Explain this to me like I'm a six-year-old

I'm trying to understand. When Marx wrote that the world's workers should unite and lose their "chains," was he writing in some sort of racialized code, rather than socioeconomic metaphor? Was Marx's exhortation a sign of intellectual exhaustion? Of diversion? Distraction?

His words were profoundly political as well, of course; they were after all scribbled during Europe's massive upheavals of 1848. But in their political profundity there was a penetrating precision of focus. They were aimed straight at the monied class and their protectors, who hadn't done much of late for those who kept both in such luxurious comfort.

Now one can disagree with Marx's political objectives--his means as well as his ends. But can one say he was

intellectually exhausted, out of ideas and out of energy. And so [he] resorted to diversions and distractions, to demagoguing and defaming others[?]

Well, that's what Mitt Romney would say. And he did. And I just don't get it.

Comments

[John Haas]

Remember in 2008 when McCain accused Obama of insulting Sarah Palin because he'd used the phrase "lipstick on a pig"? Same idea.

[Jimiskin]

Willful ignorance morphs into willful stupidity.

[Peter G]

The bad Romney man wants to be the boss of everyone and he will tell any lie he must to fool enough people into making this happen. We think people like that need a good long time out.