Marx’s Real Objection to Human Rights

Dispelling one prolific modern political myth

If anyone were to want to object to Karl Marx — imagine that — they’d be forgiven to try to start with “On the Jewish Question”. The title itself obviously suggests antisemitism, and there’s no shortage of people who say the text does as well, as it describes European Jews as greedy moneylenders.

Damning enough.

But Marx is addressing European Jews by the social role they were forced into by Christian domination through the Middle Ages, and…