Karl Marx

I’ll be blunt: There’s a lot of sinful blathering about Marxism (as if it were one thing or there were one Marxist school of thought!), cultural Marxism, and Karl Marx swirling around white evangelical Christian communions. Most of this drivel comes from folks who’ve not spent one hour reading Marx or self-identified Marxist authors, but who eagerly regurgitate anti-Marxist rhetoric and the Christianize-garnish that accompanies it. Those who served—and/or continue to serve—this grotesquely unjust dish have failed to follow biblical commands about neighbor-love.

I’m no Marx scholar, but I have made extended stays in his writings to understand what he taught and why. I encourage those who decide to talk about Marx to do likewise. If they do, they’ll find this gem in his famous book Capital (Vol. 1):

The discovery of gold and silvery in America, the extirpation, enslavement, and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of blackskins, signalized the rosy dawn of the capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation.

Marx sees that modern forms of capitalism required heinous racial injustices. This insight is priceless for those attempting to understand the world they inhabit.

But notice that I called this insight a “gem.” I did so because such passages in Marx’s literary corpus are rare. Marx’s work lacks sustained, penetrating reflections on the relationships between capital and race, production and racism.

Why this oversight? That’s the kind of question a just reading of Marx produces. It’s the kind of question Marxist thinkers such as Cedric Robinson address. And it’s the kind of question absent from the anti-Marxist mania driving white evangelical discipleship.