# Karl Marx win's BBC's "greatest philosopher" poll. WTF? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 14, 2005, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592 "2005-07-14T23:35:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![painter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@painter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/painter)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/61 "2005-07-18T05:57:01Z")
The BBC is a very strange organisation. It recruits mainly via adverts in a newspaper called The Guardian, which is very left-wing and politically correct. That’s the newspaper that asked its readers to send letters to US voters in a swing state to persuade them to vote for Kerry so that Bush wouldn’t be re-elected. The BBC is funded by the licence fee, which effectively forces people to fund it whether they require its services or not. It is not accountable to the national authority that regulates all other broadcasters on matters of decency, bias, suitable screening times for programs etc. Its board of governors run it, and they are appointed by politicians. Would you be happy to be forced to pay for a TV company like this? Check this article out. It says something about the BBC’s anti Republican party bias. [http://blitheringbunny.com/archives/2005/05/15/the-annual-political-tax/](http://blitheringbunny.com/archives/2005/05/15/the-annual-political-tax/) ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/62 "2005-07-18T09:08:09Z")
> [@painter](#): > > The BBC is a very strange organisation. It recruits mainly via adverts in a newspaper called The Guardian, which is very left-wing and politically correct. The Guardian is the main newspaper for all media recruitment, not just the BBC. The main newspaper for arts recruitment is the Telegraph, the most rightwing of the serious British papers. Both these traditions have grown up over time, and have nothing to do with editorial leanings. > [@](#): > > hat’s the newspaper that asked its readers to send letters to US voters in a swing state to persuade them to vote for Kerry so that Bush wouldn’t be re-elected. Wrong. They asked readers to write, but they didn’t say which candidate to support. > [@](#): > > It is not accountable to the national authority that regulates all other broadcasters on matters of decency, bias, suitable screening times for programs etc. Wrong on [two out of three](http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/accoun/bbc/) - Ofcom now regulates the BBC for decency and screening times. Issues of bias remain with the governors. > [@](#): > > Check this article out. It says something about the BBC’s anti Republican party bias. > > [http://blitheringbunny.com/archives/2005/05/15/the-annual-political-tax/](http://blitheringbunny.com/archives/2005/05/15/the-annual-political-tax/) Wow. I don’t even know where to start picking holes in that article. I’ll restrict myself to two words: sour grapes. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/63 "2005-07-18T09:11:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And in the UK, who **doesn’t** watch the BBC now and then? Or listen to BBC radio, or use their website, or… > [@painter](#): > > So you have a left wing organisation running a poll on a program run by a left winger and nobody but that organisation gets to count the votes. Meh. Independent scrutiny by the UN of fluffly phone-on votes, is that what you want? > [@](#): > > It even decides what words we should be allowed to hear… Doesn’t every media outlet? > [@](#): > > …refusing to call the London bombers ‘terrorists’. Except, errr, when calling them ‘terrorists’? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![painter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@painter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/painter)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/64 "2005-07-18T10:26:53Z")
1. The Telegraph is not the main paper for public sector arts recruitment. The Guardian is, as it is for the overwhelming majority of public sector jobs except teachers. Its job supplements are legendary for well paid jobs with such strange titles and descriptions that most people don’t understand what the job is. 2. If you think that Guardian readers were writing to US voters advising them to vote for Bush you must not just live on the other side of Atlantic but on a different planet altogether. Get real, as I believe at least some you Americans say. 3. From [http://www.yourrights.org.uk/your-rights/chapters/right-of-free-expression/controls-on-broadcasting/ofcom.shtml](http://www.yourrights.org.uk/your-rights/chapters/right-of-free-expression/controls-on-broadcasting/ofcom.shtml) ‘The BBC is now regulated, in part, by Ofcom. BBC compliance with the programme codes is regulated by Ofcom. Issues concerning accuracy and impartiality remain the responsibility of the BBC Governors.’ So when it comes to deciding whether the BBC is politically biased or not, the BBC governors decide. Judge and jury. Sour grapes? No. I just object to being forced to pay for something I don’t need and that I find distasteful. I suppose you can afford to be more indulgent towards the BBC than I can. It’s not you shelling out £126.50 ($220) every year for lefty propaganda and mind-numbing light entertainment you don’t want. ---
**Author:** ![painter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@painter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/painter)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/65 "2005-07-18T10:37:14Z")
Forgot to answer your point about the BBC not using the word ‘terrorist’ to describe the London bombers. Check this out - > **[News](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/?xml=%2Fnews%2F2005%2F07%2F12%2Fnbbc12.xml&sSheet=%2Fportal%2F2005%2F07%2F12%2Fixportal.html)** > > Latest breaking news, including politics, crime and celebrity. Find stories, updates and expert opinion. If you can find the word ‘terrorist’ on the BBC website used to describe the London bombers, post the address here. You might find it, but if you do plenty of us Brits would like to know the address. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/66 "2005-07-18T11:11:06Z")
As this thread is dominated by paranoid, lunatic conspiracy theories unsupported by fact or reason can’t this be moved to The Pit? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/67 "2005-07-18T11:23:01Z")
> [@painter](#): > > 1. The Telegraph is not the main paper for public sector arts recruitment. The Guardian is That’s funny. Every one of my friends that works in the arts uses the Telegraph as their first port of call. > [@](#): > > Its job supplements are legendary for well paid jobs with such strange titles and descriptions that most people don’t understand what the job is. The same could be said of the Financial Times. > [@](#): > > If you think that Guardian readers were writing to US voters advising them to vote for Bush you must not just live on the other side of Atlantic but on a different planet altogether. Get real, as I believe at least some you Americans say. No, that wasn’t the point I was disputing. You said that the Guardian _encouraged its readers to write in support of Kerry_. They were, at the time, very careful to _not_ give specific encouragement to do this. > [@painter](#): > > Forgot to answer your point about the BBC not using the word ‘terrorist’ to describe the London bombers. > > …If you can find the word ‘terrorist’ on the BBC website used to describe the London bombers, post the address here. You might find it, but if you do plenty of us Brits would like to know the address. Woops. On the day the bombers were first publicly identified, BBC TV reports openly and consistently used the word to describe them. However, the BBC are fully aware that many people distrust news sources which constantly tub-thump about ‘terrorists’ at every opportunity. If you’re complaining about the word not being used in every single sentence, then you’re simply not understanding what’s going on. ‘Bomber’ is _more specific_. It is used to specifically identifiy the group of terrorists that actually carried out the attack, and not the wider network of collaborators, supporters, financers etc. “The terrorists responsible for the London bombs” does not actually simply refer to the four guys with the rucksacks of explosives. To use it as such is inaccurate. (By the way, using something other than Torygraph articles to support anti-BBC arguments would give them more credence.) ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/68 "2005-07-18T11:25:21Z")
[The BBC’s policy on using ‘that word’:](http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/news/2005/07/13/20561.shtml) > [@](#): > > We try to be as precise as possible in our language and the word “bomber” is a more precise description, but we also use the word “terrorist”. … > > In fact, we have used the word “terrorist” on our main news bulletins and the perpetrators have been described as such on numerous occasions in recent days by BBC reporters and independent commentators. ---
**Author:** ![painter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@painter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/painter)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/69 "2005-07-18T11:26:07Z")
There seems to be a conspiracy amongst some sections of US society to regard the BBC as objective. If you think it’s just me who thinks the BBC is biased you’re wrong. More and more people in the UK are realising that the BBC has its own political agenda. See this link. By the way, MP stands for member of parliament, that’s the building with Big Ben where Mr Tony Blair MP rules the roost. > **[The Times & The Sunday Times](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/)** > > News and opinion from The Times & The Sunday Times ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/70 "2005-07-18T11:28:59Z")
Oh, come on, Tories whining about left-wing BBC bias is hardly new. And Blair’s automatons see bias in anything that disagrees with them. Note also, that article doesn’t say the MPs necessarily perceive the left-wing bias you’re describing. ---
**Author:** ![painter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@painter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/painter)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/71 "2005-07-18T11:45:11Z")
if you don’t want me to. Here’s NicK Cohen writing in The Observer, the Guardian’s Sunday title, yesterday. ‘At the BBC and elsewhere, the pressure of events has pushed neutrality into euphemism and euphemism to the edge of outright falsehood’. So I’m paying good hard cash for falsehood. But I suppose it is better than a trip to the local magistrates court for a fine and a criminal record. Check out the whole article at > **[Nick Cohen: Stop castrating the language](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/jul/17/media.television)** > > Nick Cohen: A misguided obsession with objective reporting is undermining the BBC's credibility as a news organisation. Britain isn’t all beefeaters at the tower, wonderful policemen with nice helmets and good honest broadcasting courtesy of the BBC. Like the US, it’s one of the better places to live in this troubled world, but the BBC is a sick relic that needs putting out of it well-funded misery. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/72 "2005-07-18T11:56:24Z")
[Link that doesn’t need registration](http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1530248,00.html) That article is essentially arguing for responsible accuracy to be sacrificed on the anti-PC altar: > [@](#): > > The statement that: ‘Insurgents killed 24 children in Baghdad yesterday’ is entirely different from the statement that: ‘Al-Qaeda and the Baathists killed 24 children in Baghdad yesterday.’ The latter at least allows those members of the audience who want ‘to make their own assessment about who is doing what to whom’ to find out what al-Qaeda and the Baath party believe in and whether decent people should be on the side of the victims or the perpetrators. Actually, the latter statement presupposed Ba’athist or Al Qaeda involvement in an attack, when this is likely to be nothing more than speculation. That would be irresponsible and untrustworthy journalism. The suggested ‘alternative’ words is laughable: > [@](#): > > there are plenty of others to pick from: commanders who order their fighters to destroy cities - war criminals; fighters who kill to overthrow a democratic government - fascists, Stalinists, Islamists and, in the past, CIA agents; fighters who enjoy killing - psychopaths, sadists; fighters who prey on the weak - mafiosi, extortionists, kleptomaniacs This is a mixture of more presumption of ideological motive (when often this is not known to be true), misuse of medical terminology, and thoroughly wooly meaningless terms - ‘sadists’ and ‘exortionists’ could mean just about anything. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/73 "2005-07-18T13:53:39Z")
The Cohen article is an opinion piece, not evidence and as has been shown, a poorly reasoned piece at that demanding the BBC put pandering before accuracy. News is not meant to be name calling. Although maybe you’re onto something. I demand that blair and bush be referred to as ‘unindicted war criminals,’ all military actions that result in forseeable civilian deaths and large scale property damage as ‘state terrorism,’ all bosses of PFI companies as ‘blood-sucking parasites’, railtrack share-holders as ‘whining losers.’ etc etc. And while we are offering Observer opinion pieces as evidence here’s one you unaccountably failed to post a concession speech over, being as columnists are now purveyors of fact ne’er to be gainsaid. [Why Marx is Man of the moment](http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1530250,00.html) > [@](#): > > The billionaire speculator George Soros now warns that the herd instinct of capital-owners such as himself must be controlled before they trample everyone else underfoot. ‘Marx and Engels gave a very good analysis of the capitalist system 150 years ago, better in some ways, I must say, than the equilibrium theory of classical economics,’ he writes. 'The main reason why their dire predictions did not come true was because of countervailing political interventions in democratic countries. > [@](#): > > In October 1997 the business correspondent of the New Yorker, John Cassidy, reported a conversation with an investment banker. ‘The longer I spend on Wall Street, the more convinced I am that Marx was right,’ the financier said. ‘I am absolutely convinced that Marx’s approach is the best way to look at capitalism.’ > [@](#): > > Quoting the famous slogan coined by James Carville for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992 (‘It’s the economy, stupid’), Cassidy pointed out that ‘Marx’s own term for this theory was “the materialist conception of history”, and it is now so widely accepted that analysts of all political views use it, like Carville, without any attribution.’ > [@](#): > > It was a belated reading of Marx in the 1990s that inspired the financial journalist James Buchan to write his brilliant study Frozen Desire: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Money (1997). > > ‘Everybody I know now believes that their attitudes are to an extent a creation of their material circumstances,’ he wrote, ‘and that changes in the ways things are produced profoundly affect the affairs of humanity even outside the workshop or factory. It is largely through Marx, rather than political economy, that those notions have come down to us.’ > > Even the Economist journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, eager cheerleaders for turbo-capitalism, acknowledge the debt. ‘As a prophet of socialism Marx may be kaput,’ they wrote in A Future Perfect: The Challenge and Hidden Promise of Globalisation (2000), ‘but as a prophet of the “universal interdependence of nations” as he called globalisation, he can still seem startlingly relevant.’ So - in short Marx won because he was and remains a profoundly influential philosopher whose insights gave us new ways of looking at society and culture, in the opinion of a handful of listeners (8400) of some inconsequential radio 4 high brow show that goes out in the middle of the day and late at night, not because of some vast left wing conspiracy. Unless that’s what the aliens and their evil allies the space vampires want us to believe so they can keep stealing our vital fluids. ---
**Author:** ![painter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@painter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/painter)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/74 "2005-07-18T19:30:18Z")
The BBC doesn’t seem to have any problems getting enough people to spring to its defence, or to claim that it is impartial despite what anyone else might say. Why then doesn’t it go independent and charge willing customers for its services? Oh no, you must pay, you will pay, we are excellent and impartial and therefore you should be glad to pay for us,and if you don’t you’ll get fined. Reminds me of those countries where Marx was in vogue with the despotic rulers. You were allowed to vote, but you were told who to vote for. All for your own good of course. Leave me alone BBC. Let me spend my money how I want. How would a freeborn American respond to a letter like this demanding he fund an organistion he wants nothing to do with? [http://www.tvlicensing.biz/images/threat\_letter\_november\_2004.jpg](http://www.tvlicensing.biz/images/threat_letter_november_2004.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/75 "2005-07-18T19:35:30Z")
> [@painter](#): > > The BBC is a very strange organisation. It recruits mainly via adverts in a newspaper called The Guardian, which is very left-wing and politically correct. That’s the newspaper that asked its readers to send letters to US voters in a swing state to persuade them to vote for Kerry so that Bush wouldn’t be re-elected. 😛😛😛 Pardon me, **painter,** but you’ll need a much stronger example than that to convince anybody here that _The Guardian_ is **left-wing!** > [@painter](#): > > There seems to be a conspiracy amongst some sections of US society to regard the BBC as objective. If you think it’s just me who thinks the BBC is biased you’re wrong. You’ll have to make allowances for some skepticism from Americans on this point, **painter.** We’re accustomed to shrill and mindless accusations of “liberal bias” on the part of **CNN,** of all things! :rolleyes: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=314634](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=314634) ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/76 "2005-07-18T19:38:51Z")
Oh, well, **painter** ’s arguments have descended into the “don’t tell me how to spend my money” Daily Mail rant so typical of ill-thought-out anti-BBC stances. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/77 "2005-07-18T19:44:20Z")
> [@painter](#): > > The BBC doesn’t seem to have any problems getting enough people to spring to its defence, or to claim that it is impartial despite what anyone else might say. Why then doesn’t it go independent and charge willing customers for its services? Oh no, you must pay, you will pay, we are excellent and impartial and therefore you should be glad to pay for us,and if you don’t you’ll get fined. . . . Leave me alone BBC. Let me spend my money how I want. :rolleyes: Will you fucking give this license-fee issue a rest? You bring it up in practically every post, and it is is completely and utterly irrelevant to the topic of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/78 "2005-07-18T21:07:52Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :rolleyes: Will you fucking give this license-fee issue a rest? You bring it up in practically every post, and it is is completely and utterly irrelevant to the topic of this thread. Must be a UK thing. Then again, the UK is odd when it comes to TV. I live in the US, and while I own a TV I almost never watch it. In the UK, I couldn’t even afford to own a TV. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2005, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/79 "2005-07-19T01:23:49Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > So - in short Marx won because he was and remains a profoundly influential philosopher whose insights gave us new ways of looking at society and culture, in the opinion of a handful of listeners (8400) of some inconsequential radio 4 high brow show that goes out in the middle of the day and late at night, not because of some vast left wing conspiracy. That’s probably the best explanation. Still, even those 8400 listeners, with their presumably above-average educations, should know perfectly well that Marx was insignificant as a **philosopher!** Is it true that _The Economist_ ran a campaign to get its readers to vote Marx off the top of the list? Says so here: [Karl Marx voted most revered philosopher on BBC website](http://www.marxist.com/announcements/karl-marx-bbc-vote140705.htm) ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2005, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/80 "2005-07-19T13:37:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That’s probably the best explanation. > > Still, even those 8400 listeners, with their presumably above-average educations, should know perfectly well that Marx was insignificant as a **philosopher!** > > Is it true that _The Economist_ ran a campaign to get its readers to vote Marx off the top of the list? Says so here: [Karl Marx voted most revered philosopher on BBC website](http://www.marxist.com/announcements/karl-marx-bbc-vote140705.htm) I’m sure they did but so what. Marx was not insignificant as a philosopher. I don’t know what narrow definition of either term you are using. [Dialectical Materialism](http://www.answers.com/topic/dialectical-materialism) is a [philosophy](http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&lr=&oi=defmore&q=define:philosophy) and a profoundly influential one and at one time or another billions have lived under regimes who professed to be based on it. It has influenced almost every area of inquiry from art history to the philosophy of science. > [@](#): > > Karl Marx was born and educated in Prussia, where he fell under the influence of Ludwig Feuerbach and other radical Hegelians. Although he shared Hegel’s belief in dialectical structure and historical inevitability, Marx held that the foundations of reality lay in the material base of economics rather than in the abstract thought of idealistic philosophy. He earned a doctorate at Jena in 1841, writing on the materialism and atheism of Greek atomists, then moved to Köln, where he founded and edited a radical newspaper, Rheinische Zeitung. Although he also attempted to earn a living as a journalist in Paris and Brussels, Marx’s participation in unpopular political movements made it difficult to support his growing family. He finally settled in London in 1849, where he lived in poverty while studying and developing his economic and political theories. Above all else, Marx believed that philosophy ought to be employed in practice to change the world. [philosophy pages](http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/marx.htm) [Dialectical materialism at philosophy pages](http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/d5.htm) > [@](#): > > dialectical materialism > > ``` > Philosophical doctrine expounded by Engels and Marx. By emphasizing the independent reality of matter and the primary value of the natural world, they rejected the idealism of Hegel. But they fully accepted his notion of dialectic as an inexorable process of development in thought, nature, and history. > > ``` You don’t have to be a Social Worker moron to find elements of Marx useful to understanding the world, especially compared to Plato’s cave and other such academic gaming with words to no practical purpose. As my previous cites show - he remains influential in many unlikely spheres, in many ways his concepts have become so pervasive they are like the air we breathe. I don’t see what your problem is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592.md?page=5)