Sock Free Hideaway

BEATS OF LOVE 

168. Time Ain't Nothing by Green on Red 

REMINDED OF a good pal who compartmentalised his friendships based on a precise understanding of the British class-system this week when discussing the likelihood of Marx having relevance in the future.

My good pal, despite being advised by his doctor to take things easy, was out on a heavy session. His mother had sacrificed a lot; and here he was, collapsing on the floor in convulsions, whilst the eminent lawyers he'd been drinking with beat a hasty retreat, abandoning him. My mistake was to sort of agree with him and concur that these folks weren't his friends. 

Once in semi-recovery and cut off from these highly paid and highly entertaining professionals, he rethought his idea that they weren't his friends. Reasoning that they had much more to lose than the likes of me. My parents, he conceded, were lower middle class like his, but I, unlike those professionals, could afford to be seen with someone convulsing at the start of a heavy session.

He expected me to calculate that he was wrong about them not being his friends, even as I was absorbing it all over a phone call. Unbeknownst, I cast the die on our friendship from the moment I put the phone down, reaching no disagreement. 

What I should have said was this: 'it is very British to convolute a class system in a knee-jerk reaction to Marxism, sub-labelling everything until the original categories dissolve into social embarrassment.' Marx astutely kept it simple, pitting owners against all wage workers.

It's the sheer simplicity that's its genius and which still instils fear in every lying capitalist. Course, Marx will always be relevant, because too many people have been convinced there is no class war at all.