Karl Marx would have hated internships.
This is not especially surprising.
Karl Marx hated most things.
He hated capitalism.
He hated exploitation.
He hated child labor.
He hated industrial working conditions.
He hated landlords.
He hated competition among workers.
He hated economic systems that concentrated wealth in the hands of a small number of owners.
If Karl Marx had maintained a social media account, he would have spent most of his time quote-posting economic statistics and accusing strangers of participating in class warfare.
What might surprise him, however, is how modern America managed to reinvent some of his favorite criticisms while attaching dramatically better branding.
The nineteenth century had child labor.
The twenty-first century has unpaid internships.
Progress is a complicated thing.
Few political thinkers have enjoyed a more successful afterlife than Marx.
Few have enjoyed a stranger one.
For generations Americans have argued about Marx without reading him. Politicians invoke him. Commentators fear him. College freshmen discover him. Cable news hosts blame him for things that would have confused him entirely.
Yet one of Marx's central observations remains remarkably straightforward.
Capitalism is extraordinarily good at producing wealth.
The problem is how that wealth gets distributed.
This was the question that consumed him.
Who benefits?
Who profits?
Who bears the cost?
Who does the work?
Who captures the reward?
Marx spent thousands of pages asking variations of these questions.
Modern internship culture would have provided him with fresh material.
The first thing Marx would notice is the language.
Marx loved language.
He spent much of his life dissecting the vocabulary of economics.
And he would immediately recognize that modern corporations possess a remarkable talent for describing labor without using the word labor.
Internships.
Professional development.
Experiential learning.
Career pathways.
Talent pipelines.
Emerging leadership opportunities.
These are all impressive phrases.
Marx would eventually ask a simple question.
"Are they working?"
The answer, of course, is yes.
Historically speaking, child labor was not subtle.
Factories hired children because children were cheap.
Mines hired children because children were cheap.
Textile mills hired children because children were cheap.
The arrangement was cruel.
It was obvious.
No one pretended otherwise.
Modern employers have become considerably more sophisticated.
Today a twenty-year-old might spend forty hours per week performing productive work while receiving compensation in the form of "valuable experience."
This would fascinate Marx.
Particularly because valuable experience rarely appears to pay rent.
To be fair, not all internships are exploitative.
Many are excellent.
Many provide mentorship.
Many offer training.
Many lead directly to careers.
The problem is not internships themselves.
The problem is what happens when entire industries quietly transform unpaid labor into an unofficial prerequisite for employment.
Marx would recognize the dynamic instantly.
The wealthy can afford to work for free.
The poor often cannot.
And suddenly opportunity begins concentrating among people who can afford to subsidize their own labor.
This would strike Marx as less a labor market and more a sorting mechanism.
One of Marx's most famous observations appears in Capital:
"Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor."
This is perhaps the most metal sentence ever written by an economist.
It is also surprisingly relevant to LinkedIn.
Modern corporations have largely abandoned the vampire imagery.
This is unfortunate.
The branding opportunities were substantial.
Instead, companies now describe themselves as families.
Communities.
Ecosystems.
Innovation hubs.
Marx would remain unconvinced.
A family, he might point out, generally pays for dinner.
The modern economy possesses an extraordinary talent for transforming insecurity into opportunity.
This is one of its defining characteristics.
Unable to find permanent work?
Become a freelancer.
Unable to afford housing?
Become flexible.
Unable to secure benefits?
Become entrepreneurial.
Unable to find stable employment?
Build your personal brand.
At some point, Marx would begin rubbing his temples.
Not because these solutions never work.
Because they increasingly sound like ways of describing risk transfer.
The uncertainty remains.
The worker simply inherits more of it.
Nothing would amuse Marx more than hustle culture.
The nineteenth century capitalist at least admitted he wanted workers to produce more.
Modern hustle culture encourages workers to exploit themselves.
Work harder.
Wake earlier.
Optimize productivity.
Monetize hobbies.
Monetize friendships.
Monetize spare time.
Monetize sleep if possible.
The nineteenth-century factory owner would be impressed.
Marx would be horrified.
And perhaps a little impressed as well.
One suspects he would particularly enjoy LinkedIn.
Not because he would like it.
Because he would regard it as evidence.
Imagine explaining the platform.
Millions of workers publicly advertise their skills.
Celebrate promotions.
Promote professional accomplishments.
Network continuously.
Compete constantly.
And carefully curate an image of perpetual enthusiasm.
Marx would stare silently.
Then ask whether everyone is required to enjoy this.
The answer would not improve his mood.
The internship itself would remain the most interesting part.
After all, modern internships often resemble apprenticeships.
Historically, apprenticeships had a purpose.
A master trained a novice.
Skills transferred.
Knowledge accumulated.
The relationship contained mutual obligations.
Modern internships occasionally accomplish this.
They also occasionally involve fetching coffee while updating spreadsheets.
The distinction matters.
Marx would care deeply about the distinction.
Work that develops skills creates value.
Work that merely extracts free labor creates value for somebody else.
His entire career revolved around identifying that difference.
The strangest development, however, is the emergence of educational credentials as economic gatekeepers.
Modern workers frequently spend years accumulating degrees.
Then years accumulating experience.
Then years accumulating credentials.
Then years accumulating additional experience because employers would prefer applicants who already possess experience.
This creates a fascinating loop.
One cannot obtain the job without experience.
One cannot obtain experience without the job.
Marx would find this deeply inefficient.
And that was before learning about unpaid internships.
To be clear, Marx would not argue that every employer is a villain.
Contrary to popular mythology, Marx spent much of his life analyzing systems rather than individuals.
The problem was never that every capitalist was evil.
The problem was that incentives often produce predictable outcomes.
Organizations seek lower costs.
Workers seek higher wages.
Investors seek returns.
Managers seek efficiency.
The conflict emerges naturally.
No villain is required.
The incentives do most of the work themselves.
This was one of Marx's most enduring insights.
And one of his most uncomfortable.
Perhaps the funniest aspect of modern labor culture is the persistent belief that exploitation always looks dramatic.
Chains.
Factories.
Sweatshops.
Victorian misery.
Marx understood that exploitation evolves.
It adapts.
It modernizes.
It develops better marketing.
The language changes.
The incentives remain surprisingly familiar.
One imagines Marx visiting a career fair.
Students carrying résumés.
Employers discussing opportunities.
Everyone speaking in optimistic corporate language.
Then someone explains that a position requires six months of unpaid work for the privilege of obtaining future opportunities.
Marx would pause.
Look around the room.
And ask whether anyone else finds this arrangement slightly familiar.
The room would become uncomfortable.
Karl Marx spent much of his life arguing that economic systems should be judged not by their slogans but by their outcomes.
Who benefits?
Who pays?
Who profits?
Who works?
The questions remain useful.
Even when the factory becomes an office.
Even when the foreman becomes a manager.
Even when child labor becomes an internship program with a mission statement.
Somewhere, Marx is surveying the modern economy with a mixture of outrage and professional satisfaction.
Outrage because many of the problems he identified remain.
Satisfaction because they continue proving his point.
And if there is one thing Karl Marx loved almost as much as criticizing capitalism, it was being right.
— John Handcock