It shouldn’t need saying, but Marxist theory isn’t a joke, a fun technique that can be applied to whatever everyday phenomenon catches one’s fancy.

There has been a worrying proliferation of this kind of haphazardness of late: newspapers are publishing Marxist theories of pencils, Marxist readings of Taylor Swift’s new album, Marxist accounts of why men have nipples. Institutions that would never dream of printing Marxist critiques of, say, the banking system, are perfectly happy to let the children of Karl critique our dreams.

In the most recent example, the Guardian has dredged up Paul Mason, the economics editor for Channel 4 News, to provide a historical materialist prediction for the upcoming seasons of Game of Thrones.