THERE are two quotable Marxes or Marxians, one of whom, Karl,  the prophetic economist and philosopher, would not call himself a Marxist, while the other one, Groucho (of the Marx brothers fame), wouldn’t have minded very much what you call him as long as you pronounced his name right. Karl inspired not only one but two revolutions, the Russian and the Chinese; Groucho shaped our thinking about what the world is. In the order of precedence, here’s Karl Marx with my thoughtless comments:

A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of communism. (That was then.)

All social rules and all regulations between individuals are eroded by a cash economy, avarice drags Pluto himself out of the bowels of the earth. (Indeed, my relations are eroded by cash, but Pluto hasn’t dragged himself out of the bowels of the earth; only mine.)

Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included. (True.)

Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time. (I like to think so.)

Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks. (He didn’t mention government.)

Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs. (Compounded interest, 5-6, and BIR).

Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society. (Sometimes society compels.)

Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining  together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth—the soil and the laborer. (How about capital accumulation through technology?)

Democracy is the road to socialism. (Is that why there’s less and not more democracy?  What happens now to PGMA’s assertion in the US that we are the most democratic country in the Southeast Asian region?)

Experience praises the most happy, the one who made the most people happy. (Abalos resigned.)

For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him. (Ideology makes no difference.)

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. (Needs beat abilities any time.)

Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending.

History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this. (But history makes historians.)

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. (What about comedy?)

In bourgeois society, capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality. (Well, it’s easier to be an individual if one has capital and plenty of it.)

History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends. (He had been talking to many politicians.)

Landlords, like other men, love to reap where they never sowed. (There are many ways of “sowing.”)

Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. (Yeah. Yeah.)

Nothing can have value without being an object of utility. (Men are either “useful” or “useless.”)

Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor. (Specialized labor makes the machines.)

Natural science will, in time, incorporate itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science. (Too deep for me.)

Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases. (I doubt that.)

Men’s ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state. (This piece is one such emanation.)

Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity. (So consciousness comes first.)

On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects. (It depends on the price.)

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas (i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is, at the same time, its ruling intellectual force. If not intellectual, then physical force.)

Reason has always existed, but not always in reasonable form. (He was familiar with official statements.)

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand. Religion is the opium of the masses. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.  (He seemed unable to make up his mind, but I presume he was against all kinds of popular evangelists.)

Revolutions are the locomotives of history. (Not in these parts, Karl.)

Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity. (And if he’s taught to hunt?)

Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex. (We are progressive.)

The country that is more developed industrially shows to the least developed the image of its own future. (The ZTE and cyber education programs are supposed to put us on the right track.)

The development of civilization and industry has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison. (Ahead of the Greenies.)

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion. (Soviet Russia tried that, and look where it got her.)

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism. (Incomplete: peace is the absence of opposition to anything.)

The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together. (Not with overseas employment, insofar as workers are concerned.)

The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain. (Give me mental anytime.)

The oppressed are allowed every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. (He did not even stay long enough to observe Philippine elections.)

The product of mental labor—science—always stands far below its value, because the labor time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor time required for its original production. (Poets, writers and our inventors know this.)

The production of many useful things results in too many useless people. (Did he mean “texters”?)

Without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers. (Did he mean technology, too?)

We should not say that one man’s labor is worth another man’s hour, but rather that one man during an hour’s work is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is, at the most, time’s carcass. (Time is gold.)

While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser. (It’s only because, knowing the value of money, they value it more than most of the people.)

The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot, of course, create it. (We try. Karl did by writing Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto.)

The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money. (Karl’s mother said, according to one story, “How I wish Karl had made capital instead of writing about it!” Of course, the writer doesn’t write for the purpose of making money; he can’t, anyway).

Workers of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains. (As mental workers, it’s enough to stay out of jail and avoid extrajudicial execution by writing fairy tales.)

I am not a Marxist. (Well said.) 

**** 

Groucho’s maxims

A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the motor running. (I can relate to that.)

A man’s only as old as the woman he feels.

A woman is an occasional pleasure, but a cigar is always a smoke.

Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.

All people are born alike—except Republicans and Democrats. (Over here, politicians are interchangeable.)

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.

Before I speak, I have something important to say. (That’s been my experience.)

Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.

Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped.

From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend to read it. (I’m looking for someone to say that to.)

Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.

Go, and never darken my towels again.

Humor is reason gone mad.

I didn’t like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions—the curtain was up. (Dorothy Parker was also credited for this quote.)

I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. (I just press “mute” on the remote).

I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.

I intend to live forever, or die trying.

I must confess, I was born at a very early age.

I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.

I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8:00 to educate America. They couldn’t educate America if they started at 6:30. (It’s done 24 hours in Discovery, National Geographic, Animal Planet, etc., but look at their Nielsen’s).

I remember the first time I had sex—I kept the receipt. (Some of us got medical bills.)

I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty. (Now, that’s Marxist.)

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it. (He’s suddenly turned serious.)

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

No man goes before his time—unless the boss leaves early.

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

Politics doesn’t make strange bedfellows—marriage does.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.  (He should have included lucrative remedies.)

Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does. (Not only in New York.)

She got her looks from her father. He’s a plastic surgeon.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made. (This is the cardinal rule in a political career.)

There is one way to find out if a man is honest; ask him! If he says yes, you know he’s crooked. (In these parts, you have many people saying they are upright, moral and honest—without being asked.)

Groucho, not Karl, is the authentic Marxist.

The quotable Marxists

THERE are two quotable Marxes or Marxians, one of whom, Karl,  the prophetic economist and philosopher, would not call himself a Marxist, while the other one, Groucho (of the Marx brothers fame), wouldn’t have minded very much what you call him as long as you pronounced his name right.

The generals who would be kings

To understand the unrest wracking Burma, consider a new town built in the lush hills northeast of Mandalay. It’s near the British-built hill station of Maymyo, where Burma’s old colonial masters went to escape the heat and dust of the plain. Maymyo still boasts red-brick mansions covered in ivy and pleasant gardens with roses, which flourish in the almost alpine climate of the hills.

Leading Change in Latin America

While it may be tempting for companies in developing countries to focus on growth and profits before they even begin to address climate change, our organization is finding that sustainability actually confers competitive advantage. At Masisa, the $886-million forestry and wood manufacturing company in Chile where I oversee social and environmental responsibility, a key part of our strategy is to engage business-to-business customers in our efforts to become greener.

CONVERSATION:  Alyson Slater, Global Reporting Initiative’s director of strategy, on how disclosing emissions benefits companies

Carbon-emissions reporting is a laborious undertaking that publicly exposes potentially serious liabilities and risks facing your business—and it’s voluntary. So why do it? We explored that question with Alyson Slater, the director of strategy at Global Reporting Initiative, an Amsterdam-based organization that has developed the most widely used framework of reporting principles, guidance and standard disclosures on environmental, social and economic performance.

UPS at 1OO

On the occasion of United Parcel Service’s (UPS) 100th birthday, many people have asked me how a company that began as a small US messenger service evolved to become a world leader in transportation and logistics.

Winning: The long road from public sector to private business

Q: I have a master’s degree in Public Administration and have worked in government for 13 years, but I am thinking about making the leap to the private sector. Any advice? Cynthia Whitbred-Spanoulis, Virginia Beach, Virginia                 

A: Forget everything you know.

Crackdown

BANGKOK—Myanmar’s military rulers imposed a nighttime curfew and banned assemblies Tuesday after thousands of Buddhist monks defied their warnings and mounted another day of prodemocracy protests to the cheers of crowds in the streets of Yangon.

Lawfare doctrine

MAJOR General Charles J. Dunlap Jr., the US Air Force’s deputy advocate general, defined lawfare as “the strategy of using or misusing law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve an operational objective.” 

48 hours in China with Tony Meloto

I am writing this article on a Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight from Beijing to Manila after a two-day whirlwind trip to Shanghai and Beijing with Antonio Meloto, the moving spirit behind the Gawad Kalinga (GK) movement.

Meloto Reflections

Tony Meloto’s moment of truth occurred in 1999, as he was agonizing on whether he had reached a point when he was denying his family precious time as he dedicated increasingly more of his life to Gawad Kalinga (GK).

Innovate faster by melding design and strategy

If they’re to do their job most effectively, designers should be brought into the innovation process at the very earliest stages. Too many companies still make the mistake of keeping business strategy and design activities separate.

CONVERSATION:  Outdoor-apparel start-up Ceo Chris Van Dyke on new ways to feed customers’ passions

Nau, a fledgling US retailer of high-performance outdoor apparel, does everything backward. It designed its web site before building a single store; it encourages customers to buy less; and it markets by not talking about itself.

Best practices Green Bag it

The bayong became relevant once more when SM and Unilever Philippines recently joined hands to introduce to the public a reusable shopping bag as part of their campaign to promote environmentalism in the country.

Winning: Creative employees need creative management

Q: What’s the best approach for leading creative people, and does it really differ from leading everyone else? Joe Burke, Los Angeles                 

A: In a word, yes.

Entrepreneur: The dish on Rai Rai Ken

Rai Rai Ken Ramen House and Sushi Bar has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a small and modest tea house in Makati City. It now boasts of 30 outlets all over the Philippines, and still growing. It takes pride in its tradition of serving authentic Japanese food, especially ramen or Japanese noodles, which is really its specialty.

SOS CHILDREN’S VILLAGES PHILIPPINES

Tommy was just a day old when he was found at the entrance of a town church in Batangas, wrapped in newspapers and placed in a box. His finder could tell he was newly born from the fresh umbilical cord dangling from his tiny body.

Confessions of a Sociopath

The author of the above quotation is either a physician who doesn’t want to be suspected of professional jealousy or a cynic who doesn’t want to be taken to a mental institution.

The grace of being Lean Alejandro

How does one write about a man whom one hardly knew beyond the official and professional? How does one tell his story especially to a generation 20 years removed from the time he walked this earth? How does one even venture to share what and how he thought of a world that changes so much and yet remains ever so the same? 

Block that defense: how to make sure your constructive criticism works

Why do top executives have difficulty receiving and responding to constructive criticism? Because so many high-fliers have received little criticism in their careers. As Chris Argyris, director emeritus of the Monitor Group (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and the James Bryant Conant Professor of Education and Organizational Behavior Emeritus at Harvard Business School, writes in “Teaching Smart People How to Learn,” a 1991 Harvard Business Review article, “Because they have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure.”

How they did it: charge what your products are worth

In a world with too many choices, aligning a product’s price with its perceived benefits is critical—but many companies seem to miss this simple point. A good question for any company to ask itself is “What would Goldilocks think?” Instead of offering too few benefits—or too many—for a stated price, they must perfectly align benefits and price across the product category and the brand portfolio, finding the combination that is “just right.”

Brain gain

(Last of five parts)

It’s easy for Filipinos to decide to leave the country to seek greener pastures. It’s much harder for these Filipinos, used to working abroad and earning sizeable sums, to come back.

Talent Search

(Fourth of five parts) 

Today’s companies face five critical business challenges: globalization, technology, the quest for profitability through growth, intellectual capital constraints and the exigencies of continuous change. Regardless of their industry, size or location, these challenges require these organizations to continuously build new capabilities—a responsibility which, University of Michigan School of Business professor Dave Ulrich writes, human resources (HR) should embrace for these organizations to last.

Civil Servants No More

(Third of five parts)

Jenny Balatbat left for the United States to teach kindergarten pupils, leaving behind her job as a teacher at the San Gabriel Elementary School in Bulacan.

Employee-Retention Strategies

(Second of five parts)

MANAGING talent has become more essential to the private sector than it used to be. Companies are now beginning to dig up insights into managing talent that should allow them to deal with brain drain in a more organized way. What is bold, they say, is to make lemonades when life gives you lemons.

THE WAR FOR TALENT

(First of five parts)

When the management of Fairchild Semiconductors, a global electronics firm, offered industrial engineer Manuel Villa, 32, a management job in Singapore three years ago, he didn’t hesitate to grab the offer.