Umm off the top of my head...

1) Marx was the major ideological figure of the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Civil War, and the Cuban Revolution, to name just a few seminal events of modern history.

2) Decolonization movements in many parts of the world were led by socialist and communist parties. Marx was a major inspiration for oppressed indigenous peoples to challenge and overthrow their colonial masters.

3) Much of our foundational political and economic assumptions are Marxist. You see this all the time when people speak about the 'working class' and the 'middle class' and the this or that class. The idea that the economic foundations of society determine its major political, social, and cultural properties is widely accepted (or functionally assumed, if not explicitly recognized). Most historians nowadays basically practice some version of historical materialism in their work.

4) Over 1.5 billion people today live under governments that claim to be Marxist.

Marx is alive and well. As long as there is some kind of social conflict in the world, he always will be.

Why on earth would China lay a statue of Marx on Germany? — frank

... Because sending a Sun Yat Sen statue would look weird..?

I live there currently. I'm a dual citizen.

Well said.

What would you name as significant examples of that influence? — frank

I don't know at this point whether you agree or not with the points Uber made above.

Another significant thing: Marx identified class conflict (between workers who produce wealth and the rich folk who accumulate it) as one of the drivers of history. Class conflict is a dangerous thing because it has the potential to topple political and economic structures.

One of the dominant features of the American economic and political system is and has been the suppression of class conflict. The result (so far successful) has been the sharp surge of economic inequality. During the progressive era on up to the end of WWII, when class conflict was more intense, the distribution of wealth was somewhat more egalitarian. Now we are back to the conditions of the Gilded Age of the robber barons (late 19th century).

Supposedly the campuses are infested with militant Marxists. I don't believe it. The Marxists in their ivory towers are a very, very long way from the reality of the working class. If the best our current marxists can do is riot over transsexual pronouns and other identity issues, they might as well be sent to far northern Siberian coal mines to rot.

Glad we ended up lucky in the end. — Posty McPostface

Not too lucky: The United States and Russia still have enough nuclear weapons to wipe out civilization. (Plus what the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have).

I don't know at this point whether you agree or not with the points Uber made above. — Bitter Crank

Marx didn't cause any of the social upheavals of the 20th Century, but I couldn't deny his intellectual influence.

Uber had suggested Marx was one of the most influential intellectuals in human history. Human history is in the range of 5000 years during which time the most influential intellectuals were those who devised the solar calendar, initiated irrigation for crops and learned to smelt copper and iron. Is Marx a member of that club? Not yet. Tune in a thousand years from now for a reassessment.

I live there currently. I'm a dual citizen. — NKBJ

Dual citizen or resident alien? The American culture tends to drive Europeans insane. Have you suffered from that?

Even if you lump Marx together with the engineers and scientists, like astronomers and architects, it would not affect my claim. Einstein himself, perhaps the greatest physicist ever, was a committed socialist; he wrote an entire article about it. Marx's influence was not just philosophical, but also political, economic, and scientific. There are very few thinkers in history whose contributions actually extended to so many different dimensions of human society.

But my particular claim was restricted to the stereotypical version of an intellectual, the kind of person who has grand ideas about the world without any prospects for immediate application (though they could certainly be applied later). In any case, it hardly matters what standard you adopt for intellectual influence. Marx was so influential that he meets, exceeds, and then obliterates every possible standard.

In addition to this, frank assumes that the problems of global capitalism are somehow all settled and that the "moderates...won in the end." One could see this as a modified version of Francis Fukuyama's thesis that the end of the Soviet Union and the imminent spread of liberal and democratic capitalism signified "the end of history." If these bedtime stories make you feel better, by all means go ahead and recite them.

The truth is that American society, and the capitalist system that underlies everything about it, is in severe crisis. Life expectancy has declined for two years in a row. Real wages for half of American workers have stayed largely flat in the past four decades. Average real GDP growth in the US has fallen from more than 4% in the 1950s and the 1960s to around 2% in the first 17 years of this century. The US represented almost half of all global GDP after World War II; it now has just about 15% in purchasing power terms. The richest 1% of the country owns a greater share of national wealth than at any point in the last 50 years. As our position in the global capitalist system deteriorates, our political system will necessarily feel the heat, and has already suffered from it considering the events of the last three years.

In this economic and political context, Marx feels as fresh and as useful as he ever was. In other words, the fall of the Soviet Union was at best an armistice of 20 or 30 years, much like the Treaty of Versailles. Now the global system is in upheaval again, and these are exactly when Marx is at his best (ie. when describing a system in crisis, which most conventional economic philosophies prefer to ignore).

Dual.
American culture can at times be insane, but I guess being half American inculcates me against being driven insane by it. :joke:

Dual citizen or resident alien? The American culture tends to drive Europeans insane. Have you suffered from that? — frank

You are probably aware that European culture was driving people insane in the 20th century -- WWI, WWII... Europe's craziness doesn't make anybody else's craziness better, but it can give you some perspective.

Does American culture drive people insane? Fromm thought so (The Sane Society, Erich Fromm).

Uber had suggested Marx was one of the most influential intellectuals in human history. Human history is in the range of 5000 years during which time the most influential intellectuals were those who devised the solar calendar, initiated irrigation for crops and learned to smelt copper and iron. Is Marx a member of that club? Not yet. Tune in a thousand years from now for a reassessment. — frank

This reminds me of the apocryphal story about Chou En Lai, Premier of the PRC between 1949 and 1975. Asked whether he thought the French Revolution was a good thing, he said: "It's too early to tell." There's no evidence that he actually said any such thing, but it is a good story.

Come now. Irrigation wasn't invented by a brilliant intellectual. Neither was smelting and alloying metal, making glass, inventing stirrups, the wheel, the plow, etc. These were collective developments made over time. Very smart, inventive people have always lived, certainly. Maybe some Neanderthal and homo sapiens geniuses both discovered the method of making a very strong pitch-glue out of birch bark, but it is more likely that this knowledge was collective. We don't know, and will never know how these technologies came about.

No western thinker in the last 5000 years belongs to the age when basic technologies were invented. There are Greece, Rome, Babylonia, Egypt -- but then there is a long hiatus. Intellectuals from the Renaissance forward belong to the current epoch, not to the classical ages.

Where does Marx stand? He stands tall among the tall social thinkers of the Enlightenment. Is Marx the greatest thinker of all time? Of course not. Neither is Adam Smith, Ricardo, the various stars of the Enlightenment, and so on.

Marx brought some new insights into history and economics. They are important. Marx was also a preacher offering a salvation program. Unfortunately, Saint Karl didn't have the opportunity to vet the evangelists who picked up his testament and ran with it. I doubt if Marx could have stomached Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. He would probably have liked someone like the American marxist Daniel DeLeon better--DeLeon wasn't interested in having a blood bath of a revolution.

You are probably aware that European culture was driving people insane in the 20th century -- WWI, WWII... Europe's craziness doesn't make anybody else's craziness better, but it can give you some perspective.

Does American culture drive people insane? Fromm thought so (The Sane Society, Erich Fromm). — Bitter Crank

While there certainly were some specific problems with European culture as a whole throughout the late 19th and early 20th century (Vienna was as much a great cultural center as a fulcrum of depression and suicide), but the mass sociopathy explanation of WWI and WWII was what Milgram wanted (and imho did) demonstrate to be false through his research.

mass sociopathy — Akanthinos

I don't think what Europe went through in the 20th century was "mass sociopathy". Certainly there was some substantial mass sociopathy going on in Germany from 1924 onwards, but it emanated from very specific sources.

Most Europeans were not sociopathic; they were driven to a state of "craziness" by war, depression, agitation, and war again. War in Europe didn't well up from the masses, it was imposed on the masses by their various governments.

Similarly, Americans aren't sociopathic either. We, like billions of other people, are subject to the dubious policies of state and corporations, and their propaganda. Some of these policies are "crazy". Trump isn't the first president to promote crazy policies, but he is certainly doing it now in a big way.

Either pulling out of, or threatening to pull out (coitus interruptus) of Paris Climate Change Agreement, NAFTA, the Pacific area trade agreement, the Iran nuclear agreement, and so on, are all "crazy" and further destabilize social congruence. His huge tax cut (mostly for people who are already wealthy) and cuts in social spending (which benefit the poorest) are more of the same. I do not have a lot of confidence and affection for some of these agreements, but I don't like the rash way they are being threatened, ignored or exited. Brexit is destabilizing too -- to more than just British retainers.

Hopelessness among semi-skilled middle aged workers is one of the drivers behind the opiate addiction epidemic. Pushers are doing their bit too, of course, as are suppliers.

That's the sort of thing I meant.

In this economic and political context, Marx feels as fresh and as useful as he ever was. In other words, the fall of the Soviet Union was at best an armistice of 20 or 30 years, much like the Treaty of Versailles. Now the global system is in upheaval again, and these are exactly when Marx is at his best (ie. when describing a system in crisis, which most conventional economic philosophies prefer to ignore). — Uber

What of the Marxist view stands out to you as particularly significant at the present moment? The global economy isn't presently in crisis, btw. Doesn't mean it won't be tomorrow.

Come now. Irrigation wasn't invented by a brilliant intellectual. Neither was smelting and alloying metal, making glass, inventing stirrups, the wheel, the plow, etc. These were collective developments made over time. — Bitter Crank

Good intellectuals borrow. Great intellectuals steal.

Good intellectuals borrow. Great intellectuals steal. — frank

That may be true. But maybe this famous quip is more appropriate for artists. Pablo Picasso is widely quoted as having said that “good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

There isn't a whole lot from Marx that isn't complete fiction. He made numerous claims about matters that were not based on any actual facts, and were purely speculative-based nonsense. The labor-theory of value is false, so his claims about exploitation get flushed down the toilet. His claims about the purpose of religion is false, and we have far better scientific explanations. His claims about a dialectic throughout human history makes no more sense than an Alex Jones' conspiracy theory.

Serious thinkers are people like Archimedes, Einstein, Maxwell, Feynman, Darwin, etc., etc. Mathematicians, scientists, engineers who literally shock the world with their brilliance make Marx look like a buffoon in comparison.

It is interesting how Marx generates such extreme responses. If this had been about Hegel, or Feuerbach, or Durkheim, or Jung, we might not agree with everything those people said but most would allow they had made some contribution to their fields. But Marx? He has to be totally stamped on.

If Marx wasn't still relevant people wouldn't feel the need to do that.

The labor-theory of value is false

You need to put Marx's claims about the labour theory of value into context. Yes it is true that at the beginning of Capital Vol 1 he provides an a priori argument for the labour theory of value that is (arguably) unsound. However, in the context in which he was writing, the labour theory of value was not really a point of contention amongst economists - Adam Smith held a version of it after all. What Marx did, from an a priori perspective, was draw that theory to its logical conclusion in explaining how surplus value could be generated. However, these days Marxist economists tend to regard Capital as providing the intellectual framework in which an empirically established labour theory of value has its home, and there is much empirical evidence for the labour theory of value. Marx - given his respect for science - would have been very content with the idea that the labour theory of value was in fact an empirical theory, and not an a priori principle.

There isn't a whole lot from Marx that isn't complete fiction.

Have you read volume 2 of Capital? Most people don"t bother - they just read the "potboiling" volume 1 and then skip to volume 3, but it is in volume 2 that most of the economic insights and analysis about profit and loss are to be found. Admittedly there is Engel's stamp all over the contents (both volumes 2 and 3 were put together by him on the basis of notes and manuscripts Marx left behind) so we cannot just say that it is all Marx's work, but there is a lot of content in that volume which is very far from being fictional.

You may be interested to know that many "serious thinkers," like Einstein himself, were socialists who were very much influenced by Marx.

The labor theory of value was widely assumed in the 19th century. It was not invented by Marx. Capitalist economists later switched to utility theories of value, which are, to be sure, no less fictitious than the labor theory.

Marx got a lot of fundamental things right. He may have incorrectly predicted that capitalism would not be so resilient, but he did understand the basis on which capitalism would survive and function. He predicted that corporations would fight off tendencies in the declining rate of profit by slashing worker wages and benefits. That basically describes the US in the last 40 years. He predicted that capitalism would expand worldwide in search of new markets with cheaper labor. Sound familiar? I could go on and on, but you get the point. He made a lot of fundamental insights that have come true.

Theories and values aside, to deny that some level of exploitation happens within capitalism is equivalent to denying that we need oxygen to survive.

You may be interested to know that many "serious thinkers," like Einstein himself, were socialists who were very much influenced by Marx.

:up: Thanks for that link.
Edit:
Just read the piece - it's a neat, if plagiaristic summary of some of Volume 1 of Capital. Shame on Albert for not acknowleding his sources, but given where he was at the time of writing, it's probably excusable :wink:

He may have incorrectly predicted that capitalism would not be so resilient

I think Marx's position on the resilience of capitalism is more nuanced than some have assumed, and let's not forget that even in Captial itself he provides models of stable capitalist economic cycles. There is also this quotation I came across in Mezaros's "Beyond Capital" which indicates that Marx was well aware of the threat of capitalism chewing up its opponents and spitting them out again (my italics).

The historic task of bourgeois society is the estab-
lishment of the world market , at least in its basic outlines,
and a mode of production that rests on its basis. Since the
world is round, it seems that this has been accomplished
with the colonization of California and Australia and with
the annexation of China and Japan. For us the difficult
question is this: the revolution on the Continent is immi-
nent and its character will be at once socialist; will it not
be necessarily crushed in this little comer of the world since
on a much larger terrain the development of bourgeois
society is still in the ascendant . '

Isn't the first rebuttal of Marx, that he underestimated the power of competition? Given that I went to college for a degree in economics, I think it would be high time for me to read my Marx; but, am filled with so much prejudice over the years that I don't know if I can read him with an unbiased mindset.

Given my affinity for game theory, I surmise that capitalism will always be the first choice (in an uneven playing field, that is to say the playing field will almost always be uneven), as is establishing a monopoly the ideal choice for any firm.

That may be true. But maybe this famous quip is more appropriate for artists. Pablo Picasso is widely quoted as having said that “good artists borrow, great artists steal.” — Bitter Crank

Innovation of any kind tends to arise more from a community than the individual. The fallen snow is to the snowball as random individual insights are to the Great Idea.

But how does the intellectual stand out from the crowd? What makes him/her different? Maybe a thread?

What do you mean by Marx underestimating the power of competition? I've come across many so-called refutations of Marx's economics - from some very naive "labour theory of value is false" objections all the way up to sophisticated objections to his supposed solutions to the transformation problem, but I've not come across one that was based on his misunderstanding of the mechanisms of capitalist competition.

There are, apparently, game-theoretic Marxists, so I'm not sure why you believe simply being sympathetic to the use of game theory would lead one to be a capitalist. In any case, as I understand it, to apply game theory to economics you need to come with certain background assumptions about what a rational agent is, and of course for Marxists, there is no non-historical conception of rationality, and so they would perhaps be likely to suspect that if a game-theoretical model leads to capitalism as a choice of economic system, then the dice were loaded from the beginning.

Marx was also quite clear that the tendency of capitalism was towards the concentration of capital into fewer and fewer "hands" which is exactly the process of monopolisation.

You should read Marx, you might find you agree with his economic theory, if not his sociology. If you've already studied economics you'll be in a good position to get more out of volume 2 of Capital than most of the rest of us.

No, I think I was just spewing BS. Just because I spent a year in college doesn't merit what I said about Marx. I had better read him before I mount any criticisms against him.

The global economy isn't presently in crisis, btw. Doesn't mean it won't be tomorrow.

I dispute this, probably because I have different standards for what can constitute a crisis than you do. The global economy is not in an immediate crisis of demand, sure. Global GDP will probably rise this year and will probably rise next year too. But it is experiencing a structural crisis, in which a set of converging factors acting over long periods of time are producing shifts in the balance of economic power.

The center of the capitalist system is stuck in economic stagnation. Japan, Western Europe, and the United States are all experiencing vastly lower growth rates than they had four decades ago. Meanwhile, China and India are still rapidly growing. China is already the world's largest economy in terms of purchasing power, India is third. Russia is not a major economic threat, but it is a global military power once again, conquering nearby territories, flying bombers from Indonesia and next to Alaska, sending its nuclear subs all over the world. These tectonic shifts in the global economic landscape imply that, for the first time in three or four centuries, the West will no longer control the global organization of labor and the distribution of surplus wealth. These changes will produce their own sets of military and political crises. Rarely has the fundamental structure of global power changed without wars and revolutions.

Maybe a thread, yes. You should start it. I don't subscribe to the "great man" theory of history. There are great men and women, yes, but as you said, major developments come from a community more than individuals, process more than event. Even if a maverick comes up with a 100% unique idea of great significance, a community has to respond or... pffft, it disappears.

Even if a maverick comes up with a 100% unique idea of great significance, a community has to respond or... pffft, it disappears. — Bitter Crank

I totally agree.