17th March 2018
Today in 1883 was the funeral for one of the greatest thinkers of our time, Karl Marx – the socialist philosopher whose work went on to permanently shape our history. He had died three days earlier on 14 March, and was buried in London in the same grave as his wife. Marx was living in London, in exile from his native Germany, having been banned from his home for his radical views. He researched and studied in the British Library reading room, and when I worked there I always wondered if I had his desk. Marx wrote the ‘Communist Manifesto’ with his colleague Friedrich Engels and his most important work ‘Das Kapital’, the great description of how capitalism runs at a profit to the owners and a loss to the workers, was published before he died.