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The multiple crisis of capitalism goes hand in hand with a multiple crisis of the left. And amidst this crisis, we find ourselves commemorating the 200th birthday of Karl Marx and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Capital. But how are we to treat Marx and his works? How important is he for us today – for our capacity to transform the world in practice?

In 2011, I invited Postone to speak at the New School for Social Research in New York, as the keynote to a graduate student philosophy conference called "The Spirit of Capital: Hegel and Marx." Postone gave a sweeping lecture on the the role of Hegel's concept of Spirit in the works of Marx and Lukács. His critique of labor was disorienting for many, as was his view of capital as an "automatic subject", similar to Hegel's view of the self-mediating dynamic of Geist. After the conference, Postone mentioned that he was working on three books: one on Capital, one on the Holocaust, and one on Critical Theory. I hope they one day see the light. On the occasion of his death, I offer the following brief summary of some of his key ideas on Marx, capital and value.

Jason Barker is the writer, director and co-producer of the 2011 documentary Marx Reloaded. He is Professor of English at Kyung Hee University, South Korea. His new novel Marx Returns is published by Zero Books. Marx200 asked him about his new book and what has happened between Marx Reloaded and Marx Returns. More information about the novel at: www.marxreturns.com

On September 14, 1867, the Börsenblatt des deutschen Buchhandels informed the public of the publication of “Capital, Volume I: The Process of Production of Capital” by Karl Marx. Exactly 150 years later, on September 14, 2017, the New York office of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung celebrated the anniversary of Marx’s magnum opus.

‘Marx was the best hated and most calumniated man of his time’, Engels remarked in his graveside oration, because he discovered two things that struck at the heart of capitalism. Firstly, it was neither natural nor eternal. It rests on entirely unnatural historical processes forcibly or fraudulently separating the mass of humanity from its means of production, leaving it dependent on employment by the appropriators of those means. Such a contradictory and antagonistic social order had to end.

Russian workers went on strike on International Women’s Day 1917. They ended up toppling tsarism.

Political parties had it tough in Tsarist Russia. After the defeat of the revolution of 1905-1907, with the formation of the Duma, there was a parliament; however, it was determined according to a three-class franchise system, and placed poorer social strata and the cities at a disadvantage. Both active and passive suffrage were connected to the ownership of land. The fractions were more like tendencies than party fractions.

The revolution in February did not only come as a surprise to the bourgeois and ‘courtly’ opposition. Although the Bolsheviks were able to reorganise themselves (primarily in the factories and the army) and other left parties were able to consolidate themselves over the course of 1916, a revolution did not yet appear to be directly imminent.

The development of German Social Democracy is inextricably linked to the pre-history of the revolutions in Russia. As the most important left party of the pre-war period, it still had great influence upon international social democracy.