Erfurt Programme News Today

The word ‘meritocracy' was used in the 1950s as a warning of a tyranny in which the cleverest, or rather most educated, ruled society and passed on their privilege. That dystopia has now arrived.

Karl Marx (1818-83) and Friedrich Engels (1820-95) viewed the 1789 French Revolution as a symbol of the demise of feudalism and inauguration of a bourgeois society which eventually would be dislodged by the socialist revolution. The idea of apocalyptic change, central to Marxism, came from it.

“I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope... But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody”, said the US political operator James Carville. Under capitalism, capitalists as well as workers are dominated by “the markets”, an entity constructed by humans but which then dominates us. Falling unemployment, for example, is regularly reported as “bad news for markets”.

“I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope... But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody”, said the US political operator James Carville. Under capitalism, capitalists as well as workers are dominated by “the markets”, an entity constructed by humans but which then dominates us. Falling unemployment, for example, is regularly reported as “bad news for markets”.

Written in 1924, this pamphlet charts the development of the Russian and German revolutions, and attempts to point forward from the failure of these two major events, analysing the role of the parties and the trade unions in their respective failures.

Written in 1924, this pamphlet charts the development of the Russian and German revolutions, and attempts to point forward from the failure of these two major events, analysing the role of the parties and the trade unions in their respective failures.