Oi. Marx said communism could only follow after capitalism ran its course. All the places it was tried didn't have a middle class. They skipped a vital part. He even wrote about this, declaring only Germany at the time was capable of socialist transition. Today, democratic socialism is very healthy in the EU. German workers have a 20% representation in the companies for which they work. They are a federal system. In very many ways, Marx is eeriely correct. We see in the USA too much capital concentration and reduced innovation. Socialism makes no sense to a healthy middle class. It makes a lot of sense to a middle class under attack by capital concentration, like today, where fewer and fewer people can even afford private property, capital, and freedom.,(reply>), Also... nobody said this stuff happens overnight! It's been over 100 years now. Feudalism took over 200 years to be thrown off, and you could argue it still exists in the guise of unchecked capitalism today, or rather, reeering its head again when capital concentration dictates freedom. The time of these movements, which Marx was analysing, wasn't in a year or two. It was over decades and centuries. Yes, that doesn't help any of us, but it is a way of seeing economic history. It is absolutely valid today as it was then, even if the political system proposed is different to the original Communist Manifesto. The premise isn't strange -- lots of Boomers and Gen X watched Star Trek. Well, sorry, but that world is exactly what communism is. That is, what, 300 years away? :D