What more appropriate event could you pick
for the 200th anniversary of the birth of
Karl Marx than the May Day?
Here we are, on the May Day march in Edinburgh,
and Karl Marx famously said,
"Workers of the world unite!"
And this is the day, May Day,
when the workers of the world unite in solidarity.
Not just to pursue the goals of today, but
to remember the man, who was born 200 years
ago, in Trier in Germany.
Karl Marx is one of the most influential men
in history. Left an indelible mark, not just
on politics and political science but he is
the representative of "scientific socialism".
Marx was a beneficiary of the enlightenment,
believed in rational ideas and he took the
philosophy of Hegel, the dialectical philosophy
of Hegel, melded it with the Greek philosophy
of Materialism and gave us Marxism as we know
it today - which is an interpretation not just
of the world, but of Capitalism.
And he wrote a famous book - people will have
heard of - he wrote The Communist Manifesto.
But perhaps his longest-lasting legacy and
his most important book was "Das Kapital".
Which was a critique of Capitalism. It was
an examination of Capitalism, an examination
of where profits came from and it's conclusion
was:
"Profits are the unpaid labour of working people".
And if you like, on a day like today,
Karl Marx can be regarded as a founder of
the labour movement.
That capitalism had to be replaced by a better
system - one based on need, one based on socialist
ideas, socialist principles - where everybody
in the world was provided for.
And you have to say in the 21st Century, those
ideas have more relevance they've ever been,
in a world that's more unequal than it's ever
been. And people in Edinburgh, Scotland, Britain
- the world over - are exploited by big corporations
and a lot of the ideas that Karl Marx wrote
about, while he was studying in the British
Library in 1840s, 50s and 60s - are more relevant
now than they've ever been.
That's why his ideas are relevant, and that's
why he's remembered 200 years after his birth.
