Eric Hobsbawm (9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012)
Eric Hobsbawm was the man most famous amongst UK university students for making Marxism seem sensible. The idea that workers would one day run the world is a very enticing one and Eric Hobsbawm seemed to have a understanding that we as a species would get rid of capitalism and replace it with a much nicer way of doing things.
The only problem with this is that the Berlin Wall came down and the full horrors of what happened in countries that had planned economies came out. Why would anyone want to be a statistic suffering painful death by starvation, over work, pestilence and war? The argument that this was the effect of Capitalism’s fight back may be a strong one but it doesn’t really answer the questions that the ruling elite amongst the ‘Peoples’ republic tended not to have these problems with a shorten life.
However he was right when Lehman’s Day happened and showed that in the end capital will eat its self if it is left to do what it wants to do. Which brings to the fore of what to do? Obviously poker has the answer. Let gamblers play poker and let society through the means of democracy, information and education work out a way of running society that people are not treated like cattle and everyone has a good life. Simple really, not!
Well it is simple but will it happen? Personally I cannot see it but I do live in hope. Eric Hobsbawm with his 4 major works The Age of Capital (1914); The of Revolution (1962), The Age of Empire (1987), and The Age of Extremes (1991) does give a good analysis of where we have been, now it is up to someone brilliant to create a path of where we are going and that satisfy everyone’s needs.