Five-day international meet on Marx begins

He said that Marxism had gained a new lease of life since the financial crisis of 2008. He said that analysts had pointed out that greater economic freedom and rise of a dominant middle class would ultimately lead to situation where greater political freedom would be demanded, culminating in the flowering of democracy in China. Desai pointed out that such an outcome had already been visualised by Marx in his writings.

Gupta, who spoke about how Marx was misinterprepreted, said in response to a question that Marx never talked about violence. “ He never talked about violence. He only talked about winning over workers,” Gupta said. He added that Marx had written that “Communists should never form a separate party of their own”, and that “by this logic, most communist parties are disqualified”.

Former V-C of University of Delhi Deepak Nayyar, who spoke on the future of globalisation, said globalisation might well have transcended geographical boundaries but national and state boundaries remained intact.