I just read Calling All Marxists! Life After Capitalism 2004 Conference on CapMag.com, and thought I should make a post about one of Mark's "teachings" that seem to have stuck in my head. I'm not a Marxism expert, but his idea of the public ownership of capital goods has stuck in my head. That's the idea that led to the form of Communism that is readily practiced. Since Marx called for a revolution, that idea got applied through government controlled economies.
Looking at the evolution of capitalism one can see that idea actually has been realized. It has been realized by corporations—publicly traded corporations. Anyone, not just the rich, can buy stock in any corporation traded on the stock market and be called an owner of that corporation. If they get voting stock, they get a say in how it runs.
So maybe Marx was a prophet—just an impatient one. Corporations are the embodiment of Marx's idea of public ownership of capital goods. Not the government controlled economies of the east.
