Not sure if this expands on Craig's "Property rights? What property rights?" line of thinking. The BBC had a vote for greatest philosopher of all time. The winner likely will generate less controversy than the votes on the next season of American Idol, but is anyone surprised that BBC voters chose Marx (Karl, not Richard)? GWB's favorite philosopher didn't even make the top ten, but you could argue that one of his more famous students did; St. Thomas Aquinas came in 7th. Both holy candidates were beaten by Friedrich "God is Dead" Nietzsche who just missed the bronze.

We make fun of the flat-earth society, but is being a Marxist much different? The typical rejoinder is "true Marxism has never been tried anywhere. It always gets corrupted by the people trying to implement it." I've been trying to get people to subscribe to my philosophy of anti-gravitism or levitism on the same grounds. Sure, things fall to the earth but my belief in a world without gravity just hasn't been attempted in the proper circumstances yet. I think I need someone with a rugged, bearded face as my primary proponent. Maybe this comes close.

What I've never understood is that, since Marx believed that communism was the inevitable result of capitalism's also inevitable implosion, should not all Marxists be the biggest champions of capitalism? Championing capitalism's progress will hasten its demise, if Marx is right. Of course, it leads a Marxist into the predicament of criticizing a system that, historically speaking, has done the most, relative to all other economic systems, to better the lives of those Marxists are supposedly trying to help.

We are ready to fire the heads of FEMA, Homeland Security, even Bush himself, over a thousand dead from Katrina, yet people love the figurehead of a philosophical movement that has killed tens of millions. If only we could tie Marx to Halliburton, maybe people would stop idolizing him.

Hat tip to Acton's Samuel Gregg.