Personal Letter as A tribute to Karl Marx on his

133rd death anniversary

[The Island MIDWEEK Wednesday 27th July 2016]

Dear Karl,
It is not an exaggeration that people in their thousands from every nook and corner of the world
visit the High Gate cemetery in London, where you lay in rest, showing their appreciation and
gratitude for the service you have rendered for the welfare of humanity, honoring your
intelligence, your honesty, your patience, your warm-hearted paternity, your genuine love for
wife Jenny, surviving just at a point above the poverty line, while two of your children were
falling dying one after another by starvation, you continued to serve in the battle against
capitalism with the prime aim to redeem workers and other poor folk from capitalist domination
and exploitation. The workers around the world, in particular, offer you their unreserved
gratitude from March to June every year since your demise in 1883. This brief personal note to
you is an extension of that felicitation.

Dear Karl,
I am writing this in a context when the entire oppressed classes are on the verge of falling from
the pan into the fire. I know for sure that you are not happy about this situation. However, I can
see a trace of pride in your sorrow as you were confident that the suffering man could get out of
the abyss he is in only by following your philosophy and put into practice your political program.
Theres no doubt at all about your vision, Karl. It is certainly correct. Though some have traced
drawbacks of your analysis of capitalism I dont see any fundamental error in it except for a few
negligible human errors. It is not only the workers and some of your middle class' fans' who
believed, and said, that you were absolutely right, but also some who were engaged in bitter
debates with you then would have believed privately that you were not wrong. Also there were
some who ignored you initially but respected your philosophy subsequently (e.g. Jean Paul
Sartre and Jacques Derrida) and started admiring you enormously. Do you know that the number
of adorers of you have become numerically greater today?

Dear Karl,
You are being labeled either as a political theorist, economist, historian, or a philosopher. But I
do not see you from such a compartmentalized perspective. Although all these labels, titles and
identifications suit you, you have gone beyond all of them. Didn't you Karl? Aristotle, Hobbs,
Locke and Machiavelli are political theorists but you dont fall into their category. You are a
political revolutionary. Adam Smith, Maynard Keynes, Richard Lipsey, Michael Friedman are
economists. You dont belong to their lineage either. You are their negation. Auguste Comte,
Durkheim, Weber, Parsons, Giddens are sociologists, but you are none of them. Herodotus,
Buckle, Ratchel, Hegel, Barua and Toynbee are historians in one sense, but, according to your
reading of history, you are different from all of them as none of them saw history as the result of
class conflict; not only had you emphasized that the human history has not yet been written, but
the history that has been written hitherto is the history of the ruling elite. You said, in contrast,

the true human history will be written only after the day that the world is redeemed from the
clutches of the capitalists. Therefore, unlike the historians who presented history in terms of
linearity, or lining up major events, you interpreted history through class conflict and exploited
labor. When history is read from this point of view how come you become a traditional
historian?
Although The Buddha, Mahavira, Confucius, Aquinas Kant, Wittgenstein, Russell,
Radhakrishnan, Heidegger and Derrida were philosophers in a certain sense, you were a
philosopher different from all of them as you saw something that none of them had seen or said.
You wrote in your famous Theses on Feuerbach that ''The philosophers have interpreted the
world in various ways. But the task is to change it''. It was only you who pointed out that
philosophy is not a rational scholastic exercise but it is primarily a moral and political activity
undertaken by one man for the welfare of another.
As you demonstrated philosophy is the enlightened human blend of historical, political,
economic and the social. What I find so amazing is how one could consolidate all these subject
areas within oneself? You smartly and elegantly amalgamated them all in you. Although Plato
was a political philosopher he was the guardian of Greek nobility. Unlike Plato, you were an
open and an ardent enemy of capitalist elitism. Adam Smith was an economist, but he was not a
humanitarian. Leonardo Da Vinci was a man of versatility but he was not a revolutionary. But
you were all of that, and that's what amazes me Karl.

Dear Karl ,
As you probably heard, in the 1960's and 70's about half of the world population had embraced
your thinking. Although we witnessed a few periodical booms in economy what is actually
happening today is the continuous break down of the capitalist system. Every time it collapses no
one resurrects and returns from the grave but you. It proves clearly the significance of your
theories and the precision of your predictions about capitalism. Do you know Karl, due to the
economic downturn between 2008 and 2013, some world leaders like Angela Merkel, Sarkosy,
David Cameron,Obama and many other world leaders, when looking for a way out of the
recession, peeped into your Das Capital as if in a frenzy, but they never read you seriously or
wished to adapt you with due honesty for the reasons obvious. Almost all bankrupt companies
and banks were bailed out by the affected states. But I know as far back as 1862 you disapproved
of bailing out plunging banks and companies by the state with public money.

Dear Karl,
The current situation is much more perilous than it was in 2008. Capitalism today has
irretrievably fallen into the abyss as you had accurately predicted hundred and fifty years ago.
The signs of capitalism's inevitable doom are appearing in every direction as you rightly foresaw.
How many times the capitalist economy has collapsed since great economic recession of the

1930 s? But, every time it collapses, it resurrects by some means. Then it breaks down again but
revives soon; it bursts at some point afresh but gets it welded together again. That is how
capitalism has dragged on since your death in 1883 to this date. You said a century and half ago
that, ''the companies produce, produce and produce more and more, but there wont be customers
to purchase their produce''. This is exactly what has happened today. There are no markets; no
new bonds. The real estate market fell in 2008 because of this unregulated and unlimited
'production craziness'. Consequently, the inequality will cause the fall of income, you said. You
also pronounced that this would prompt borrowing. Because of these mechanisms, capitalism
cannot survive too long, you predicted. It is happening right before our eyes, and capitalism is on
its last breaths. Don't you happy to hear this Karl?

Dear Karl,
As you anticipated the breakdown of capitalism has now quickened. Every department of the
capitalist mechanism such as retail trade, whole sale market, loan market, banking system,
monetary system, are all crumbling down. Multi millionaires like George Soros and The World
Bank and The IMF, the chief guardians of the capitalist system, have confessed openly that
capitalism is going through its worst critical phase at present.
The Financial Times, a capitalist newspaper, summed up this crisis in three words capitalism is
in convolution. The centre cannot hold. All falls apart. All thaws and melts. I remember,
referring to capitalism, you stated in 'The Communist Manifesto, that Everything solid will melt
into the air'. This is what is happening now. What you said in 1848 has been proved true by now.
Except for you, no other sociologist could tell us what was happening, what is happening at
present and what should be done to save the man and the world, but you have done that all, and
done that to the maximum point of exactitude. But, Karl, people are running crazily behind the
mirage of capitalism. However, there should be an end to this chase and there should also be
gasping. To report you the truth capitalism today is on the props. As I mentioned elsewhere in
this letter it is taking its last breaths.

Dear Karl,
As the top epitaph of your gravestone bears your famous slogan ' Workers of all lands unite'', let
me update you on the workers' struggles as well. In a sense, it is the same as in your time.
Theres no lack of workers struggles. Struggles, struggles and struggles almost everywhere.
Some workers work only for four hours. Some have shot themselves to death. Do not be shocked
Karl. Some fathers, unable to feed their family have killed the entire family. Some of them took
poison. Forgive me for reminding this, even your two children died because of poverty.
Those days you said that capitalism could not survive without throwing the workers out of their
jobs. Since 2008, up to now millions of workers have lost their jobs. This is because there are no
limits or boundaries to the greed of capitalists. The crisis has aggravated to the maximum. But

despite the fact that there are demonstrations, agitations, strikes etc, they do not end by winning
the demands. Very often strikes end with betrayals. There are no workers today with the caliber
of Chicago Hey Market workers who won the 8 hour-working day rights in 1886 sacrificing their
lives.
I do not want to tire you, or make you angry, by bringing to your notice the percentages of
poverty stricken countries from all over the world. However, you have shown yourself in your
masterpiece Das Capital that data are the doors to reality and hence is this updating. Out of the
total working class population in the world, 375 million earn only $ 1.25 per day while 839
million earn only $ 2.00 per day. According to the journal The Habitat [2015] 100 million
families do not have a house to live. About two billion families have only some form of shelter
but not houses. Millions of people are being sacked from jobs while the unemployment soaring
sky high. Following the economic collapse of 2008/9, unemployment of youth, in general, went
up by 14 %. Unemployment of youth in the Middle East is 27%. Unemployment in Asia too is a
big economic and political issue.
Karl, having studied closely the capitalism at your time, you made a prediction that due to
competition, small companies and medium-level enterprises in the future consolidating into
multi-national companies will ultimately form mega companies. This prediction of yours has
proved true today and they come under the name Global Cooperate Capitalism. Capitalism
having originated amongst a few industrialists in the 19th century has concentrated today in the
hands of a few persons. You identified this process as The Theory of Centralization and
Concentration of Capital but emphasized that capitalism will not have any escape from this as
long as the inherent historical contradiction between the forces and relations of production
persists. The increasing degeneration of the newly emerged Global Cooperate Capitalism shows
that you have been right there as well. It is no longer the land-owning-cum industrial wealthy
group the guardians of capitalism today but a few technological billionaires such as Bill
Gates,(Microsoft) Steve Jobs (Apple), Mark Zuckerburg, (Face Book), They have become role
models of the new generation. Christian Freeland published a book-length study on them in 2012
entitled Plutocrats: The rise of the new global super-rich and the fall of everyone else; worth
reading it Karl if you get a free time. This work explains with examples the internal mechanism
in The Law of Concentration & Centralization that you presented. You proved that you were
right in every book you had written. This is why, Karl, many others (e.g. Terry Eagleton & Alex
Callinicos) and I strongly believe that you have been correct and accurate right through out.
Every time capitalism sinks, it is you who emerge prominent and you who shine brighter. Am I
being a bit too sentimental Karl? But this is the truth.

Dear Karl,
It is really surprising how you have predicted the deterioration of capitalism and the measures it
would be taking to protect itself.
1.At a time when classical economic theory had shown competition as a normal thing and as
something self sufficient, you argued in the 1860's that power of the market would be centralized
through monopolizing companies. When you emphasized this, the economic pandits at that
time may have mocked saying who is this crazy fellow? But your reading has been true today.
Small businesses have been shut down while Nike, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart- and such
multinational companies and supermarket chains flourish having grabbing their retail businesses.
Not only the small banks but also big ones like Morgan Chase have been made inactive while
considerable number of small farm-yards has been made redundant by the multinational
companies like Archer Daniels, Midland and Nestle.
2.'Over production' was one of your favorite topics. How many times did you write in Capital,
and elsewhere too, that due to over- production capitalism will have to look for new markets all
over the world? Also you wrote; the greed of capitalists forces them to get stabilized
everywhere. Although you did not use the word 'globalization when explaining the process as
far back as in 1848, what is being practiced today and what we see happening today is exactly
this. I am proud of you not because you foresaw the pathetic trajectory of capitalism but because
you did it with dead accuracy. Terry Eagleton, the contemporary English defender of your
philosophy recently demonstrated this in his book Why Marx was Right? [2014]. I believe you
read it.
3.In your time labour meant physical labour. But, the physical sense of labour is no longer
crucial or prominent. It has been digitalized and defined differently from physical labor. Silicon
Valley in the USA is the central location where labour is exploited through digital means. Such
locations have now been established everywhere. Therefore, you have been right; you said that
the capitalist will exploit labor by using every possible means. Today it is happening via
digitalization (e.g. Amazon, Apple, and Google). But the digital 'laborers' think they are different
from the sweating physical laborers as 'digital' technicians think the labor they scatter is technical
and intellectual. But you clearly and categorically defined the labourer thus. 'Whoever is a
wage earner, he or she is a laborer. But ' the digital-laborer-'gentlemen' are not happy, or ready
to accept, that tough they are on the monthly wage payroll or receive wages fortnightly. These
poor digital gentlemen are not aware that new digital technology squeezes an ounce more out of
their muscles and brains to fatten the profit of Bill Gates and other computer tycoons.
4.You also said in the mid-19th century that capitalism would create commodity fetishism in the
consumer. Quite true Karl. Its maximum expression can be seen in contemporary capitalism.
What is it then, if it is not the commodity fetishism which creates craziness in the consumer to
chase behind the most refined and attractive new products flooding the market every year? Is it

not commodity fetishism that the consumers trying hard to bye, for example, iphone5 at its
launch or its first introduction into the market? Although the habit of running behind
commodities existed within pre-capitalist consumerism, it is capitalism which tempted the
consumers to chase after goods and commodities until they fall down exhausted.

Dear Karl,
Your trenchant descriptions of capitalist accumulation and your critical penetration into its
practice were based on and ignited by your original and radical theses. I hope you have not
forgotten them because we haven't. Let me remind you the most poignant and accredited few.
1. Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations
within which these individuals stand.
2. The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
3. The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones,. They are the real individuals, their
activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already
existing and those produced by their activity.
4. The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.
5. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social
being that determines their consciousness.
6. Religion is the opium of people.
All your statements quoted here are undoubtedly original and very thought provoking but I wish
to end this letter with an observation you made when you were a just 17 year old youth.
'' If a person works only for himself, and ignores this great goal assigned to him, he can
perhaps be a famous scholar, a great wise man, a distinguished poet but never a
complete, genuinely great man. (Reflections of a Youth on the Choice of an
Occupation).
You are being offered with felicitations like these because you lived your life until your death in
1883 according to the statement you made at the age of seventeen, which had a big impact on my
life too.
Yours, Sincerely
Desmond [Mallikarachchi],
University of Peradeniya
Sri Lanka
wasanthimanik@yahoo.com