An introduction to Karl Marx

When Marx went into his inner exile in the British Museum, he followed the strategy “One step backward, two steps forward,” taking time off from politics to fashion a tool that could then be of use in politics. The theory he developed has done service for a century but it becoming increasingly irrelevant for most of our urgent problems. “Back to the British Museum!” is hardly a slogan with mass political appeal, but it is one that Marxists would do well to ponder.