(Graphics in this post are provided by a robot artist, DALL-E ) This essay is inspired by a close reading of "The Communist Manifesto" and especially the very readable commentary by China Mieville. I can hardly claim to be a student of this document or its background. The reader is advised to consult the original (many free versions are available) or, better yet, take advantage of Mieville's commentary that may help dispel some preconceptions about the famous Manifesto. Without this, the reader risks compounding my very evident ignorance with his own. My central thesis here is that the social effects of cheap energy were missed by Marx. This is worth a book-length treatment. What follows is little more than a sketch of the idea. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Without getting too far into "cause and effect," it's clear that capitalism and a dramatic increase in the availability of cheap energy arose together. The conditions Engles and Marx prevailed in the coal...

Wolff's presentation articulates  the logic behind replacing "Capitalism" with worker-owned enterprises. I will call this "modern Marxism" since there are many ways to replace capitalism - worker-owned coops being one of them. There is a profound misunderstanding about wage stagnation - the "basket of goods" radically changes over the years. This is the same fallacy as the idea that GDP "measures" something that can be compared between countries across decades. He's right about the growth of debt, which seems to be baked into 21st-century capitalism. In fact, money, the most liquid form of capital, is always equal to the debt that created the money in the first place . China is not capitalist. Wolff's idea of outsourcing is relevant but maybe not to China. He loves a "politically controlled workforce." Maybe not coherent with his praise of China and worker coops. Are there worker coops in China? Or is China inheriting all t...