Marx’s theory on labour still has capital

By Edmund Conway

Published: 10:42PM BST 06 Sep 2009

A few years ago the British Broadcasting Corporation asked its radio listeners
to vote for their favourite philosopher. As the votes poured in there were
some obvious favourites from the start – Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Hume
and Nietzsche among them – but as the counting started it soon transpired
that there was a clear winner for the title of Britain’s favourite
philosopher: Karl Marx.

Marx’s key point was that societies are in the midst of a process of evolution
from less sophisticated, less fair economic systems towards an ideal final
destination. Having started off in feudal states and moved on through
mercantilism to the modern system of capitalism, human society would
naturally soon graduate to a fairer, more utopian system. That system, he
argued, was communism.

In a communist society, property and the means of production (factories,
tools, raw materials, etc.) would be owned not by private individuals or
companies, but by everyone. Initially the state would own and control all
companies and institutions, running them from the top down and ensuring
companies did not oppress their workers. Eventually, however, the state
would ‘wither away’.

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