Hello all,
So, it's well-known that in the 19th century, Texas had a large German-speaking minority, many of whom were liberals and radicals who fled Europe after the failed revolutions of 1830 and 1848. Very nearly, Karl Marx would have been among their number -- as a young man, Marx had planned to leave Germany for Texas, even applying for an immigration permit in 1841. He would move to Paris and then later London instead. In London, he would become a founding member of the International Workingmen's Association (aka the First Communist International), and would write both Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto.
What would history have been like if Marx was in the US, and wasn't there to write about the "spectre haunting Europe" ? I find it unlikely that without Marx, there'd be no economic theory which would compete with liberal-capitalism -- Marx was one of a whole community of intellectuals, labour organisers, economists, and professional revolutionaries, who emerged out of the revolutionary waves of the mid-19th century. But if Marx was on the other side of the Atlantic, I don't know if his own theories would carry the same influence. Or maybe his theories would have become influential, but he wouldn't have been able to lead the First International. Idk.
Maybe Marx would have had great political success in the US. It is known that Marx was a staunch supporter of the Union during the American Civil War; that he corresponded with Lincoln; that he encouraged the American proletariat to support the abolitionist cause; that the IWA of America officially endorsed the Union and abolitionism; and that one of his closest associates -- Joseph Weydemeyer, the former head of the Frankfurt chapter of the Communist Party and editor of some of Marx's early works -- was also a lieutenant-colonel in the Union Army, and became an influential figure in the early American labour movement and the Republican Party. However, many of the other influential German Communists in the US -- for example, August Willich and Alexander Schimmelfennig -- were specifically part of the anti-Marx faction of the young Communist movement, and probably wouldn't agree to his leadership; maybe they (and Americans, like Wendell Phillips) could work with him, but I still don't know if the movement that would arise would be "Marxism."
So, what do you think? How would this have affected world history? Cheers, all!
So, it's well-known that in the 19th century, Texas had a large German-speaking minority, many of whom were liberals and radicals who fled Europe after the failed revolutions of 1830 and 1848. Very nearly, Karl Marx would have been among their number -- as a young man, Marx had planned to leave Germany for Texas, even applying for an immigration permit in 1841. He would move to Paris and then later London instead. In London, he would become a founding member of the International Workingmen's Association (aka the First Communist International), and would write both Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto.
What would history have been like if Marx was in the US, and wasn't there to write about the "spectre haunting Europe" ? I find it unlikely that without Marx, there'd be no economic theory which would compete with liberal-capitalism -- Marx was one of a whole community of intellectuals, labour organisers, economists, and professional revolutionaries, who emerged out of the revolutionary waves of the mid-19th century. But if Marx was on the other side of the Atlantic, I don't know if his own theories would carry the same influence. Or maybe his theories would have become influential, but he wouldn't have been able to lead the First International. Idk.
Maybe Marx would have had great political success in the US. It is known that Marx was a staunch supporter of the Union during the American Civil War; that he corresponded with Lincoln; that he encouraged the American proletariat to support the abolitionist cause; that the IWA of America officially endorsed the Union and abolitionism; and that one of his closest associates -- Joseph Weydemeyer, the former head of the Frankfurt chapter of the Communist Party and editor of some of Marx's early works -- was also a lieutenant-colonel in the Union Army, and became an influential figure in the early American labour movement and the Republican Party. However, many of the other influential German Communists in the US -- for example, August Willich and Alexander Schimmelfennig -- were specifically part of the anti-Marx faction of the young Communist movement, and probably wouldn't agree to his leadership; maybe they (and Americans, like Wendell Phillips) could work with him, but I still don't know if the movement that would arise would be "Marxism."
So, what do you think? How would this have affected world history? Cheers, all!
