Summary
Anne Applebaum, Gregory Claeys, Jane Humprhies and Richard Seymour join Rana Mitter to assess the legacy of Marx 200 years after his birth. Do his ideas have currency and if so where is he an influence in the world? Academic Emile Chabal reports on researching Marxism in India and Brazil.
Gregory Claeys is the author of Marx and Marxism
Richard Seymour has written Corbyn - The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics
Anne Applebaum's latest book is called Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine
Jane Humphries' book is called Childhood and Child Labour
Emile Chabal is writing a biography of Eric Hobsbawm and teaches at the University of Edinburgh.
Producer: Zahid Warley
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.0 | Hello, I'm Ron Amitter. |
| 0:33.7 | Welcome to BBC Radio 3's Arts and Ideas discussion program, which brings together leading artists, writers and thinkers in conversation and debate. |
| 0:41.5 | If you enjoy what you hear, do subscribe. |
| 0:44.4 | Search for the Arts and Ideas podcast wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:48.1 | And while you're there, please rate and review us. |
| 0:50.4 | It'll help other people find us. |
| 0:52.7 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:58.0 | On Saturday, there might be a small birthday party in the German city of Trier. |
| 1:03.1 | The chief guest isn't going to be there, as he's currently resident in London, |
| 1:07.5 | under a tombstone in Highgate Cemetery, to be precise. |
| 1:10.7 | May the 5th is the 200th anniversary |
| 1:12.8 | of the birth in that German town of Karl Marx. Marx was one of the most influential and divisive thinkers |
| 1:20.5 | over a hundred years or more. Workers sought rights, and politicians change cultures based on ideas that he had pioneered. |
| 1:29.9 | In his name, immense cruelties were committed by totalitarian governments |
| 1:33.8 | that oppressed their people in the name of liberation. |
| 1:37.5 | Many thought his legacy was buried, along with crushed bits of the Berlin Wall back in 1989. |
| 1:43.4 | But after the financial crisis of 2008, Marx has made a |
| 1:47.2 | surprising comeback. The idea that capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction seems more |
| 1:53.6 | plausible to some today than it did 20 years ago. And in China, the world's fastest rising power, |
... |
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