The INLA rejecting violence has nothing to do with Marxism

The decision of the INLA to pursue it objectives without armed struggle is of course welcome. But to describe this event as representing the decommissioning of Marxism, as the Guardian Jason Walsh did today, is absurd.

Karl Marx (1818-83) never considered armed struggle in Ireland for the twenty-first century. What he did write about in his masterpiece Das Kapital were concepts and models to understand the political economy of capitalism; these theoretical tools are still useful today for analysing society.

The value, or otherwise, of Marx and Marxism is not affected by the actions of INLA in Ireland.