You may not subscribe to Marx's political principles related to revolution but you cannot reject outright his economic principles related to mass exploitation. The contradictions that Marx pointed out in the functioning of capitalism have been proved to be correct and so have been his predictions related to the concentration of wealth in the hands of large corporations and the consequent ever-widening economic disparity between the rich and the poor. Whether that will necessarily lead to revolution or not in each case is a matter of conjecture and will largely depend as well on the scientific revolution of the morrow, but one thing we all owe to Marx and that is the manner in which he has systematically highlighted the gluttony of the rich and the operational mode of the drainage of people's wealth. Those who differ with his means of redressing this exploitative evil may suggest their respective methods of arriving at a more humane socioeconomic structure where disparities are reduced largely and life made immensely more bearable, nay, even more enjoyable an experience for all, but even they will hardly discredit Marx for all his seminal contributions to human thought and their potential application for the betterment of human living everywhere as yet.
Let us then study Marx and Marxism intelligently and with care instead of foolishly castigating him for all the follies and excesses of his revolutionary successors in dastardly deeds and so casting him away to our own detriment. Remember, Marx is as yet pertinent and shall remain so for the times to come, for exploitation will ever meet its foe in Marxian revolutionary thinking and action thereof. In this Marx remains forever the friend of the fettered, the hope of the hopeless and the sympathiser of the suffering. He will ever remain the people's pilgrim in search of the societal state where exploitation has been rooted out. He has only partially but significantly succeeded in the past and his future campaigns may also meet with a like fate but he will continue to fashion future economics with his Marxian touch and continue to influence mass movements struggling for a better deal for the dispossessed.
Marx is not dead, neither Marxism. He lives on in the imagination of the exploited as they toil and suffer the ignominies of life under capitalism and think out measures how to revolve out into freedom. For them Marx provides the bread of life and his 'Das Capital' and 'The Communist Manifesto' the rays of hope in the dark dungeon of their despicable lives.
Long live humanity ! Long live revolution !
Written by Sugata Bose
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