Why was Karl Marx — who believed that industrial capitalism would evolve into a worker’s paradise — wrong?
In this talk to his Beijing high school students, Jiang Xueqin explains that while Marx understood the ills of capitalism he failed to appreciate the psychology of people.
People strive for religious community, not economic equality. We want to connect with God, and we seek status.
That’s why those countries that did succeed in their communist revolutions devolved into theocracies dominated by cults of personalities.
References:
1. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
2. Letters of Karl Marx
3. Three Lectures to Swiss Members by Mikhail Bakunin
