Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Karl Marx was a German ethnic Jew philosopher-lawyer exiled to London for his political writing in the middle of the 19^th Century. He had a nervous disorder and insomnia, and his physical ailments and discomfort probably explain his caustic personality, euphemistically known as “critical theory.” He named all four of his daughters after his wife, Jenny; had a child by his housekeeper; and nicknames for everything. Oddness is often associated with brilliance, and though his work was not recognized in life, within half a Century of his death Karl Marx was the most influential ghost in the world.

Marx was originally a economic classical liberal per Adam Smith but became influenced by the collectivist philosophies of Hegel & Rousseau. After meeting wealthy socialist Friedrich Engels, they collaborated to create his seminal work, The Communist Manifesto, a rehashing of Equalist ideology with some naive predictions and improbable economic ideas mixed in. Marx believed Capitalism was responsible for the overthrow of feudalism but that it would eventually cause unacceptable wealth concentration and disparity, alienating the vast majority of the population so that a communist revolution would inevitably occur; he was right except that communism in practice turned out to be subject to even worse exploitation. Marx's fame is completely out of proportion to his intellectual contribution because his ideas appeal to people who want to overturn the status quo.