This text was the contribution of Ernest Mandel to a 1978 commemorative colloquium for the Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) and was first published in 1980.

For a materialist conception of history, it is necessary to understand that the world cannot be consciously changed without understanding it correctly.

This year marks 25 years since Ernest Mandel died. Mandel (5 April 1923–20 July 1995) was one of the most significant Marxist economists of the second half of the twentieth century. In 1982, he was central to founding our Institute. A prolific scholar and activist until the end of his life, Mandel wrote dozens of books and hundreds of articles.

The Accumulation of Capital was published in 1913, and it was probably only after completing her magnum opus that Luxemburg resumed writing her Introduction to Political Economy. Interrupted once again, now by the outbreak of war, she continued to work on the Introduction during her stay in prison in Wronke, in the German province of Posen, in 1916-17.

There is a fairy tale that Marx was first of all an admirer of technology and that he considered it ‘the foundation of what exists and the engine of the future’. Although this fairy tale has been refuted countless times, people continue to believe it.