"there is an enormous amount to learn from Marx. Indeed, much of what Marx said seems to become more relevant by the day. The essence of his argument is that the capitalist class consists not of wealth creators but of rent seekers—people who are skilled at expropriating other people’s work and presenting it as their own. Marx was blind to the importance of entrepreneurs in creating something from nothing. He ignored the role of managers in improving productivity. But a glance at British business confirms that there is a lot of rent seeking going on. In 1980 the bosses of the 100 biggest listed firms earned 25 times more than a typical employee. In 2016 they earned 130 times more. " [..] "companies claim they hire chief executives on the open market and pay them according to their performance. But the evidence is brutal. Most CEOs are company men, who work their way up through the ranks, rather than free agents. In 2000-08 the FTSE all-share index fell by 30% but the pay for the bosses running those firms rose 80%. J.K. Galbraith once said that “the salary of the chief executive officer of the large corporation is not market reward for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.” " [..] "Tony Blair became rich in his retirement by offering advice to bankers and third-world dictators. George Osborne, a former chancellor, is also cashing in: he makes more than £650,000 ($840,000) for working for BlackRock investment managers one day a week" [..] "Marx predicted that capitalism would become more concentrated as it advanced. The number of listed companies has declined at a time when profits are close to their highest levels ever. Concentration is particularly pronounced in the most advanced sectors of the economy. Google controls 85% of Britain’s search-engine traffic. Marx was also right that capitalism would be increasingly dominated by finance, which would become increasingly reckless and crisis-prone." [..] "many trends are worrying. Average wages are still below their level before the financial crisis in 2008 and are not expected to exceed it for several years. The rise of the Uber economy threatens to turn millions of people into casual workers" [..] "The problem with Marx is not that his analysis is nonsensical, as Mr Gauke maintains, but that his solution was far worse than the disease. " [..] "The Tory party is heading for a substantial victory in large part because Labour’s leaders are so unreconstructed. But it would be a mistake for the Conservatives to ignore the lessons of the master himself. As Trotsky once put it, “You may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested in you.” " [..] "preventing monopolies from forming: Britain’s antitrust rules need to be updated for an age where information is the most valuable resource and network effects convey huge advantages. It means ending the CEO salary racket, not least by giving more power to shareholders. It means thinking seriously about the casualisation of work. And it means closing the revolving door between politics and business. The best way to save yourself from being Marx’s next victim is to start taking him seriously."
