Too Soon To Tell

I came across this famous quote by Karl Marx the other day which is rooted in the notion that all politics is class based - 'them versus us' and that revolution remains the only route to freedom and prosperity.

Karl Marx

"It is not the consciousness of men that determine their being, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness."  

But this was written in the 19th century and since then capitalism and its market-based economy have developed in different ways although Gordon Brown's famous claim to have abolished 'boom and bust' looks rather silly these days.

Because countries around the world have created strikingly different forms of capitalism - Russia and China, for example, are now arguably state controlled capitalist countries which bear no relation to the 'socialist' values of Marx and Lenin. 

In other parts of the globe, particularly in some Islamic countries, religion is the dominant political and cultural force.

Yet if you were to ask most people in western democracies where they'd like to live, work and bring up a family - how many would choose Russia, China, Cuba or somewhere like Saudi Arabia?  

If you ask me, the French and American Revolutions worked out a whole lot better that the Russian Revolution - though to be fair, if you were to ask the China's Communist Party leaders, they'd probably answer that it's still far too soon to tell.