What if karl Marx had died in childhood???
Sure, socialism will still exist, but "Marxism" will probably not. Maybe nobody comes up with the notion of "scientific socialism".
As you know, Marxism didn't favovour the improvemt of the conditions of the workers in the name of any Moral Principle, as utopian socialist did; it held that there were laws (similar to scientific laws) that operated through History, and that those laws determinated that, inevitably, the ploretariat would rebel against the capitalist bourgoise, take power and abolish social classes.
Marxism didn't become mainstream in continental Europe till 1870-1875. before that, other theories rivaled with Marxism, such as Anarchism (defended by Proudhon and Bakunin). While Marx said that capitalist states would be substituted by a dictatorship of the ploretariat (which would then lead to Communism), Anarchists held that, after the revolution, "states" would be replaced by a vagu confederation of comunes.
Reformist tendencies should also be mentioned.In general, Marxism triumphed over "reformist" tendencies in the period 1880-1914.
Given all this, what do you think would have happened in the XIX and XX centuries had Marx died in childhood???
Would there still be a labour movement? almost certainly, yes. What would be its ideology? Will there be a Russian revolution? Which ideology will triumph there if there's no Marxism?
Other intresting butterflies you think are worth mentioning?