# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![painter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@painter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/painter)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2005, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/81 "2005-07-19T15:11:33Z")
Marxist regimes are authoritarian and unaccountable. They lie about their achievements. They demand veneration and have a habit of putting up large posters around their countries telling us how marvellous they are. Exactly like the BBC in fact, except I didn’t have to send £126.50 to the Kremlin every year to stop the boys coming round to my house. ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/82 "2005-07-19T15:24:09Z")
> [@painter](#): > > Marxist regimes are authoritarian and unaccountable. They lie about their achievements. They demand veneration and have a habit of putting up large posters around their countries telling us how marvellous they are. Exactly like the BBC in fact, except I didn’t have to send £126.50 to the Kremlin every year to stop the boys coming round to my house. **painter** , if you want to start a new thread about the rights and wrongs of the TV licence, go ahead. But this debate is about why Karl Marx came top of a poll of philosophers. So far you have failed to convince me that 8400 Radio 4 listeners voted for Marx because of the way the BBC is funded. In fact you don’t seem to have made any connection between the two at all. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2005, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/83 "2005-07-19T15:29:15Z")
And surely there’s a difference between Karl Marx as a philosopher and Marxism/Communism as a 20th century system of government? ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/84 "2005-07-19T16:29:04Z")
I have looked a little more into Karl Marx’s ideas. Since he considered why people were unhappy and how that might be fixed he was indeed a philosopher. He sems to have taken a reasonable idea (people are unhappy because they don’t feel pride in their work) and ran with it to what seems an idiotic or insane level. Dropping religion since people doing religion are not fighting the oppressive system and instead indulging in the Opium of the masses, and blaming all wrong on those who happen to own factories and the like. All pretty simplistic, as foolheaded as Libertarianism and twice as mistaken in its underlying ideas. It also showed me that no country seems to have gotten anywhere near to being Marxist, they simply replaced oppressive owners with oppressive state ownership, and took away freedoms from the people rather than expanded and enhanced their freedoms. In a way like Libertarianism (and yet opposite) the system relies on people being essentially moral wise and selfless, a lovely ideal but doomed to failure when applied to real people. ---
**Author:** ![painter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@painter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/painter)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/85 "2005-07-19T17:32:09Z")
Matt you say ‘But this debate is about why Karl Marx came top of a poll of philosophers’. Nearly true. Its about why Karl Marx came top of a BBC poll of philosophers. I just wanted to let people know just what kind of organisation the BBC is and I’ve given you a few links. Hopefully someone, somewhere will be a bit better informed about the BBC, or at least more curious about it. ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2005, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/86 "2005-07-19T21:30:39Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > This is a very good point. And the fact that Marx was on the list, even though as a pure philosopher he tends not to be that well of, would lead those being polled to think in terms of economic philosophy. If nothing else, Marx appears in chapter 27 of Bertrand Russell’s _History of Western Philosophy_. I am only on Chapter 21 so I don’t know what kind of treatment Marx gets from Russell, but he made the cut for the book at that time. Possibly it is so Russell can call him a poopyhead, like I said, I am not that far yet. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2005, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/87 "2005-07-20T13:32:17Z")
> [@painter](#): > > Matt you say ‘But this debate is about why Karl Marx came top of a poll of philosophers’. Nearly true. Its about why Karl Marx came top of a BBC poll of philosophers. I just wanted to let people know just what kind of organisation the BBC is and I’ve given you a few links. Hopefully someone, somewhere will be a bit better informed about the BBC, or at least more curious about it. So far all you’ve done is made some vague allegations and drawn unsupported conclusions – 1. The B.B.C. seeks to preserve its income from the licensing scheme =\> the B.B.C. is Marxist. Do you understand that there might be other reasons for such an organisation to preserve such an income source? Do you understand that even the most virulent anti-communist organisation would not give up such an income source? 1. The B.B.C. is Marxist =\> It supports repressive and brutal communist dictatorship forms of government 2. The B.B.C. is Marxist =\> It jiggered the poll to make Marx come out on top. 3. The B.B.C. is Marxist =\> Anyone who would participate in the poll is Marxist. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/88 "2005-07-21T10:44:30Z")
> [@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. 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) I don’t believe for one second that you or your family don’t ever consume a BBC product and even if by some miracle you don’t it makes no difference. I don’t have kids but I fund other’s educations etc etc. The BBC is another public resource which I’m only too pleased to pay for whether I directly consume or benefit or not, your shrill and unsupported accusations notwithstanding. You don’t want to pay - get rid of your TV and radio and block all BBC web sites. And make sure you never watch any of the sky channels filled with BBC content, which is most of them. Or listen to any BBC supported orchestras or concert series or let your kids access free BBC learning support materials, programmes or web sites at school, now or in the future. And I certainly hope you aren’t using NHS facilities, driving on roads, accessing public education or any other service that someone else has paid for involuntarily through taxation, because that would be hypocritical. Jesus - all this carping about a measly £120 or whatever (2 months of Sky) - at least you can opt out. I can’t opt out of funding your education, your kids education and all the other public resources I don’t use, wars I don’t support etc etc. If you don’t like the existence of organisations funded for the public good, fine, most of us do. We accept the need to fund things that are for the public good even if we don’t use them as much as others. It’s called ‘society’. To rant on as if the BBC is some Marxist plot to steal our bodily fluids is simply preposterous. The BBC is a fine if flawed institution and its news reporting as good as you can reasonably expect. Compared to CNN and Fox it is Solomon in its objectivity. Get some perspective for crying out loud. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/89 "2005-07-21T12:08:56Z")
Much as the traditional anti-BBC screeds and the facile “UK elite is all lefties” nonsense is fun, it does rather seem that quite a few people here are eagerly taking an internet poll at face value. So keen are some to write off their favourite bogeymen as Marxist that they practically fall over themselves in crediting the poll with absolute validity. Never mind that voting was in no way restricted to listeners of the show, nor even to internet users in the UK, let alone some self-defining “elite”\*. It might be nice, before slapping labels on ill-defined groups on the basis of one easily-gamed popularity contest, to ascertain exactly who voted in the poll, how many times, and what the poll is actually representative of. As usual, the not-notably-lefty [Economist](http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4109052) injects a touch of sanity. Far be it from me to suggest that their late-in-the-day tactical voting candidate, Hume, is considerably higher in the poll than pure name recognition would otherwise dictate… \*Incidentally, one would think an elite so toffee-nosed as **Blake** endearingly portrays for us would consider this sort of poll to be alarmingly plebeian, and steer well clear. But we shan’t let that distract us from connect-the-dots sociology. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/90 "2005-07-22T00:40:04Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > 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. > > [philosophy pages](http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/marx.htm) > > [Dialectical materialism at philosophy pages](http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/d5.htm) > > 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. I guess my problem is that I have a hard time thinking of dialectical materialism, or **any** causal theory of history, as being part of philosophy; it belongs in the realm of political science. In modern usage “philosophy” is generally understood to encompass logic, ethics, aesthetics, epistemology and metaphysics – and dialectical materialism is irrelevant to all of them. (Its application by some critics to art history does not make it actually relevant to aesthetics in any philosophical sense.) Most glaringly for a politically relevant belief-system, it makes no contributions to ethics. E.g., if Marx had come up with some reasoned ethical argument for the position that the people, collectively, have the right to own and control the means of production, collectively, that would have been a valuable contribution to philosophy; but so far as I know he never did, he simply assumed it. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/91 "2005-07-22T07:06:32Z")
Even if we accept that one of the hats Marx wore was “philosopher,” I have a hard time thinking of him as the _greatest_ philosopher. Surely Plato, Aristotle, Hume and Kant are all greater pure philosophers than Marx. While Marx’s economic thought–and I agree with **BrainGlutton** that Marx was more of an economist and political theorist than a philosopher–was influential, if that’s what were going by then surely Locke and Smith are just as influential as Marx, if not more so. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/92 "2005-07-22T20:55:37Z")
> [@Larry Borgia](#): > > While Marx’s economic thought–and I agree with **BrainGlutton** that Marx was more of an economist and political theorist than a philosopher–was influential, if that’s what were going by then surely Locke and Smith are just as influential as Marx, if not more so. Locke is usually included in any list of Western “philosophers” but Smith is not – probably because Locke’s work encompassed epistemology as well as political theory. ---
**Author:** ![stop-1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90db22/32.png) [@stop-1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stop-1)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2005, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/93 "2005-07-24T06:32:08Z")
Locke, Smith, oh yes mention them in the same breath as Marx! Ludicrous. Marx was a monster who’s preachings helped release legions of devils and many tens of millions of people were done to death as a consequence. Many tens of millions tortured. Thought itself turned upside down and inside-out and wrong way round. Humanity warped and twisted beyond belief. As to the BBC and Marx, it is of course daft to think of it as a ‘Marxist conspiracy’. It is not daft to think that it is socialist organisation which has over the years shown many many programmes that display great sympathy with Marx and Marxists. Ha, fellow travellers indeed. This is an outrage which I am forced to confess makes the injustice of the licence fee a nothing. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2005, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/94 "2005-07-24T16:57:39Z")
> [@stop-1](#): > > Locke, Smith, oh yes mention them in the same breath as Marx! Ludicrous. Marx was a monster who’s preachings helped release legions of devils and many tens of millions of people were done to death as a consequence. Many tens of millions tortured. Thought itself turned upside down and inside-out and wrong way round. Humanity warped and twisted beyond belief. Oh, give me a break. Marx himself did all those things? On this line of logic Jesus of Nazareth was a great monster. Look at all the killings done in his name. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2005, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/95 "2005-07-25T09:28:07Z")
> [@Larry Borgia](#): > > Even if we accept that one of the hats Marx wore was “philosopher,” I have a hard time thinking of him as the _greatest_ philosopher. Surely Plato, Aristotle, Hume and Kant are all greater pure philosophers than Marx. > > While Marx’s economic thought–and I agree with **BrainGlutton** that Marx was more of an economist and political theorist than a philosopher–was influential, if that’s what were going by then surely Locke and Smith are just as influential as Marx, if not more so. You can’t separate Marx’s thought into philosophy and political economy etc. All branches of the same tree. Marx was significant because he believed philospohy wasn’t just about explaining but changing, providing the tools for analysing and acting. Praxis. And in this, in that his thought provided the tools that dominated politics for a century, and affected the lives of billions, he has a claim to being the greatest. Which doesn’t mean ‘best’ or ‘most cuddly’ or whatever the hell it is that has got people’s pants in a twist. Locke and Smith were just cheerleaders by comparison. If you people don’t like the choice you should have voted instead of complaining after the event. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2005, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/96 "2005-07-25T09:31:09Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I guess my problem is that I have a hard time thinking of dialectical materialism, or **any** causal theory of history, as being part of philosophy; so Hegel isn’t a philosopher then? Your hard time notwithstanding of course dialectical materialism is a philosophy. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2005, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/97 "2005-07-25T10:25:23Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Oh, give me a break. Marx himself did all those things? On this line of logic Jesus of Nazareth was a great monster. Look at all the killings done in his name. But Marx called for violence, insisting that anihilation of the proletariat was a prerequisite for economic justice. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2005, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/98 "2005-07-25T10:57:37Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > But Marx called for violence, insisting that anihilation of the proletariat was a prerequisite for economic justice. So by your understanding of Marx, he was calling for the physical liquidation of the working class? Is this a whoosh? Annihilation in Marx does not mean ‘physical annihilation’. It’s all part and parcel of the working of the dialectic. Besides, nothing says philosophy can’t argue for violence. WARNING: boring Marxist stuff life is too short to bother understanding ahead. > [@](#): > > Above all, the reproduction of the increment in the productivity of labor > has, as its general concrete form, the increasing concentration of the > masses of capital individually put into action. And this concentration > clashes against private property of capital; not just with particularly > restricted forms of this property, but with it in itself. At the same time, > the reproduction of the increase in the productivity of labor has, as its > equally general concrete form, the submitting of all aspects of production > to science; the reproduction of the simple increase of relative surplus > value, the same submitting concerning consumption. From which, capital, our > specific social relation, carries in itself the necessity of annihilating > its historical concrete base, as well as its historical reason of > existence; that is, private property in general, as well as the > insufficiency of the development of human capacity for consciously > regulating its own social process of metabolism. In brief, capital carries > in itself the necessity to annihilate itself as its own potency. > As capital accumulation advances in the concentration of the scale of > individual capital and the scientific organization of production and > consumption, it transcends the narrow base of private property, already in > what this directly personifies in the bourgeoisie the general organization > of that process. Capital thereby deprives the bourgeoisie of its historical > “right” to exist. At the same time, it determines the very proletariat from > whose surplus-labor it feeds itself, with the mediation of developing it as > a collective laborer, as its own general personification. It is thus the > proletariat who carries in itself the necessity of personifying the > annihilation of capital. > > This annihilation is, in itself, that of the social classes. It is the > annihilation of the bourgeoisie, straightway. But, in this same > annihilation, the proletariat realizes its own necessity, negating itself > absolutely as such, certainly, to affirm its potencies as human potencies > of the freely associated individuals; that is to say, of the concrete > subjects of the human social process of metabolism that consciously > regulate this process on cognizing, each of them, their own determination > as such subjects. It is about the supersession of capitalism in the third > main step in the historical development of human society, i.e., > communism/socialism [Boring and obscure discussion of Marxism](http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/1996-November/002325.html) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2005, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/99 "2005-07-25T11:29:33Z")
I meant the bourgeoisie, of course. “Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.” — _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_ ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2005, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592/100 "2005-07-25T14:04:50Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I meant the bourgeoisie, of course. > > “Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.” — _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_ Cites gone out of fashion have they? And also does not refer to killing. T > [@](#): > > he productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand, by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented. > > The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. > [@](#): > > Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a genuinely revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product. [Manifesto](http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html) To argue that Marx was talking about the physical killing of classes of people is simply preposterously uninformed ignorance, your out of context, no cite provided snippets notwithstanding, and regardless of what monsters like Mao and Stalin got up to in his ostensible name in the next century. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-marx-wins-bbcs-greatest-philosopher-poll-wtf/312592.md?page=6)