"I'll be most readers - most educated readers - would find vol. 1 of Capital pretty rough going. And that was the vol. that Marx finished."
I found it hard to understand (in fact I thought he was making it all up) until I had my first job. Then, putting together what I was doing on the job (and what it was doing to me) made Capital very clear.
"He didn't just observe. He linked his observations to a theory, and the theory illuminated his observations. Even the most anti-theoretical person operates with some kind of implicit theory. Why the hostility to making it explicit?"
It's not "theory" that's the problem; the problem is compulsive theorizing, the formulaic, claustrophobic verbiage it seems to depend on nowadays, and the belief that without theory there can be neither truth nor dignity. The rigor of Marx's work and thought is simply unmatched by professional academic theory. As to his courage...they wish....
Joanna