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Notes -
With Marx, one simple problem is that he wrote in the 1800s, using 1800s references that are completely obscure to normal current-day people.
I've referred to it as the "Guizot problem", at times. Imagine someone taking up Communist Manifesto - supposed to be the simplest Marxist text available - and reading the first line: "A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies."
98% of people reading this for the first time are going to have no idea of who Guizot is. (98% is a high estimate based on the fact that many people are not going to bother picking up the Manifesto in any case and some French people might remember him from history books if he features there, I guess?) Even I had to check Wikipedia once again to remind myself who Guizot was and what, actually, he had done to make Marx hate him. Most are not going to know who Metternich is, either, but I'd guess at least he's a name that most Europeans have heard in their history class, even if they have then immediately forgotten him.
Of course, some people might have enough experience with old texts to know that who Guizot is is not probably supposed to be all that important and to plow on with the text. However, many are going to go "Guizot? Who the fuck is Guizot? Do I need to know who Guizot is? Oh, this is hopeless. I'll never understand any of this" and give up.
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