Today, May 5th, is Karl Marx’s birthday. If the global economic recession has proved anything, it’s that Marx’s work is still invaluable. He explained, in volumes of history, polemic, and economic theory, the intricacies of capitalism’s ups and downs. But what’s become of Marx’s legacy?

In a smooth review of Francis Wheen’s Marx’s “Das Kapital”: A Biography, Christopher Hitchens takes up this most important question. The best part? Hitchens’ opening analogy:

“The late Huw Wheldon of the BBC once described to me a series, made in the early days of radio, about celebrated exiles who had lived in London. At one stage, this had involved tracking down an ancient retiree who had toiled in the British Museum’s reading room during the Victorian epoch. Asked if he could remember a certain Karl Marx, the wheezing old pensioner at first came up empty. But when primed with different prompts about the once-diligent attendee (monopolizing the same seat number, always there between opening and closing time, heavily bearded, suffering from carbuncles, tending to lunch in the Museum Tavern, very much interested in works on political economy), he let the fount of memory be unsealed. ‘Oh Mr. Marx, yes, to be sure. Gave us a lot of work ’e did, with all ’is calls for books and papers …’ His interviewers craned forward eagerly, to hear the man say: ‘And then one day ’e just stopped coming. And you know what’s a funny fing, sir?’ A pregnant pause. ‘Nobody’s ever ’eard of ’im since!’”

This, Hitchens notes “was one of those stubborn proletarians for the alleviation of whose false consciousness Marx had labored in vain.”

Happy Birthday, Karl.