> What do you think Marx meant by this prediction? If he was wrong, was he
>stupid to have predicted it? If he wasn't stupid, but was nevertheless wrong,
>what transpired that was different from his prediction?
I think it's absolutely wrong - alienation and all - to say the worker of 2000 is worse off than the worker of 1850, by any objective or subjective measure. What happened was that real wages rose, the standards of health and education rose, gender relations became more egalitarian - in no small part because the political movements inspired by Marx and other radicals forced these changes. Left to their own devices, the capitalists certainly wouldn't have conferred a better life on the masses.
Doug