Nairobi, July 19 -- Karl Marx, the revolutionary German economist and philosopher, wrote at a time of immense industrial transformation.

Cities were swelling with workers drawn by the promise of opportunity, yet many found themselves trapped in miserable living conditions, enduring long working hours and grinding poverty. The parallels with contemporary Kenya are difficult to ignore.

Marx viewed history as a series of class struggles in which the oppressed eventually challenge and overthrow those who hold economic and political power.

In ancient societies, slaves and peasants laboured for the benefit of landowners and aristocrats. Industrialisation shifted power towards merchants, manufacturers and the emerging middle classes, but it a...