Karl Marx - 200 Years On - Professor Gareth Stedman Jones

To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx (5 May 1818) and 150 years since Das Kapital was published in 1867, the lecture will explore the possible affinity between Marxs work in human history and Darwins in natural history. Enthusiasm for Darwin was shared by successive generations of Communists but Marxs conception of a natural human being was different.

In the new political and intellectual climate, Marx viewed competition as a product, not of the struggle for existence, but of private property and commercial society.

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

[syourke]

This is serious intellectual history. Very rare nowadays.

[JohnLandau-hg]

Professor Jones does not mention the enormous influence on Marx of the English philosopher and novelist William Godwin, who was the first thinker to argue that societird lsws and institutions were intended to protect the interests of the ruling class, not to protect the interests of what the English called the "common people"-- meaningthe working class and the peasantry, Godwin contended the laws of England and all other nations were designed to keep common people in subjection, not to protect or benefit tham. During Marx's long stays in the British Museums reading room. I believe it to be very probable that he read Godwin's treatise on political economy. Certainly his writings on the subject of class struggle reflects Godwin's ideas.

[ik]

The material conception of history is not deterministic, both Engels and the people working on the MEGA2 actively combated that popular misconception. So did Marxists from Bernstein to Trotsky. The idea of making a determinism out of it comes from Karl Kautsky, the most important Marxist thinker of the generation between Engels and Lenin.

[nickhomyak]

Wow; how many people can even listen or understand this brilliance of study and expression of explanation..Why i am a Marxist..

[WorthlessWinner]

I didn't think i could dislike Marx any more than I did but hearing him reject science because it didn't fit his political views has done just that