尽管在马克思及其解释者和信徒看来，
这似乎是必然现象。正是马克思持久影响的这种广度，特别是与马克思在现代经济学中受到的反常冷遇相对照，
如此引人注目。

如何解释此一现象？马克思著作存在（如果存在）哪些仍有价值的东西？这个问题并非一目了然，因为他的著
作显然很难为人理解。

马克思确实是一个马克思主义者

在他愿意的时候，他是一位有吸引力的作家，飞快地写下一流的隽语。《共产党宣言》的结束语欢呼说：“工
人阶级失去的只是锁链，他们获得的将是整个世界。全世界无产者，联合起来。”他还具有一种令人羡慕的天
赋：发出歇斯底里的咒骂。在《资本论》里，他为他的研究对象所下的著名定义是“无生命的劳动力，是个吸
血鬼，只是靠吸取有生命的劳动力的鲜血生存，生存得越久，吸取的劳动力越多”。这不仅令人难以忘怀，而
且实际上非常恰当，只要你相信马克思的价值理论。当他愿意时，他能够非常出色地表达自己的思想。

但是，马克思的著作也常常非常乏味和复杂得让人难以理解。读一读《资本论》的开头几页就可以知道这一点。
在他所谓的科学著作中，他飞快地创造术语，在词汇下面划线以强调其难懂，然后随意改变其意义。马克思在
1844年相信的东西，到1874年他就不再相信：唯一不变的是他认为他任何时候说的话都是绝对真理，而且与他
以前的说法完全一致，这些使马克思著作更加难懂。马克思的大多数著作，包括《共产党宣言》和《资本论》
第二、三卷，是由恩格斯编辑、共同撰写或代笔的。因此，多年来，把世人了解的马克思与恩格斯分开，本身
已成为一个学术产业。

然而，马克思有四个观点似乎最为关键，其他大多数观点由此发展而来。第一，马克思相信社会遵循简单而普
遍的运动定律，足以据此作出长时段的预言。第二，他相信这些定律仅仅具有经济性：决定社会形态的唯一东
西是“物质生产力”。第三，他相信，在历史终结之前，这些定律必然以一种剧烈的阶级斗争方式表达自己。
第四，他相信，在历史终结时，阶级和国家（其唯一的目的是代表统治阶级利益）必然消亡，为人间天堂所取
代。

那么，现代西方学者喜欢宣称的苏联式共产主义对马克思信念的偏离，表现在哪些方面？据说，这主要是俄国
的“偷跑”。根据马克思的运动定律，当封建社会发展到阻碍了而不是促进生产力时，社会就会进入资本主义。
后来，一旦生产力得到充分发展，以致于资本主义的继续存在成为实现物质丰富的障碍而不是通途时，资本主
义也会以非常相似的方式，发展成为社会主义和无产阶级专政。但俄国从封建主义直接进入社会主义，这太快
了。马克思如果在世，他会告诉列宁，这样行不通。

马克思真的会这样说吗？毫无疑问，列宁认为自己是马克思思想的真正继承人，他也有充足的理由。到十九世
纪末，社会主义思潮思想处在分裂之中。马克思的运动定律正在失灵。资本主义依然繁荣，没有出现预示资本
主义灭亡的利润率下降的迹象。无产阶级开始获得选举权。福利国家正在形成。工厂的生产环境正在改善。工
人的工资开始大幅提高，远远超过其维持生存的最低水平。所有这些都与马克思的运动定律相反。

在这种情况下，左派开始分裂。一方是改革派和社会民主党人，他们认为资本主义可以拥有人道的一面。另一
方则相信可以发展和重新阐述马克思主义，同时忠实于它的基本逻辑，而且最重要的是，保持它的革命性，反
对改良。

马克思如果在世，他会站在哪一边？革命还是改良？他会继续坚持要消灭吸血鬼，还是会变成温和地要求吸血
鬼少吸点血的改良派？后者似乎不可能发生。虽然马克思是一个学者，但他同时也是一个幻想家和革命家。他
有一种病态的不妥协性。他对同志都不能妥协，更不要说对敌人。1882年，马克思在《共产党宣言》俄文版的
前言中表示，他希望俄国革命能成为“西方无产阶级革命的信号和相互补充”。如果真的如此，俄国虽然处于
资本主义之前的阶段，却“可以成为共产主义革命的起点”。列宁确实说得对，只有他而不是那些心肠软弱的
资产阶级妥协分子，才是大师思想的真正继承人。

不仅因为古拉格

即使苏联的共产主义确实是或企图忠实于马克思的思想，那也不能指责马克思的所有思想都错了。在一些问题
上，甚至在一些主要问题上，马克思仍然可能是正确的。

马克思的一些思想确实引人注目。然而，他关于全球市场发展的各种说法（这是对“马克思是先知”说法的有
利证据）事实上并非是最佳的范例。十九世纪已经是一个全球化时代，马克思只是为数众多的注意到此一趋势
的人之一。过去30年来的全球加速化整合，只是一种在马克思年代已经蓬勃产生、在1914年受到干扰的趋势的
重现。

马克思关于资本主义强大生产能力的预见更具原创性。他预见到资本主义将激励出人类迄今无法想象的发明。
他关于资本主义大公司将主宰全球产业的看法也是对的，尽管并非完全按照他说的方式。他强调商业周期的重
要性也是对的，虽然他关于商业周期的产生原因及其后果的看法是错误的。

马克思强调的资本主义的内在矛盾性——资本主义的强大生产力会导致自身的灭亡，资本主义存在导致社会主
义及以后的共产主义的物质可能性和逻辑必然性——被证明是错误的，但是，马克思可以正确地宣称自己比其
他人更清楚地预见到，资本主义在改变人类的物质世界方面将达到何种地步，而反过来这需要对他的另一方面
至少给予一点勉强的尊敬：其思想的影响之广以及其勃勃的雄心壮志。

但事实上，在所有马克思认为最重要的问题上，马克思都错了。马克思宣称，其思想体系的真正力量在于预见
性，但他的主要预见都毫无希望地失败。有人常说，马克思对于资本主义前景的预见，仅仅在时间上犯了一项
错误。等到资本主义最终走到尽头，就会证明马克思的正确。然而，这种论证方式，正如其他许多为马克思辩
护的理由，虽然拥有无法被证伪的优越性，却并未使之有理。问题在于，它忽略了阶级。这是一种明智的忽略。
因为阶级这个概念，已经变得模糊不清以致于毫无意义。但是，阶级矛盾却是马克思世界观不可或缺的东西。
没有阶级，即使资本主义停滞不前或走向衰落，仍然缺乏推翻它的机制。

阶级斗争是马克思主义必不可少之物。但阶级斗争，即使它曾经存在，也已经过去。在今日的西方民主社会，
是受雇的工人即无产阶级来选择由谁来统治和统治多长时间，来告诉政府如何管制公司，来最终地拥有公司。
而这恰恰是因为存在马克思最强烈批判的东西：私有财产、自由的政治权利和市场。在最重要的一些问题上，
马克思错得最离谱。

原则上正确

然而，马克思主义的影响力远非局限于人数日益减少的自称是马克思主义者的人士。马克思的劳动价值论及其
它经济理论很可能是知识废品，但他的许多假设、分析技巧和思维方式，在西方学界及其他领域得到广泛传播。

马克思关于经济结构决定一切的核心观念特别差劲。例如，根据这一观念，私有财产权存在的唯一原因是它为
资产阶级生产关系服务。这种说法适用于社会中的任何其他权利或公民自由。认为这类权利拥有更深刻的道德
基础，这是一种幻觉。道德本身就是幻觉，它只是统治阶级的另一工具。（正如卢卡奇所说：“共产主义的道
德观使邪恶的行动成为最高的职责......它是要求我们作出最大牺牲的革命。”）人的作用等于零：我们只是
被“这种制度”愚弄的工具，直到我们把它彻底推翻为止。

马克思关于道德的观点也适用于历史、文学等人文学科及社会科学。众所周知，“已故马克思”认为，这些学
科皆不是客观探索知识的领域，而是社会控制的方式。永远不要询问画家、剧作家、建筑师或哲学家对自己专
业的见解。甚至不用看他们的作品，就知道他们实际在作什么：支持统治阶级。这种思维方式已经深入到整个
西欧尤其是美国的大学科系，其中最臭名昭著的就是文学研究。结果，智慧对话的机会消失了，青年人可以接
受一种严肃的自由教育的信心也消失了。马克思主义另一有影响力的特征还在于它的浓厚的乌托邦性质。《共
产党宣言》并不是一种政府的管理纲领，而只是一种夺取政权的纲领，或者毋宁说是一种明智地观察某人夺权
的纲领，也就是说，它是一种关于资本主义的缺陷与活力的评论。在《共产党宣言》和马克思的任何其它著作
中，马克思都没有论述他所预言和鼓动的共产主义会如何实际运作。

马克思的牧牛理论

马克思曾如此说：“在共产主义社会，无人能独占某些活动领域，社会管理着总的生产，因而我可以今天做这
件事，明天做那件事，上午打猎，下午钓鱼，傍晚牧牛，晚餐后从事批判活动，这只是我心中的设想，我并未
变成猎人、牧人或批判家。”许多人希望予以更详尽地讨论的问题之一是，牛是否会满足于仅仅在傍晚放牧，
或者这只不过是人们内心的一种设想。但这个卡通片几乎就是马克思所谈论的共产主义实况的一切，其余的必
须被约简掉，正如他对资本主义的猛烈批判，必须消除不平等、剥削、异化、私有财产等等。

令人惊讶的是今日的全球化的激烈批评者，无论他们是否自称是马克思主义者，以非常相似的方式行事。对于
现存的经济秩序，他们没有提出任何可行的替代物，相反，却乞灵于一个没有环境压力、社会不公正和名牌运
动服的乌托邦，号召返回到一个工业化以前根本不存在的黄金时代，却从未清晰地描述这种另类的未来或提出
充分的证据。除此以外，反全球化人士还继承了马克思的其他许多东西，特别是自以为是的愤怒、暴烈的语言、
愿意诉诸实际暴力（以回应对方的“暴力”）、对大公司的妖魔化、把世界划分为剥削者和受害者、蔑视渐进
改革、狂热的行动主义、对民主的不耐烦、玷污自由的“权利”和“自由权”、怀疑妥协、关于为市场秩序的
辩护属于伪善（或孩子气的幼稚）的假设。

反全球化主义已经被妥切地描述成一种世俗宗教。马克思主义也是如此：这是一种完整的信条，拥有先知、神
圣文本和关于神话中的天堂的承诺。马克思并不是一个他自称的科学家。他建立了一种信仰。他激励的那种经
济制度和政治制度已经死亡或正在死亡。但他的宗教是一种信徒众多的宗教，而且将继续存在下去。

原文

Marx's intellectual legacy 
Marx after communism 

Dec 19th 2002 From The Economist 

As a system of government, communism is dead or dying. As a system of ideas, its future looks 
secure 

When Soviet communism fell apart towards the end of the 20th century, nobody could say that it 
had failed on a technicality. A more comprehensive or ignominious collapse—moral, material and 
intellectual—would be difficult to imagine. Communism had tyrannised and impoverished its 
subjects, and slaughtered them in the tens of millions. For decades past, in the Soviet Union and 
its satellite countries, any allusion to the avowed aims of communist doctrine—equality, freedom 
from exploitation, true justice—had provoked only bitter laughter. Finally, when the monuments 
were torn down, statues of Karl Marx were defaced as contemptuously as those of Lenin and Stalin. 
Communism was repudiated as theory and as practice; its champions were cast aside, intellectual 
founders and sociopathic rulers alike.

People in the West, their judgment not impaired by having lived in the system Marx inspired, 
mostly came to a more dispassionate view. Marx had been misunderstood, they tended to feel. The 
communism of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was a perversion of his thought. What happened 
in those benighted lands would have appalled Marx as much as it appals us. It has no bearing on 
the validity of his ideas.

Indeed, it is suggested, Marx was right about a good many things—about a lot of what is wrong 
with capitalism, for instance, about globalisation and international markets, about the business 
cycle, about the way economics shapes ideas. Marx was prescient; that word keeps coming up. By 
all means discard communism as practised in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (and China, North 
Korea, Cuba and in fact wherever it has been practised). But please don't discard Marx.

*Give the man his due*

There seems little risk of it. In 1999 the BBC conducted a series of polls, asking people to name 
the greatest men and women of the millennium. In October of that year, within a few weeks of the 
tenth anniversary of the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the BBC declared the people's choice for 
“greatest thinker”. It was Karl Marx. Einstein was runner-up, Newton and Darwin third and 
fourth, respectively. “Although dictatorships throughout the 20th century have distorted 
(Marx's) original ideas,” the state-financed broadcaster noted, “his work as a philosopher, 
social scientist, historian and a revolutionary is respected by academics today.” Concerning the 
second point, at least, the BBC was correct: Marx is still accorded respect.

As a field of scholarship in its own right, admittedly, Marxist political and economic theory is 
past its peak. By now, presumably, most of the things that Marx meant, or really meant, or 
probably meant, or might conceivably have meant, have been posited and adequately (though far 
from conclusively) debated. But a slackening of activity amid the staggeringly voluminous primary 
sources is not the best measure of Marx's enduring intellectual influence.

Books on Marx aimed at undergraduates and non-specialists continue to sell steadily in Western 
Europe and the United States. And new ones keep coming. For instance, Verso has just published, 
to warm reviews, “Marx's Revenge” by Meghnad Desai, a professor of economics at the London 
School of Economics. Mr Desai argues that Marx was misunderstood and that the great man was right 
about far more than he is given credit for. In August, Oxford University Press published “Why 
Read Marx Today?” by Jonathan Wolff. It too is an engaging read. The author, a professor at 
University College London, is a particularly skilful elucidator of political philosophy. In his 
book, he argues that Marx was misunderstood and that the great man was right about far more than 
he is given credit for.

The newly released memoirs of Eric Hobsbawm, the celebrated historian, lifelong Marxist and 
unrepentant member of the Communist Party for as long as it survived, also deserve mention. The 
reviews were mixed, in fact, but rarely less than respectful, finding much to admire in the 
author's unwavering intellectual commitment. Mr Hobsbawm argues...well, he argues that Marx was 
misunderstood and that the great man was right about far more than he is given credit for.

Adam Smith, one might say, stands in relation to liberal capitalism, a comparatively successful 
economic order, roughly where Marx stands in relation to socialism. Searches on Amazon.com and 
other booksellers indicate that titles in print about Marx outnumber books about Adam Smith by a 
factor of between five and ten. A hard day's browsing of undergraduate reading-lists suggests 
that, in economics faculties, Smith is way out in front—interesting, given that Marx saw himself 
as an economist first and foremost. Elsewhere in the social sciences and humanities, the reverse 
is true. Smith is rarely seen, as you might expect, though in fact there is far more in Smith 
than just economics; whereas from Marx and his expositors and disciples it seems there is no 
escape. It is the breadth of Marx's continuing influence, especially as contrasted with his 
strange irrelevance to modern economics, that is so arresting.

How is one to explain this? What, if anything, remains valuable in Marx's writings? This is not a 
straightforward question, given that he evidently had such difficulty making himself understood.

  *Yes, Marx was a Marxist*

When he wanted to be, Marx was a compelling writer, punching out first-rate epigrams at a 
reckless pace. The closing sentences of “The Communist Manifesto” (1848) are rightly 
celebrated: “The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to gain. 
Workers of the world, unite.” He also had an enviable flair for hysterical invective. At one 
point in “Capital” (1867-94), he famously defines the subject of his enquiry as “dead labour, 
that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it 
sucks.” That is not only unforgettable but actually very apt, if you believe Marx's theory of 
value. He could express himself brilliantly when he chose to.

Yet he was also capable of stupefying dullness and impenetrable complexity. Try the opening pages 
of “Capital” (it picks up later). In his scientific work, as he called it, he minted jargon at 
a befuddling rate, underlining terms to emphasise their opacity, then changing their meaning at 
will. Adding to the fog, what Marx believed in 1844 was probably not what he believed in 1874: 
the only constant was his conviction that what he said at any time was both the absolute truth 
and fully consistent with what he had said before. And most of the published Marx, including the 
“Manifesto” and volumes two and three of “Capital”, was edited, co-written or ghost written 
by Friedrich Engels. For many years, therefore, separating Marx from Engels in what the world 
understands as “Marx” was an academic industry in itself.

Still, four things seem crucial, and most of the rest follows from these. First, Marx believed 
that societies follow laws of motion simple and all-encompassing enough to make long-range 
prediction fruitful. Second, he believed that these laws are exclusively economic in character: 
what shapes society, the only thing that shapes society, is the “material forces of production”. 
Third, he believed that these laws must invariably express themselves, until the end of history, 
as a bitter struggle of class against class. Fourth, he believed that at the end of history, 
classes and the state (whose sole purpose is to represent the interests of the ruling class) must 
dissolve to yield a heaven on earth.

In what ways, then, was Soviet-style communism a deviation from these beliefs, as modern western 
commentators like to argue? Chiefly, it is said that Russia jumped the gun (forgive the 
expression). According to Marx's laws of motion, society is supposed to progress from feudalism 
to capitalism at just that point when feudalism fetters the forces of production, rather than 
serving them, as it has up to that moment. Later, capitalism gives way in turn to socialism, the 
dictatorship of the proletariat, and in much the same way—once its productive potential has been 
fully achieved, so that henceforth its continued existence is an obstacle to material sufficiency 
rather than a means to it. But Russia went straight from feudalism to socialism. This was too 
quick. Marx could have told Lenin that it would never work.

Is this really what he would have said? There is no doubt that Lenin saw himself as a true 
follower of Marx—and he had every reason to. By the end of the 19th century, socialist thought 
was dividing. Marx's laws of motion were failing. Capitalism still flourished: no sign of the 
falling rate of profit that would signal its end. The working class was getting the vote. The 
welfare state was taking shape. Factory conditions were improving and wages were rising well 
above the floor of subsistence. All this was contrary to Marx's laws.

In response, the left was splitting. On one side were reformers and social democrats who saw that 
capitalism could be given a human face. On the other were those who believed that Marx's system 
could be developed and restated, always true to its underlying logic—and, crucially, with its 
revolutionary as opposed to evolutionary character brought to the fore.

Whose side in this would Marx have been on? Revolution or reform? Would he have continued to 
insist that the vampire be destroyed? Or would he have turned reformer, asking it nicely to suck 
a bit less blood? The latter seems unlikely. Marx was a scholar, but he was also a fanatic and a 
revolutionary. His incapacity for compromise (with comrades, let alone opponents) was 
pathological. And in the preface to the 1882 Russian edition of the “Manifesto”, his last 
published writing, Marx hoped that a revolution in Russia might become “the signal for a 
proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other”; if so, Russia, despite 
its pre-capitalist characteristics, “may serve as the starting-point for a communist 
development.” Lenin was surely right to believe that he, not those soft-headed bourgeois 
accommodationists, was true to the master's thought.

Apart from the gulag

Even if Soviet communism was true to Marx's ideas, or tried to be, that would not condemn all of 
Marx's thinking. He might still have been right about some things, possibly even the main things.

Aspects of his thought do impress. However, his assorted sayings about the reach of the global 
market—a favourite proof that “Marx was prescient”—are not in fact the best examples. The 
19th century was an era of globalisation, and Marx was only one of very many who noticed. The 
accelerating global integration of the past 30 years merely resumes a trend that was vigorously 
in place during Marx's lifetime, and which was subsequently interrupted in 1914.

Marx was much more original in envisaging the awesome productive power of capitalism. He saw that 
capitalism would spur innovation to a hitherto-unimagined degree. He was right that giant 
corporations would come to dominate the world's industries (though not quite in the way he 
meant). He rightly underlined the importance of economic cycles (though his accounts of their 
causes and consequences were wrong).

The central paradox that Marx emphasised—namely, that its own colossal productivity would bring 
capitalism to its knees, by making socialism followed by communism both materially possible and 
logically necessary—turned out to be false. Still, Marx could fairly lay claim to having sensed 
more clearly than others how far capitalism would change the material conditions of the world. 
And this in turn reflects something else that demands at least a grudging respect: the amazing 
reach and ambition of his thinking.

[On everything that mattered most to Marx himself, he was wrong]

But the fact remains that on everything that mattered most to Marx himself, he was wrong. The 
real power he claimed for his system was predictive, and his main predictions are hopeless 
failures. Concerning the outlook for capitalism, one can always argue that he was wrong only in 
his timing: in the end, when capitalism has run its course, he will be proved right. Put in such 
a form, this argument, like many other apologies for Marx, has the advantage of being impossible 
to falsify. But that does not make it plausible. The trouble is, it leaves out class. This is a 
wise omission, because class is an idea which has become blurred to the point of meaninglessness. 
Class antagonism, though, is indispensable to the Marxist world-view. Without it, even if 
capitalism succumbs to stagnation or decline, the mechanism for its overthrow is missing.

Class war is the sine qua non of Marx. But the class war, if it ever existed, is over. In western 
democracies today, who chooses who rules, and for how long? Who tells governments how companies 
will be regulated? Who in the end owns the companies? Workers for hire—the proletariat. And this 
is because of, not despite, the things Marx most deplored: private property, liberal political 
rights and the market. Where it mattered most, Marx could not have been more wrong.

--Right in principle--

Yet Marxist thinking retains great influence far beyond the dwindling number who proclaim 
themselves to be Marxists. The labour theory of value and the rest of Marx's economic apparatus 
may be so much intellectual scrap, but many of his assumptions, analytical traits and habits of 
thought are widespread in western academia and beyond. 

The core idea that economic structure determines everything has been especially pernicious. 
According to this view, the right to private property, for instance, exists only because it 
serves bourgeois relations of production. The same can be said for every other right or civil 
liberty one finds in society. The idea that such rights have a deeper moral underpinning is an 
illusion. Morality itself is an illusion, just another weapon of the ruling class. (As Gyorgy 
Lukacs put it, “Communist ethics makes it the highest duty to act wickedly...This is the 
greatest sacrifice revolution asks from us.”) Human agency is null: we are mere dupes of “the 
system”, until we repudiate it outright. 

What goes for ethics also goes for history, literature, the rest of the humanities and the social 
sciences. The “late Marxist” sees them all, as traditionally understood, not as subjects for 
disinterested intellectual inquiry but as forms of social control. Never ask what a painter, 
playwright, architect or philosopher thought he was doing. You know before you even glance at his 
work what he was really doing: shoring up the ruling class. This mindset has made deep inroads—
most notoriously in literary studies, but not just there—in university departments and on 
campuses across Western Europe and especially in the United States. The result is a withering 
away not of the state but of opportunities for intelligent conversation and of confidence that 
young people might receive a decent liberal education. Marxist thinking is also deeply Utopian—
another influential trait. The “Communist Manifesto”, despite the title, was not a programme 
for government: it was a programme for gaining power, or rather for watching knowledgeably as 
power fell into one's hands. That is, it was a commentary on the defects and dynamics of 
capitalism. Nowhere in the “Manifesto”, or anywhere else in his writings, did Marx take the 
trouble to describe how the communism he predicted and advocated would actually work.

--Marx's theory of cattle--

He did once say this much: “In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of 
activity...society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one 
thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in 
the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, 
herdsman or critic.” Whether cattle would be content to be reared only in the evening, or just 
as people had in mind, is one of many questions one would wish to see treated at greater length. 
But this cartoon is almost all Marx ever said about communism in practice. The rest has to be 
deduced, as an absence of things he deplored about capitalism: inequality, exploitation, 
alienation, private property and so forth.

It is striking that today's militant critics of globalisation, whether declared Marxists or 
otherwise, proceed in much the same way. They present no worked-out alternative to the present 
economic order. Instead, they invoke a Utopia free of environmental stress, social injustice and 
branded sportswear, harking back to a pre-industrial golden age that did not actually exist. 
Never is this alternative future given clear shape or offered up for examination.

And anti-globalists have inherited more from Marx besides this. Note the self-righteous anger, 
the violent rhetoric, the willing resort to actual violence (in response to the “violence” of 
the other side), the demonisation of big business, the division of the world into exploiters and 
victims, the contempt for piecemeal reform, the zeal for activism, the impatience with democracy, 
the disdain for liberal “rights” and “freedoms”, the suspicion of compromise, the presumption 
of hypocrisy (or childish naivety) in arguments that defend the market order. 

Anti-globalism has been aptly described as a secular religion. So is Marxism: a creed complete 
with prophet, sacred texts and the promise of a heaven shrouded in mystery. Marx was not a 
scientist, as he claimed. He founded a faith. The economic and political systems he inspired are 
dead or dying. But his religion is a broad church, and lives on.