Author’s Note: A UN Report criticising British government housing policy, especially the ‘Bedroom Tax’, was dismissed by them as a “misleading Marxist diatribe”.
*****
It’s ‘Marxist’ this, and ‘Marxist’ that,
The usual headline cry,
When politicians want to slur,
And papers want to lie.
The tabloids claim that Marxists eat,
A baby every day;
And thanks to their brave vigilance,
Such tales won’t go away!
In fact there’s Marxists everywhere,
Such is their derring-do;
They’ve even got Guerrilla’s hid,
In every state-run zoo!
In Marx’s time there was no crime,
No millions unemployed;
All workers lived in palaces,
Life was no empty void.
Then he (and Fred) wrote Capital,1
And ruined it for all,
As suddenly the system was,
In a complete free fall.
As workers at last recognised,
Their ruler’s fakery;
And fed up with the crumbs began,
To want the bakery!
The rulers wanted freedom back,
(The freedom to exploit!)
And fought back with smear campaign,
Both facile and adroit.
So it’s time people woke-up from,
Their languor at long last;
And then consigned the system to,
The dustbin of the past!
- Frederick Engels prepared and edited later volumes.