FWIW, over here we have plenty of well-known public voices on the left, who get corporate media platforms and interview party leadership candidates, who are self admittedly Marxists and Communisms. Our political history is different, of course. Here's the lovely Ash Sarkar clapping back at Piers Morgan with "I'm literally a communist, you idiot!" during live daytime TV. It wasn't irony.
YouTube
I am not talking about the master/slave dialectic, or Nietzsche. I wasn't referring to Karl Marx's work directly, either, despite my faux pas but since you described him as just an "economist", I would say he was a lot more than just production and labour.
Marx was complex and clearly much, much more than just an economist. "Just an economist" would clearly not have so greatly influenced and set the philosophical trajectory for, to the degree his work did, people like Gramsci, and the aforementioned Germans, and The Frankfurt School, critical theory and intersectionality. He has informed everything about the left today.
These increasingly complicated explanations for why our social problems can only be viewed through this prism of the "victim" and "oppressor" narrative, or as with intersectionality, how we are living at the intersections of overlapping, mindbogglingly tangled systems of "privilege" and "oppression" - have been promulgated and developed with one aim in mind: burn it all fucking down. It has nothing to do with creating an egalitarian utopia of equality and peace.
Its job is to methodically vilify, then justify for the eradication and replacement of, all of the European traditions, norms and values which are responsible for the West in general.
You combine that with liberal egalitarianism, and you have a situation where everyone, from corporate and money power, to the media and academia are telling black people they are allowed to, and indeed should, think of themselves in terms of a "group", and collectivize and politically organize themselves according to their shared racial identity.... but white Europeans must strictly adhere to the tenets of liberalism at all times. Be individuals, and act as individuals within a society of other atomized individuals. If we want to express an identity, we may do this by consuming products, and other forms of traditionally white culture and identity can, and should increasingly, be viewed with suspicion.
If white people start to become a bit exasperated with this demand place upon them to only act as individuals, they are quickly reminded that it is for their own good, and the good of society and the world at large, as we, as a race, have been marked down in the history books as capable of unspeakable evil (the holocaust, colonialism, slavery...) A trip to the movies, or a night of Netflix, for a bit of light relief and escapism from it all, turns into a propaganda event where the message is repeated in creative and emotional ways. It does certainly seem to me that white people are the only race no longer permitted to act as ethnic group. It is no longer polite or fashionable for that to be a thing.
There is a reason there has been a recent uptick in interest of the far right (as reported by the media), and it's nothing to do with Trump's "dog-whistling" tweets. You have kids on YouTube, who should be playing Call of Duty, and instead are live-streaming their debates on Third Position ideas. It's pretty crazy.
To be honest, at this moment and with the problems we have, nobody gives a shit about whether Marx said this, or Nietzsche said that, or whatever. I don't think free market capitalism is the realistic answer to fixing the problems we face today, either, by the way. You have a highly technical, nuanced understanding of these ideas, and that is all well and good, but the arguments that the left have been permitted to make (due to liberal egalitarianism, and the way it limits the right's ability to counter them-) in popular culture and mainstream politics, for decades, has got us to this place of rioting and looting. Now questioning the police's existence, for God's sake.
Given the police arrest about 12,000,000 Americans per year, it is obviously inevitable that another George Floyd will die during his arrest by another white cop. It's just a matter of time.
The next politically useful, racialised death and subsequent rioting will certainly NOT be any less significant/violent/severe/politically far reaching than this one, it will be measurably worse, and that accelerationism is the whole point. The left will be able to, quite rationally, complain the situation has not improved since May 2020 when George Floyd was killed, and present this brand new case of systemic, white supremacist police brutality to demonstrate how the level of "equality" has worsened, or at least, stagnated. They will describe this as being due to the white supremacist institution's refusal to listen to them, and remind them they are an unheard, voiceless people. What do you do when you demand change, to secure your own existence, but are ignored? You make that change happen yourself "by any means necessary". The level out outrage will need to be amplified since the last time in order to have any potential for effect. A placard and paper-mache Trump effigy will no longer cut it.
That will be all the fuel needed for the fire, and you will see more intense rioting and violence than now. More preposterous demands. Less people willing to argue to the contrary, in public, at least. Especially if their pay-cheque is paid by a woke corporation. It WILL get to the point, one day in the future, where the corporate media and neo-liberal money & political power are not just tacitly endorsing the destruction (with the ol' "I understand your pain, but...") but instead they will be calling for all out violent insurrection (marketed with a different, euphemistic title, and a suitable front-man, obviously)
Indeed we did! Harsh but fair, harsh but fair. The other week I saw a jaw-dropping clip of an English (ethnically) travel vlogger walking through a street in a poor area somewhere in India, filming with his go-pro as he went. This random middle-aged Indian guy walked by, asked if he was English, beamed a big smile and exclaimed "Come back, please, and rule us again! Sort this mess out!". He grabbed his hands and shook them vigorously. Hilarious! The English bloke just laughed awkwardly, slipped out of his grip and walked away as fast as humanly possible. Couldn't believe it.
I have personally seen lots of footage circulating on social media, and some news articles, which show the opposite of what you say. I'll post some links tomorrow. It's not pleasant viewing, though. When (not if) my city is burning from all this, I will be begging for the state's jack-booted thuggery, and wondering if feeling this way is accidental.
Just googled the Met Police's budget and it's 4.12 billion USD.
"Minneapolis city council members announce intent to disband the police department, invest in proven community led public safety":
Minneapolis City Council Members Announce Intent To Disband The Police Department, Invest In Proven Community-Led Public Safety - The Appeal
The left doesn't need any help in starting riots, with the way the corporate media carry on. How do you think it would go for me if I stood between the mob and my property, armed with whatever I had to hand (due to the lack of police presence) and politely stated I disagreed with pretty much their entire theory on racism and refused the very idea of "white privilege"? After I demanded that my right to free speech was respected by the mob, and reminded them they should not damage my property, do you think they would agree to disagree, and with a shrug, move on? Or do you think something else might happen - to me?