In the words of the German scholar Friedrich Engels; “His name (Karl Marx) will endure through the ages, and so also will his work.” These words were proclaimed to a small group of people present during the philosopher’s funeral by Marx’s longtime associate and collaborator, Friedrich Engles. Irrefutably, Engel’s words have endured for decades since the death of the German philosopher, historian, political, socialist and economic revolutionary. Marx’s ideas have indeed had a deep influence on human history and political economy on the global politics and intellectual beliefs which are seemingly more relevant in the present-day than they were when the philosopher was alive. However, with various interpretation of his philosophies by different factions, his declaration that “youths are the alchemists of the revolution” has been a subject of debate for years. Thus, this paper will examine what Marx implied by the decree and explore whether children and youth participation in political process matters.
Karl Marx basic ideas– Marxism- founded on contemporary scientific socialism have often been interpreted differently with arguments on how his philosophical works can be comprehended and concepts applied in contemporary time. Consequently, each of Marx’s inclinations in the political realm such as libertarian Marxism, Leninism, and Marxism-Leninism to mention but a few, is perceived as the accurate interpretation of the philosopher’s ideology and the revolutionary significance of his ideas that contributed to modern sociology and political economy.
The media regularly covers numerous cases of young people and children involvement in popular protests globally. Every once in a while, different media outlets present a kaleidoscope of anger, dissatisfaction and rebellion significantly prosecuted by young people with reference to the concept of “youth” and “generation.” Such protests might be triggered by unfair treatment of learners by their institutions or dissatisfaction with some of the staff or amenities. Such protests inarguably point to the substantial value of a universally comparative analysis of difficulties encountered by modern children and young people. Such challenges include poor education, inability to remain in formal education as a result of other societal pressures, not forgetting the police harassment and the widespread issue of youth unemployment.
For such, the ideology that the youth, particularly the unemployed young people, are entirely “useless” or “dark threat” to the society is all over the global media reports. Such ideologies emanate in part from Karm Marx and Engel belief that unemployed young people were the “alchemist of the revolution.” This was a terminology that was widely applied by the philosopher to ironically insinuate various forms of ineffective politics that were rather youthful in nature (Jeffrey, 2013). Simply put, each generation grows up with unique historical conditions that compel the particular generation to reconsider dominant social and political structures changing some facets of the local society. The conditions that influence such changes for instance in modern day is unemployment.
Over the decades, there has been an influx in families and governments investment in education across the world. Individuals believe that education is the pathway to social and economic mobility thus the rapid increase in educational levels. Nonetheless, the economic changes that have taken place since the late 20th century due to increased globalization, information and technology parallel to population increase have typically failed to produce white-collar jobs particularly within the industrial and services sectors. This shortage of compensated employment has catalyzed a crisis of educated unemployment which has become more evident across the world. This has resulted in endemic unemployment as well as underemployment creating a prevalent anomie naturally established as the root cause of political revolutions across the world as recently witnessed in the Arab and Asian world. The outburst of young people frustration on the streets of Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa illustrates Marx’s revolutionary ideas. For instance, an educated unemployed young person committed suicide in Tunisia in response to police harassment sparking a revolution that led to the removal of dictator Ben Ali (Jeffrey, 2013). In such cases, the youth appear to be playing the role of real “alchemist of the revolution.”
Accordingly, research points out that children and young people have centrally been engaged in a variety of parliamentary form of debates and lobbying high governmental officials in different countries. Similarly, youths are engaged in establishing new links with their agemates in various contexts such as learning, travelling, establishing communication in social media and organizing different forms of political protests that cross national borders. Thus, Marx assertion points out that children, teenagers and young people exploit their mutual identity as a “generation” or “young people” as a staring point for political critique and action leading to revolutions as witnessed in certain countries globally (Jeffrey, 2013). Most importantly, different forms of young people related civil progressive changes emerge as a result of societal institutions like religion organizations.
Essentially, the enunciation of age and capitalism is currently taking place when the youths are suffering from various forms of social hardships with common aspects like declined quality of education, fresh forms of control and surveillance as well as unemployment (the most sensitive element) stressing the significance of children and youths’ participation in political processes. The above indicates how generational change is a powerful tool that facilitates multiples form of political critique and social protests intended to oppose dominant authority. Hence, Marxism ideology continues to be proven to be accurate with its accuracy evident in the manner individuals lead their lives in a capitalist society. Marxism equips the proletariat with a strong theoretical foundation for the great responsibility of the socialist change of society. Marxism revolutionary ideas comprehensively offer an entirely worked-out theoretical foundation for change in the society since the capitalist system can no longer afford to play the progressive role it originally played- progressing the productive forces of the community. The capitalist system currently condemns millions of youths to unemployment and unequal opportunities hence the need for children and youth to engage in political processes.
References
Jeffrey, C. (2013). Geographies of children and youth III: Alchemists of the revolution? Progress in Human Geography, 37(1), 145-152.
