You know who we're talking about.  The Davos WEF crowd.  The UN, IMF, World Bank, and central bankers.  Washington lobbyists, NGOs, public/private partnerships, technical advisory committees, nonprofits, and everything in between.  We're also talking about your meddling neighbor, and many others.

What's their deal?  Do they think they're making the world a better place?  And, if so, a better place for who – them or you?

Could something more devious be guiding their advancements?

In Das Kapital, for example, Karl Marx bemoans capitalism for exploiting labor to produce surplus value.  His main gripe was that 19th century laborers worked for mere wages while some factory owners got incredibly rich.

To eradicate this class struggle, as he perceived it, Marx proposed a socialist mode of production coordinated through conscious economic planning.  He believed that distributing products "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" would bring about his vision of a workers' paradise.

Many people took the bait hook, line, and sinker.  They were all in.  The promise of something for nothing administered by the state was too enticing to pass up.

Yet any country that has ever attempted to put these ridiculous ideas into practice has been left with an economy that fails to deliver the abundance for all which Marx advertised.  Moreover, this comes at the expense of individual freedom and liberty.

Das Schnitzel

In this regard, what would Marx think of the political economy that's currently pervading much of the western world?