General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How’s that Marx-is-mostly-wrong stuff workin’ out for ya? [View all]Benton D Struckcheon
(2,347 posts)Half the world. (http://www.prb.org/Educators/TeachersGuides/HumanPopulation/Urbanization.aspx)
We're a loong way from anything approaching the global conditions from which a global revolution could take place. You'd need urbanization rates equal to those achieved in the first world: 70% or more. Marx as revolutionary was describing a world where most workers were urban, landless proletarians working for a small minority of owners. Landless I don't know about but urban hasn't even happened yet for a very large part of humankind.
That's number one.
Secondly, large numbers of people work for small and midsized companies in big cities like New York, so you're not getting that landscape of large armies of workers trudging in and out of a few factories (or now, in the 21st century, cubicle farms) and working for a tiny number of companies. Below is a graphic for the number of small and midsized companies in various large cities around the country (http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100830/FREE/100829817):
Marx as Social Democrat was accurate (Harrington's book was excellent on this). Marx as revolutionary? Well, the end times are not quite on us yet.