However, subsequent Marxists have had a lot to say about sport and leisure. Their basic claim is that all leisure is corrupted by capitalism. Sport and leisure scholars need to engage with the claim that the subjects they teach and research, the activities many of them promote and the careers for which their students are prepared are all fundamentally flawed. This apart, Marxism demands attention from all serious scholars because it became the world’s most successful change ideology during the first half of the twentieth century. Marxist regimes gained control of governments in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Subsequent history may appear to have turned against Marxism, but this appearance will not necessarily last. Marx argued that capitalism was necessarily an expanding system, and in recent decades capitalism has spread into spectator and participant sport,

broadcasting and much else. We now have evidence from twentieth-century socialist societies with which sport and leisure under capitalism can be compared. We also have evidence from public and voluntary sector leisure services within capitalist countries, though Marxists would claim that their quality is inevitably compromised by the capitalist context. Another of Marx’s predictions that currently looks correct is that capitalist societies would polarise and wealth is being increasingly concentrated in the hands of a tiny fabulously rich elite (Piketty, 2014). The missing part of the Marxist forecast, up to now, is the revolutionary working class. However, we cannot dismiss Marx’s claim that capitalism contains inherent contradictions which will eventually bring about its destruction.