Karl Marx is on a victory march. Even in Slovakia. And despite the local uproar caused by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker´s recent visit to Marx´s childhood nest to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the philosopher´s birth by celebrating his intellectual heritage.
It was not a mere symbolic gesture from a prominent politician. Unfortunately, it was a symptom of a critical situation. Marx is enjoying a Europe-wide winning streak via the ranks of his “useful followers” advocating the utopia of an integrated Europe, whereby everything will be uniform.
From the currency, interest rates, wages and pensions all the way to agricultural tractors´ rear mirrors, Brussels will shape the contours of European destiny. Yet, Marxist hordes do not grasp the utopian nature of this fallacy and continue to stubbornly champion it, only to be left startled by the swelling wave of Euroskepticism.
The Company Slovakia Keeps
Marx´s resurrection is (non-)heartily felt within Slovak businesses. Company owners are de facto being transformed into slaves. The real masters are politicians and bureaucrats keeping a tight, strong-armed grip on entrepreneurs through an ever-increasing mass of legal obligations.
Yes, the government is loudly boasting about improving entrepreneurship and the country´s business environment, yet no day passes without some public official greedily laying claim to business properties or substantially limiting entrepreneurial rights and freedom.
Companies are trying to cope to the best of their abilities. The smallest of them cease to exist after giving up their hopeless battle against the superior bullying forces. Their big brothers, taxed for not quitting, are gradually obliged to relocate their best people from production/sales to legal and compliance departments filled to the brink with sweaty employees fuming over yet another incomprehensible bundle of subjugating regulations. The full-time struggle against dull-headedness is eating up more and more resources.
Marx’s Blueprint
It does not matter if you are a hardcore Marx fan or you fanatically hate him. You might not even be familiar with him at all. The lesson to learn here is that he is non-discriminatorily leaving his fingerprints on all our everyday lives, 135 years after his death.
He must be smiling deep in the darkness of his grave. The capitalist system he loathed so much is finally on the brink of demise. Still, he was wrong just about every salient point he made regarding the way it was going to end. The method and form of communist revolutions Marx designed failed miserably.
Instead of bringing about fairness, equity, and happiness, they caused hell on earth. Similar ideological revolts are hard to foresee, as the number of individuals openly supporting the communist revolution has shrunk to the rota of psychiatric patients at a smaller mental health institution.
Yet, our civic and entrepreneurial lives are being slowly but surely moulded according to Marx´s blueprint. The irony of it all is the absence of any communist revolutionaries in the process. Their roles have been taken up by modern day politicians and bureaucrats.
Their minds and acts are guided by the triumph of Marxism while (sub-)consciously waving the banners of Marxist ideology. Indeed, Marx is proudly marching towards victory.
Translated by Edward Jozef Szekeres
