[Marxism] Richard Rodriguez, Karl Marx, and California

["Paul H. Dillon" <illonph@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Last night I saw a Richard Rodriguez video essay on the PBS News Hour in
which he claimed that Karl Marx had prophesied  that California would be the
first place in the world where a "universal human culture" would develop; a
point that Rodriguez was himself asserting.

The claim astounded me for a number of reasons.  I don't remember ever
seeing Marx write anything that would address what we might understand as a
"universal culture" except in the context of a "communist culture" that
would be accompany a classless society.  But as to the specifics of belief
systems, etc, other than the obvious disappearance of religion in the
Marxist vision of a communist society, I don't think he ever projected
anything at all that could fit the claim Rodriguez made.  I've read a lot of
Marx but not everything.

Does anyone on the list have any clue as to what Rodriguez might have been
referring?  Perhaps something from Marx's newspaper articles on the Civil
War and US economy?

It's pretty astounding to me that Rodgriguez dropped Marx's name at all but
the peculiarity of the statement he attributed to the old man was even more
baffling.

Paul


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