A few days ago, Boing Boing guest blogger Richard Metzger pronounced the stunning revelation that "Marx was right!" Of course, he doesn't go on to actually tell us how Marx was right, instead preferring merely to make a series of assertions about the degree of his verisimilitude (bold added by me).

It's fascinating to consider that during the time period when Marx was writing "Capital," there were few factories in England --it was largely an agrarian society still-- yet somehow Marx was able to see clearly the mess that we would be in today. He's the most accurate prophet in all of history, there should be no doubt about this. Marx viewed history with a very, very long telescope. How he was able to see so far into the future is a mystery of his particular genius, but Marx accurately extrapolated how capitalism's endgame would play itself out at the very birth of the system. Marx saw how utterly destructive this system would ultimately become. Look around you: Marx was right.

That's quite the pronouncement. Perhaps it's just a little hyperbolic, though. Maybe? Just a little?

For one thing, Marx wasn't a prophet, at least in the most common sense of the word. Disregarding the fact that he was an atheist, Marx simply interpreted what he saw as scientific and logical outcomes based on his knowledge of human action. This is a far cry from prognostication or divine revelation normally applied to the term "prophet."

I am not an expert in Marxist theory, so I will not attempt here to critique any particular claim Marx made. I just wish that others would have the courtesy to do the same – or at least that they would back up their assertions with some kind of actual evidence.