Lessons from Marx: in a fast-moving world, slow down

If Karl Marx were alive to celebrate his 200th birthday today, he would likely do it from a keynote address at one of the hottest tech conferences on the digital stage. Despite a recent rehabilitation by a new generation of scholars and journalists, especially in the US, Marx remains a controversial thinker. But alongside his revolutionary ideas about inequality and class conflict, he also gave us one underlying point that feels both radical and incredibly apt in our age: If you are trying to grasp unprecedented change, slow down!

Marx’s writings were a response to as era of extraordinary upheaval: the Industrial Revolution. Advances in technology resulted in increased mechanisation across industries and large-scale shifts from agrarian to factory economies created a mood of constant flux. Of particular interest to Marx were the new forms of productivity that accompanied the technological boom of his era: modes of labour that had existed for decades, even centuries, suddenly changed, with new working practices, routines, and habits suddenly emerging. Marx captured this spirit of upheaval in his most famous work, The Communist Manifesto, where he wrote, “All that is solid melts into air.” Does that feel familiar? 

Like Marx, Thomas Friedman, the New York Timescolumnist, currently speaks of an ‘age of accelerations’ and Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, refers to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. “More and more people”, he writes, “are becoming aware of the power of emerging technologies to transform our economies, our societies and even who we are as human beings.”

Similar sentiments are common among C-suite members of companies from banking to automotive to the energy space. But strategists and executives are getting swept up in this fervour around increasing speed. They don’t just believe that the world is speeding up. They are now convinced that the best way of dealing with this speed is to act faster. The popularity of concepts such as ‘agile’, ‘the lean start-up,’ and ‘fail fast' all point in this direction. Back when business strategy emerged as a field, it was about analysis first and execution second. Today a premium is placed on action over thinking. The dominant mind-set is one of ‘experiment and see what happens’. 

Marx’s response to this would be first: slow down. Second: dig deeper.

Marx’s method was to take the time to understand people’s day-to-day lives and how they relate to broader social structures, uncovering wider truths even when the world appeared to be in flux . Years of study – in both the dusty halls of the British Library and the factories of Manchester and Britain’s other industrial cities – led Marx to a grand theory on about capital and ownership. And his approach remains highly applicable for all sorts challenges faced by modern businesses.

As an example, take the banking sector. In the last decade, banks have been launching waves of digital services aimed at helping their customers manage their everyday finances. In the fear of being overtaken by rivals—or by the latest fin-tech entrant—bank executives have been embodying the fast-thinking mantra of the moment. Whether it is flashy apps, AI-enabled roboadvisors and chatbots, or new digitally enhanced branches, banks have been focused on rapid experimentation to stay ahead. 

But if they had looked at people’s daily lives banks would have found that most customers did not actually want these products and services. People’s primary needs and concerns are related to financial planning across a much longer time horizon. Would they be able to send kids to college? What would happen if a family member became ill? What would a divorce do to their financial situation? 

At the same time,  a more in-depth examination would reveal the root causes of customers’ fear and stress about their financial future, such as the the erosion of social services and the explosive growth in the freelance marketplace. Changing families, rising divorce rates and a redefinition of retirement are more examples of social developments that have fundamentally altered customer needs. 

How many banks appear to have taken these profound societal changes on board? Only a slow and deliberate analysis of the actual changes in customers’ lives will enable banks to use technology to answer real needs, rather than just roll out experiments in the name of speed. 

Executives in the banking sector and elsewhere may not have time to read (or re-read) all of Marx’s Capital. But we can all take Marx’s 200thbirthday as a day to reflect on how best to insert a bit of slowness and reflection into our organizations. It might just be the best move we make all year.