The revolutionary impact of Karl Marx's Das Kapital
in the twentieth century belies the fact that Marx was born 200 years
ago into a comfortable bourgeois world – like Queen Victoria, he married
into the German nobility – and had little experience of the working
class. An invitation to Buckingham Palace to discuss matters of common
concern, including the woes brought by industry, might have saved the
world a lot of trouble. Certainly, Marx would have charmed the Queen, as
he did practically everyone else, in private. Only in his intellectual
life was he a ruthless revolutionary.
To Marx, workers are outcasts, discriminated against, exploited,
deprived of their freedom, debased by forces beyond their control. His
rage against capitalist predators is most bitter where the victims are
young. In page after devastating page of Kapital, particularly in
the chapter on “The Working Day”, he attacks child labour in England:
in agriculture, in the millinery, lace, pottery, baking, blacksmithing
and wallpaper trades; in dangerous and unhealthy factories, in the foul
business of making matches, in the spinning mills, and in steel and
iron, among others. Other countries, including Germany, the United
States, France and Austria, are no better. Like a biblical prophet
scourging those who hurt and exploit the defenceless widow and orphan,
Marx condemns factory owners: cannibal-like, they devour the workers. ... [mehr] https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/blind-outrage-das-kapital/
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen