HELSINKI, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Kalevi Kivisto, a veteran Finnish leftist politician and presidential candidate, on Tuesday underlined the continued importance of Karl Marx.
Participating in a panel discussion, Kivisto singled out the analysis of global development seen in the communist manifest by Karl Marx.
"It showed tremendous vistas, and reached a long way in the analysis of societies, even foreseeing the future of the family institution," Kivisto said.
"Marx researched the society of his time. He marked a turning point in the history of socialist ideas. After-Marx socialism was no longer just a nice goal based on ethical justifications, but was based on research results into how society was seen to be developing," he said.
Panel moderator, former MP and minister Arja Alho noted that Marxism may have a more acute need to meet in the developing countries, and raised questions where the teachings of Marx have relevance in today's Finland.
Tanja Pekkarinen, researcher of Tampere University, said the concept of "class position" of a person is a cross-border term, and appears globally. She noted that in Finland industrial workers were suffering in poor conditions long ago. Young people now may think the phenomenon has disappeared. "But it has not, it has only moved to another part of the world."
Teivo Teivainen, professor of international politics at Helsinki University, called for more Marxist discussion of the position of Finland.
He recalled that in Finland a voting system based on wealth was abrogated more than a hundred years ago, as an achievement mainly of the working class. "When social democratic politicians these days have been representing Finland in the World Bank, they have used such a voting system."
He said that the program of the last left-right government had the stipulation that Finland supports the improvement of the position of the poorer countries in the international finance institutions.
"But Finland has made its way up to being a wealthy country and applies paternalistic attitudes questioning whether it would be advisable to give more voting power to the poorer countries," Teivainen said.
