IT is clear to see from Hear All Sides recently that in these days of impending economic crisis in the whole capitalist system that those who want to make out that all Karl Marx said was wrong are still alive and well.

I do not think that any serious political student can ignore the contribution Marx made to our thinking about the predicament of ordinary working people, denied in the present system the possibility of development to their full potential as human beings.

In essence, Marx was pointing out that all philosophers had done was to describe the world when the need was to change it. He pointed out that the change would not come about spontaneously, nor by the philanthropy of well-meaning individuals who were doing very well under the status quo, but by the realisation that working people should awaken to their rights and unite.

Like all sets of ideas they have been taken up and used by men who have their own ambitions, and all is to be played for to attain the better society, but the people who want to make clever points as if the world was a debating society are of no consequence so far as I am concerned.

Geoffrey Bulmer, Billingham.

IN his letter (HAS, Jan 23), Tony Kelly said "in nearly every country where Marxism has been put into practice it has led to the abolition of democracy and years of bloodshed and misery for ordinary working people".

This is no different to feudalism, capitalism and many other systems which have for their own ends destroyed democracies and other political systems, and which have oppressed, enslaved and even caused the genocide of entire cultures and races.

The truth is that no matter the political system it will always be manipulated by those who obtain power so it remains with them.

Their power and influence increases at the expense of the ordinary people, until it reaches a point where the views and wishes of the ordinary people no longer matter.

This is why when it comes to matters such as law, education, immigration, housing, unitary councils or a vote on the European Constitution, etc, the opinions of the ordinary people are now considered inconsequential to those who hold political power.

CT Riley, Spennymoor, Co Durham.