We all think Marxist thoughts every day

Marx doesn't seem to have done well with predictions, and it's a safe bet that his idea of social organization won't ever happen, would last five minutes if it did, and probably wouldn't be great for people anyway...

But boy is he important!

Viewing the past, present and future through the lens of Labor and Class was a big frickin deal, and once we are exposed to it sticks.

There are many ways to look at history—a line of kings, a geographically determined process, nations fighting over resources, the growth of ideas, the development of technologies, whatever.

And one quite useful approach is to see human history as the bulk of humanity under the lash to build the grand structures, to fight the grand wars, to conquer the wildernesses... and primarily for the benefit of the few folks at the top. And that in many ways the average person in England and the average person in China have more in common with each other than they have with their own national political and economic aristocracies. And to see in history to constant tension between labor and capital... the constant revolutions and reactions.

That's not the only valid historical lens, but it's an indispensable one. Once exposed to it, it seems hard to believe that people ever thought any other way.