...Yet, it seems, the edges of Karl Marx's lips are beginning to twitch again in Europe as fresh attempts are made to reanimate his ideas. Marx should not be held accountable for those who acted on his (often contradictory) analysis, his latter-day supporters claim. Besides, it is wrong to equate Marxist theory with communist practice. As Marx himself declared, he was not a Marxist. It would be as unfair to blame Marx for the excesses committed in his name, they claim, as it would be to condemn Jesus for the evils of the Spanish inquisition.
The latest surge of globalisation, which is in so many ways reminiscent of the era in which Marx lived, has undoubtedly led to renewed interest in his critique of capitalism. Globalisation may be lifting millions of people out of absolute poverty, but it has also led to startling divergences in relative wealth. How can it be, as a United Nations report recently estimated, that the richest 2 per cent of the world's adult population own more than 50 per cent of global assets while the poorest 50 per cent own only 1 per cent? How can one understand capital without Das Kapital?
"Far from being buried under the rubble of the Berlin Wall, Marx may only now be emerging in his true significance. He could yet become the most influential thinker of the twenty-first century," Francis Wheen, his British biographer, concludes in a recent essay on Das Kapital.
The eloquent Mr Wheen even helped to persuade BBC listeners that Marx was the most important philosopher of all time in a radio poll conducted last year.
Across the Channel, Marx has never really gone out of fashion - even if Marxist ideas have become an internalised rhetorical reflex among politicians more than a meaningful programme for action.
François Bayrou, the leader of the centrist UDF party, argues that the French left has never been properly demarxisée. Just look at the 2002 presidential elections in which two rival Trotskyist candidates, the head of the Communist party of France, and the leader of the Revolutionary Communist League won 17 per cent of the vote between them in the first round.
Much of the rhetoric from mainstream French politicians ahead of next year's presidential elections has a decidedly Marxist ring to it.
Ségolène Royal, the presidential candidate of the opposition Socialist party, constantly talks about the need to rebalance capital and labour declaring it is her intention to "frighten the capitalists". Even Nicolas Sarkozy, the presidential contender from the ostensibly centre-right ruling UMP party, rails against "rogue bosses" who pay themselves obscene bonuses while shifting jobs offshore.
One prominent socialist politician says that the new class divide in France and elsewhere in the developed world is between the rich - including most French people - and the super-rich.
This new globalised "aristocracy" of financiers, industrialists and policymakers now spans the globe preaching "market fundamentalism". Its members have more allegiances to each other than to any nation state. While telling their employees that job insecurity, reduced welfare benefits and lower salaries are the condition of the modern world, they don golden parachutes to protect themselves from failure.
Jacques Attali, the polymath French financier, has also been busily buffing up Marx's reputation as a prophet of our globalised times. In a recent biography of Marx, Mr Attali argues that the 19th century philosopher still has much to teach us about the nature of capitalism, the shocks that modernisation inflicts on traditional societies, the rise of competitive individualism and the spread of insecurity.
According to Mr Attali, Marx answers questions that are only now being asked. It is only in our days that we can see Marx in his true light, unencumbered by his association with the experience of communism...
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