Let me put it in paradoxical form. It is equally unhelpful to dismiss Marx because we dislike his demonstration that capitalism and bourgeois society… - Eric Hobsbawm

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Let me put it in paradoxical form. It is equally unhelpful to dismiss Marx because we dislike his demonstration that capitalism and bourgeois society are temporary historical phenomena, and to embrace him simply because we are for socialism, which he thought would succeed them. I believe Marx discerned some basic tendencies with profound insight; but we do not know actually what they will bring. Like so much of the future predicted in the past, when it comes it may be unrecognizable, not because the predictions were wrong but because we were wrong to put a particular face and costume to the interesting stranger whose arrival we were told to expect.