Chapter 3
Karl Marx – the fallen hero?
‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’
Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875
Karl Marx. Just say his name and almost any listener will immediately conjure up a package of images and thoughts. The famous image of his heavily-bearded face; as the founder of communism; his book Das Kapital; the waves of fellow-travellers happy to call themselves Marxists; the Marxist regimes of the 20th century; his tomb in Highgate Cemetery, north London. None of the other nine economists in this book will prompt such a strong and immediate reaction.
One reason is that Marx was not an economist, or at least not just an economist. He was also a philosopher, linguist, revolutionary, ...
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