Jan
8
What did Karl Marx know that we need to learn?
Who were the 100 most influential people in history? Astrophysicist Michael H. Hart gave the world his list in a 1987 book, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History.
It’s an interesting read of short essays, beginning with Hart’s number one choice, Muhammad, and ending with Leonardo da Vinci, who came in as an honorable mention/near miss. (Remember, this book pre-dates Dan Brown.) Jesus came in #3 on Hart’s list and people I’m ashamed to admit I don’t even recognize fell into the bottom 50. People like Ashoka (#52), Mani (#83) and Niels Bohr (#100).
Of course, Hart might make changes in his list based on the 25 years since his book was published. Steve Jobs, anybody?
In 11th place is Karl Marx, who developed economic theories that became the basis for Communism. Of course, Communism has taken quite a hit since 1987. But at the time the book was written, Communism seemed to have carved out a permanent place in the world economy.
Still, Hart made the point that not all of Marx’s predictions proved to be true; he zeroed in on two. Marx apparently predicted that in capitalist economies:
- working people would become progressively poorer as time went on;
- the middle class would be eliminated, with only a few rising into the capitalist class.
Hart wrote, in 1987, that neither of these predictions about capitalism had proven to be accurate. In 2012, I can only say, “Wow.”
Maybe it’s time to read Das Kapital again, if only to find out what we might be up against as capitalism lurches into at least two of the very pitfalls Karl Marx predicted a century and a half ago.
