Karl Marx saw private property as the root of power inequality, and, in his play Marx in Soho, author Howard Zinn brings this message to contemporary society. However, the play also deepens the idea of a power struggle by challenging the concept of a utopia and analyzing Marx’s own power relationships.

In the play Marx in Soho, Marx claims he staged a protest in Heaven so the powers that be would allow him to return to earth for the performance. Much of the play focuses on Marx’s personal relationships, and Marx as a character expounds upon the need for all workers to unite and change society in order to alleviate the issues that characterize a capitalist system. When viewed in the context of Marx’s belief in a historical power struggle between two economic classes, Marx in Soho raises several questions about the nature of power in human life. The play begins with the idea that even Heaven, a utopia, needs agitators to keep power in check and create space for the people’s needs. A perfect human society does not exist, so citizens must be constantly active and aware. This implies that even in a society which separates power from material wealth and creates true equality for all people, citizens must fight against potential tyrants.

Additionally, the play illustrates the power dynamics in many of Marx’s personal relationships. Marx espoused ideas of gender equality but left all childcare and home responsibilities to his wife. The play gave no practical reason for this arrangement other than Marx’s tacit acceptance of societal gender roles. Thus Marx simultaneously exercised an oppressive power over someone he loved and fought for the furtherance and eventual elimination of a larger and more visible power division. Power divisions exist in the most basic human relationships, meaning that even with the elimination of material wealth, inequality can continue, perhaps perpetuated by the very revolutionaries that eliminate other forms of oppression.

Marx’s communism seeks to eliminate inequality in society by eliminating the structures that create it, yet Marx himself exercised power over people in his life based on his status as a man, and Marx in Soho implies that no society can be beyond the possibility of tyranny. Eliminating power structures does not inherently eliminate power struggles. Ultimately, this play asks us if humans can escape their desire to accumulate power, or must maintain constant vigilance against it.