this is a post about being right about capitalism. would that, if it were true, make him not right about capitalism
but also uh.
The “Marx hated Jews” thing comes from the fact that he wrote an essay titled “On The Jewish Question.”
That phrasing raises alarm bells because we associate the term “The Jewish Question” with Nazis, but it was just the way issues like this were phrased within these philosophical circles. And honestly even beyond that it’s more of a translation convention than anything else. You could just as easily have translated that title as “Regarding the Matter of Jews.”
The essay is actually a response to another philosopher named Bauer, who claimed that Jews would only be liberated if they stopped being Jewish, because true emancipation requires secularism. The essays Marx is responding to are blatantly antisemitic, even by late-19th century standards. Bauer was arguing that Jews who wanted liberation from oppression were basically asking for “special privileges,” (in an argument that bears some similarity to modern concepts of “reverse racism”) and implying that Jews aren’t even oppressed because they control the economy.
Marx’s “On The Jewish Question” is basically him saying Bauer is dumb and wrong and antisemitic, and he’s being deeply sarcastic for most of the essay.
He does so by throwing Bauer’s antisemitism back in his face, by using a series of antisemitic arguments about how the real religion of the Jew is money and huckstering, and so if you want to abolish Judaism, you’d have to abolish economic exploitation. He’s responding directly to Bauer’s use of antisemitic tropes about how Jews control the economy. He’s using Bauer’s own antisemitic framework to prove Bauer wrong.
This also goes back to the conflict between Marx and the rest of the Young Hegelians (which Bauer was). He was constantly criticizing them for being too idealistic and abstract, rather than focusing on material realities. His argument here was “You’re framing ‘the Jewish Question’ as if it’s a theological problem, but it’s not. It’s a political and economic one.” Because he was Karl Marx and that was his whole thing.
I really don’t understand how anyone reads this essay as anything but sarcasm. I get that some of it is probably lost in translation, but the context makes it really clear that Marx is making fun of Bauer. The idea of Jews giving up their religion would have been deeply personal to Marx. He would have understood exactly what it meant for Jews to give up their religion, and how that was an act of oppression rather than liberation from it. Also, Marx and Bauer had already split by the time this essay was written, and they kind of hated each other. Marx wrote a lot of responses to/criticisms of Bauer, and he called Bauer a “right wing fanatic” multiple times.
Like, what’s actually more likely here?
Option 1: Karl Marx, a Jewish man, wrote one essay that is totally at odds with all his other analysis on the nature of oppression to be rabidly antisemitic and then basically never discussed the subject again?
Option 2: Karl Marx, a Jewish man and a well-known lover of pettiness and drama, wrote an incredibly sarcastic essay making fun of a raging antisemite that he already he didn’t like?
I like this addition. Funny how capitalism, antisemitism and right to exist just hasn’t changed in the last 200 years since this German economist’s time.
That passage about the Suez Canal wasn’t written by Marx, it was written by a Marxist economist named David Harvey in 2003. And that’s kinda the whole point that people who say 'Marx failed to predict _______’ are missing, isn’t it? As Mao put it,
'When we say Marxism is correct, it is certainly not because Marx was a “prophet” but because his theory has been proved correct in our practice and in our struggle. We need Marxism in our struggle. In our acceptance of his theory no such formalisation of mystical notion as that of “prophecy” ever enters our minds.’
Yes, a lot of what he said about capitalism in the 1800s is still relevant today, sometimes in ways one might not expect, because we still live under capitalism. But you could easily say that Marx (and Engels) failed to predict the Russian Revolution, failed to predict that the first socialist state in history (that lasted more than a few weeks, anyway) was established in what was then the Russian Empire, just as easily as you could say he 'failed to predict’ anything else. But the people who carried out that revolution, and who established that state, or any other socialist state in history, didn’t think see it that way. Because the point is not that he got everything right, but that the analytical methods that he developed, dialectical and historical materialism, are correct, and lead to a correct understanding of what forces shape societies, and only by using those methods could the revolutionaries understand their situation, succeed in overthrowing their oppressors, and establish socialism.
The part about Marx’s supposed antisemitism is more or less correct though, it’s a ridiculous, willful misunderstanding based in total ignorance of history, and anyone who repeats it is either themselves antisemitic or is willing to listen to antisemites, yes even if they are Jewish.
Last couple additions are all correct, just adding though that during the Cold War anticommunists liked to selectively quote that essay in a bad faith effort to smear Marx as antisemitic. Somewhere I have a copy of a 1950s reprint of the essay with the parts that sound worst out of context bolded and underlined, so if you skim through it you get the opposite impression of what Marx intended. So basically people who go “wasn’t Marx an antisemite though? 🤔” are (whether they know if or not) trying to sell you on lukewarm propaganda from 50 years ago.
Adult ProTip, from a security professional: If a kid tells you, “My parents are gonna kill me / kick my ass / kick me out” for something relatively minor, don’t respond with shit like “Really? ;) that sounds a little extreme, don’t you think sweetie?” because that shit really does happen.
Instead, respond as though whatever threat they are afraid of is fully valid, and offer whatever you can do to help- ask if they believe they are in danger of being hurt in any way, and work accordingly.
If they’re overreacting, they’ll usually realize and dial it back, self-correct and begin thinking a bit more rationally.
If they’re not overreacting, and the danger is real, then they’ll need a level-headed adult in their corner, not another condescending authority figure who doesn’t believe them.
Here’s to the people who weren’t abused by their parents, but whose parents sucked anyways. Here’s to people whose parents fucked up raising you out of ignorance and not malice. Here’s to the kids whose parents didn’t know what to do with you so they did nothing at all. Here’s to people whose parents are getting better and growing as people but still hurt you. Here’s to every mean comment that wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t come from your mom; here’s to awkward family dinners because you’re all trying to forget;
here’s to you, survivor of a thousand ‘not as bad as it could have been’ hurts. I see you. You aren’t alone.
