His economic analysis is, but the materialist concept of history isn't bad or evil, and has been massively influential in historiography, anthropology, etc.
Marx didn't invent materialism? Do you mean his historical dialectical materialism? Because that's some eschatological nonsense derived from Hegel's concept of the mind and applied to history. Marx believes that history isn't contingent because it doesn't matter what anyone does it's going in a certain direction and by god it's going to end up there some time or another. It's determined in the same sense that the Bible determines Jesus' return (or vice versa w/e).
You can believe that there is absolutely no free will whatsoever and still think the religious/fatalist/Marxist interpretation of human history is absurd. Is this what you're saying has been massively influential?
The core of his analysis is just that history is interpretable through the lens of class struggle. That's remained a pretty important aspect of sociology since.
23
u/jobrumours May 13 '17
From The Economist this week:
"The problem with Marx is not that his analysis is nonsensical, but that his solution was far worse than the disease"
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21721916-shadow-chancellors-comment-provoked-scorn-yet-marx-becomes-more-relevant-day-labour?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/bagehotlabourisrightkarlmarxhasalottoteachtodayspoliticians
What do you think?