Keeping Marxism alive

Observing Marxism in the academy, one can't help think that Terry Eagleton was right: "It looked as though what had started life as an underground movement among dockers and factory workers had turned into a mildly interesting way of analyzing Wuthering Heights."

But why give up so easily? Paul VI, in a gutsy lecture in Nazareth at the height of the Cold War (1964), once ruminated on the nature of work. Christ's hidden life of labor at Nazareth allows even the ordinary events of our workdays to be consecrated.

Nazareth, home of the "Carpenter's Son," in you I would choose to understand and proclaim the severe and redeeming law of human work... I want to greet all the workers of the world, holding up to them their great pattern, their brother who is God (533).

To the humanist, the Christian plays the card that God is human. To the Marxist, the Christian plays the card that this human was a worker. The humanist and Marxist then leave the table insisting that such cards shouldn't be in the deck, leaving the Christian with the responsibility of stewarding the chips they left behind.

I'm a free market fan, but it still needs be said: Workers of the world - worship!