What Did Marx Stand For?

In the discussion at the meeting there was alot of support for the idea of an unemployed centre. Attention was drawn to the increasing resistance among workers to the cutbacks and redundancies. Occupations in Kerry, Cork and Dublin marked a fighting mood among working people and this was giving confidence to those out of ark. The self-organisation 1employed was now ‘areal possibility. ty At alse level there was a clear desire among those present to continue as an organised group.

Afollow-up meeting held on April 6 drew up concrete plans for pushing forward the idea of an unemployed centre and building a Limerick contingent for the Peoples March for Jobs. This year marks the centenary He saw the possibility of of the death of Karl Marx. As we would expect there has been a flood of newspaper articles and television programmes marked by ignorance of, and prejudice against, what Marx said, wrote and fought for. To the media he was at best an eccentric dreamer, at worst a fanatic whose ideas have been used to bring half the world under the totalitarian dictatorships of Russia and China. While many Irish anti-imperialof marxism t e socialist republic.

Perhaps the most important thing Marx said was :

Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it.’ He believed that there was nothing natural about capitalism and workers could and should change it. building a new socialist society humanity. How else could we where the fantastic technology explain the death of millions created by industrialisation could be used, not to create more profits for capitalists, but for the good of all humanity.

SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM But Marx was not only a philosopher. In ‘Das Kapital’ his greatest work, he put forward ascientific explanation of what was .wrong with capitalism that no right wing econom- that the mess humanity was in ist has been able to refute since was not due to ‘human nature’ e relevance He showed that economic crises - with mass unemployment, falling living standards, poverty and starvation - were not just ‘hiccups’ of the system. but part and parcel of it As long as the rule of profit endured the working class would tation alto be expected to bear the brunt numbers -of crises and recessions. He showed too the inbuilt injustice country- and because of its of a system where creating profit for the few, from the labours of the many, came before the basic needs of from malnutrition while billions is spent on nuclear weapons? Or the mass unemployment that exists while plant machinery and resources lie idle that could be used to build houses, schools or hospitals?

THE ROLE OF THE WORKING CLASS ‘Das Kapital’ used philosophy, economics and politics to show or ‘greed’ but the capitalist system. Yet this system had created the instrument for its own destruction - the working class. The working class has no stake in the present society: its interests lie in abolishing exploi- of all workers and oppressed.

the population in almost every spontaneously be able to economic : ‘and operator of all wealth, (in the factories, mines and other workplaces), it is the only force which can destroy capitalism.

In ‘The Communist Manifesto’ written in 1848, Marx explained not only why the working class should fight for socialism, but how they could do it. For Marx was not only a man of theory, all be it revolutionary theory, he was also a man of action, whose lifelong involvement in working class struggles led him to unity, womens rights and th look at how workers should organise against oppression, Marx asserted that the workers would lead the fight for a new socialist society. In doing so they day class stru must unite all those oppressed and downtrodden by the system.

He argued for the creation of a Communist Party that would organise and lead the struggles gether. Because of its This was necessary because the vast majority of the working class would not overthrow the capitalist ras the creator system - they would need to prepare and plan their attack.

That is why Marx saw the need for a programme for tt socialist revolution in which all those who fought capitalism could combine their energies and thus stren gthen their fight. This was necessary to counter the divisions created by capitali: int he working class. There could be no watering down the working class demands -it should stand in defence o rights of oppressed nations.

MARXISM No-one involved in the pres , be it in tr land or else ,candeny the relevance of the system of ideas developed by Marx. Marxism is not only a way EC socialists in their fight to development of the Irish revolutionary movement.

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