Spectres on Channel 4 News
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Karl Marx was mentioned several times on Channel 4 news in the context of the Bank of England governor's speech at Liverpool John Moores University the other night. I haven't seen the BBC make the same reference.
This is the full text of his speech for our economists..
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2016/speech946.pdf
It is interesting that Carney should refer to the present decade "as the first lost decade since the 1860s" by which he means a period during which real wages fell. The table he gives on page 5 vindicates Marx of the charge that he distorted what Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, had told the House of Commons in 1863. Marx, on the basis of newspaper reports, quoted him as saying that only the propertied classes had benefited from the prosperity of the preceding years. Gladstone, it seems, had second thoughts about saying this and had the passage in Hansard changed. But look at that graph. It shows real wages falling in the ten years before Gladstone's speech. So his orginial statement was right and Marx was right to pick up on it. This has now been confirmed by the Governor of the Bank of England himself.
And Karl Marx was scribbling in the British Library, warning of a spectre haunting Europe, the spectre of communism. Actually spectre haunting Europe was from the communist manifesto that I thought was ‘written’ at Chetham's Library in Manchester. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetham's_Library Although I have noticed that his name seems to be popping up with increasing regularity recently in strange places and from unexpected people. Just as an example first google search item on Paul Craig Roberts and Marx, but it is perhaps fortunately interesting one, on content, but not I think atypical Where are Marx and Lenin when we need them? By Paul Craig Roberts Marx and Lenin were ahead of their time. Marx wrote before offshoring of jobs and the financialization of the economy. Lenin presided over a communist revolution that jumped the gun by taking place in a country in which feudal elements still predominated over capitalism. In 21st century America capitalism has been unfettered from the regulations that democratized it and made it serve society. Today capitalism is being financialized with the consequence that its productive power is being drained into the service of debt………. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/04/08/where-are-marx-and-lenin-when-we-need-them-paul-craig-roberts/ We could analyse that short statement I think? On the plus side he seems to acknowledge with a jumping the gun thing an almost stagiest interpretation; so in that sense alone he is ahead of most vulgar Marxists. We know of course that Lenin never said he was presiding over a communist revolution and they made it quite clear, including Trotsky at the time, that they were presiding over a [state] capitalist revolution. Incidentally on our stuff on the subject that was linked elsewhere I think we should avoid being dupes to Ted Grants response to Cliff, and Cliff, by seeming to take it seriously. And; If Comrade Cliff’s thesis is correct, that state capitalism exists in Russia today, then he cannot avoid the conclusion that state capitalism has been in existence since the Russian Revolution and the function of the revolution itself was to introduce this state capitalist system of society. http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm The magic circle of Trot intellectuals all knew what was in; (Left wing childishness and the petty-bourgeois mentality, Collected Works, Volume 27, page 335) [source] http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm In which Lenin said quite clearly and unequivocally in 1918 that “function of the revolution itself was to introduce this [a] state capitalist system of society. Ted included a pointless and irrelevant quote from that same article, of all articles from Lenin, in his so called anti state capitalist thesis for several probable reasons. 1] Don’t play the clever dick with me Cliff with your I had a dream and realised Russia became state capitalist in 1928 shit, we all [Trot intellectuals] know it was state capitalism from the start. 2] Blow the story and try and look clever and I will make you look as stupid as you are trying to make us look. In the ted grant memorial speech by Woods he said; "You know, Ted sometimes said to me that he didn't know why Lenin and Trotskywrote so many books. Nobody reads them and if they do they don't understand the ideas!" http://www.marxist.com/revolutionary-ted-grant-memorial-meeting.htm Ted was correct; nobody even bothered to read the rest of (Left wing childishness and the petty-bourgeois mentality, Collected Works, Volume 27, page 335) [source] When it was cited in and even helpfully linked in the internet age. I must have been one of the few living individuals who read Left wing childishness and the petty-bourgeois mentality before I read Grants reposte. I almost read past it and then came to a skidding halt and then had a good long laugh when I ‘got it’; as I am sure my magic circle of Trot intellectuals like even Cliff did. It is like what is the worst possible essay of Lenin you could mention in an anti-state capitalist thesis? It is certainly a candidate for number one. Number 2 would probably be from 1922; https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm Grant and Woods slotted did it in again another inappropriate quotation from that when they revisited it in 1969 in another seminal anti state capitalist tract in 1969. Going back to Dr Roberts; Today capitalism is being financialized with the consequence that its productive power is being drained into the service of debt………. Actually Karl did talk about that with his tentative profiteers of enterprise and interest bearing capitalist theories or predictions in volume III.
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