Letter: Marx didn't want to explain society, he wanted to change it

Cassidy says "After Marx's death, governments in industrialised countries introduced reforms" - which he lists - "to improve the living standards of working people". They didn't. Every single betterment was wrung from the rich throughstruggle by the people themselves. None was freely given.

Today, with the immediate threat of organised world Communism apparently gone, Marx can at last be openly taken up and used by the West for its own ends. That is, big business thinks it can avoid all the catastrophe he foresaw by reading him first. However, it wouldn't matter if all socialist traditions were safely withered away; capitalism, as Marx himself predicted, would still constantly recreate its own enemies. This is a "system" which works best for those at the top. Everyone else has to suffer the side-effects of greed, poverty, racism, pollution and war. Communism is no more dead in the world than Christianity was in the Soviet Union.

Predictable words from the left, you think, but the attempt to hijack Marx - to use him to help foretell when and where the next spot of trouble will arise and wipe it out before it ever happens - is also to be predicted.

Mark Abraham

Manchester