Marx on the US
Karl Marx was not only a connoisseur of American politics, but also an ardent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party. Like thousands of Germans, by the way, the so-called Forty-Eighters - those "forty-eights" who fled to America after the failure of the German Revolution in 1848/49 and later, in the civil war, sided with the party for the liberation of slaves and its president.
"Work in white skin cannot emancipate itself where it is branded in black skin," Marx wrote to Lincoln.
Today that excitement would give way to horror. Because the party for the liberation of slaves, in which German socialists were once active, has long since become the party of the former slave owners, in which racists have also found a political home.
How would Karl Marx explain Donald Trump's victory? Marx would have looked at the economic substructure of society and tried to explain the actions of the actors, and here in particular the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, from their economic interests.
“Interest does not think, it calculates. The motives are his numbers”, wrote Marx as early as 1842 in the “Debates on the Law on theft of wood”.
As a critic of political economy, Marx may have first analyzed how the capitalist mode of production has changed in recent decades. For while certain basic elements - such as the drive for profit as the engine of the economy - define capitalism, there are nevertheless very different forms of capital accumulation nowadays.
As a historian and politician, Marx would have taken the next step and ruthlessly dissected the pitiful state of American democracy. He would have referred to the exuberant influence of big money, to which politics in Washington is increasingly subject, and to the associated erosion of democracy.
And Marx must have dealt intensively with the fact that both parties, Republicans and Democrats, primarily have the interests of the American bourgeoisie in mind. In the words of Gore Vidal:
“There is only one party in the United States, the ownership party. And it has two wings: republican and democratic.”
"Work in white skin cannot emancipate itself where it is branded in black skin," Marx wrote to Lincoln.
Today that excitement would give way to horror. Because the party for the liberation of slaves, in which German socialists were once active, has long since become the party of the former slave owners, in which racists have also found a political home.
How would Karl Marx explain Donald Trump's victory? Marx would have looked at the economic substructure of society and tried to explain the actions of the actors, and here in particular the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, from their economic interests.
“Interest does not think, it calculates. The motives are his numbers”, wrote Marx as early as 1842 in the “Debates on the Law on theft of wood”.
As a critic of political economy, Marx may have first analyzed how the capitalist mode of production has changed in recent decades. For while certain basic elements - such as the drive for profit as the engine of the economy - define capitalism, there are nevertheless very different forms of capital accumulation nowadays.
As a historian and politician, Marx would have taken the next step and ruthlessly dissected the pitiful state of American democracy. He would have referred to the exuberant influence of big money, to which politics in Washington is increasingly subject, and to the associated erosion of democracy.
And Marx must have dealt intensively with the fact that both parties, Republicans and Democrats, primarily have the interests of the American bourgeoisie in mind. In the words of Gore Vidal:
“There is only one party in the United States, the ownership party. And it has two wings: republican and democratic.”
