Why Marx Was Right

by Terry Eagleton

truculent

Truculent eager or quick to fight...aggressively defiant

unfamiliar with his work. The Communist Manifesto has been described as “without doubt the single most influential text written in the nineteenth century.” 1

The antisocialist thinker Ludwig von Mises described socialism as “the most powerful reform movement that history has ever known, the first ideological trend not limited to a section of mankind but supported by people of all races, nations, religions and civilisations.” 2 Yet

“the most powerful reform movement that history has ever known, the first ideological trend not limited to a section of mankind but supported by people of all races, nations, religions and civilisations.” 2

You can tell that the capitalist system is in trouble when people start talking about capitalism. It indicates that the system

has ceased to be as natural as the air we breathe, and can be seen instead as the historically rather recent phenomenon that it is.

whatever was born can always die, which is why social systems like to present...

Marx unmasked our everyday life to reveal an imperceptible entity known as the capitalist mode of production.

Alienation, the “commodification” of social life, a culture of greed, aggression, mindless hedonism and growing nihilism, the steady hemorrhage of meaning and value from human existence: it is hard to find an intelligent discussion of these questions that is not seriously indebted to the Marxist tradition.

the steady hemorrhage of meaning and value from human existence:

Marx and Engels.

superannuating

Superannuate...retire someone with a pension

superannuate

polemics

Polemics...a strong verbal or written attack on someone or something.