Karl Marx wins BBC Poll

17.07.2005

Last week, Karl Marx finally won hands down at the GREATEST PHILOSOPHER OF ALL TIME vote by BBC Channel 4 listeners. The poll was run by the most popular program of the channel, IN OUR TIME. Karl Marx was ahead from the beginning of the poll, and even after an attempt by THE ECONOMIST magazine to get him knocked off first position, Karl Marx has won.

There was a shortlist of twenty of the best known, most respected and influencial philosophical thinkers, who were nominated by the listeners. And in the final poll, Karl Marx was voted the Greatest philosopher of all time.

Of the 30,000 votes, the BBC Press Office announced last week, Marx won with "an astonishing 28 per cent" of votes cast. He was the clear winner. The program brought in over a million hits to the extended BBC website.

The runner-up was Scots philosopher, David Hume with 12.7 per cent. Then came Wittgenstein with 6.8 per cent.

The Guardian newspaper favoured Kant, The Economist supported Hume, The Independent first chose Wittgenstein, then changed its mind, laughing thus at Wittgenstein's philosophical change of position. Celebrities all chose favourites.

After a first round, there was a short listed of 20 greatest philosophers, and after another round, 10 were declared finalists.

The other finalists scored as follows. After Marx, Hume and Wittgenstein, came Nietzsche with 6.5%, Plato with 5.7%, Kant with 5.6%, Thomas Aquinas with 4.8% who beat Socrates who also with 4.8% on the second decimal, and Aristotle with 4.5%.

So, who said Marx was dead?