The average person has no shortage of misconceptions about Marxism and Socialism. There are of course, the obvious ones: The conflation of Marxism and Stalinism, Socialism and the capitalist Welfare state. Perhaps just as wide-spread is another claim. Pro-capitalist education has propagandized the idea that Marxists are concerned only in an abstract notion of “equality”, and that this is an ideal from which we attempt to create a “utopia”. The liberal intellectuals are quick to “defend” the Marxists with the claim that “communism is a good idea, it just doesn’t work”. What wonderful “friends” these are who think we are small children!
Equality as an ideal
From where does the “utopia of equality” arise? Those very same liberals who are quick to accuse us of well-meaning idealism would do well to look to their own history. The rise of the bourgeois class was accompanied by the development of radical new ideas. The American revolution declared the triumph of “god-given rights“, while the great bourgeois revolution in France raised the banner of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity”, and proclaimed the triumph of reason and the rights of man. These ideas were undeniably progressive for their time, but they were also held back by the constraints of idealist philosophy, and the bourgeois world-view. To the revolutionary bourgeois, these new ideas justified their right to rule, and also gave them a moral justification for private property, and the bourgeois-Democratic Republic. To these radical liberals “equality” was mostly a matter of “equality under the law”, but even this was not something completely realizable under a system of private property. As the great French author Anatole France would put it: “The poor must labor in the face of the majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
Utopian Socialism
It is true that the early Socialists were utopians - they were guided by an idealist philosophy which convinced them that Socialism would succeed simply because it was desirable, or because equality was a noble ideal that was pleasing to god, or part of the nature of man. Men such as Robert Owen, Henri de Saint-Simon, and Charles Fourier were geniuses who were very much ahead of their time - they were inspired by the social upheaval and revolutionary movements of the time, and the radical philosophical and social ideas which this upheaval had given birth to. Despite their genius, these individuals were members of the bourgeois and aristocratic classes. Their idealist philosophy meant that they were unable to look at the motor forces of history in a scientific manner. Their lack of any scientific perspective led them to attempt building their ideal society through a policy of class collaboration and persuasion.
Petit-Bourgeois ideas
The rise of capitalism was at the time, the most progressive series of events in human history. Industry and trade were no longer restrained by the limits feudalism had imposed on it, and the means of production were constantly revolutionized in order to keep competitive - leading to never before seen advances in the standard of living. Of course, not everyone could be a large capitalist. The rise of monopolies threatened the livelihood of the petit-bourgeois - the middle class peasants, the small-capitalists, and the state bureaucrats. This class feels threatened by both the big capitalists, and by the socialist revolution - leading to it developing ideas which stress class collaboration, and the protection of their way of life. Often this takes the form of Anarchism, or forms of populism which call for the “Equalization of the classes”. Something which Marxism considers to be a utopian fantasy, and essentially reactionary.
Scientific Socialism
The Marxist view of History
We have already shown the relationship between bourgeois ideology, and utopian ideas regarding equality - but what of Marxism? Surely equality is it’s highest ideal! This is in fact, far from the truth. Marxism is often called the “real movement” because it is the only political movement to base itself off of a scientific, and materialist study of society - rather than a preconceived ideal. Marx was not just the founder of Scientific Socialism, but also the first person to apply the Hegelian dialectic in a materialist manner. This materialist dialectic is a brilliant tool that allows us to much better understand the world. The application of this dialectic to human history, or “historical materialism” led Marx to conclude that “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” No longer was it necessary to try to explain history as the result of the actions of great personalities, or as pre-ordained by god - it was now possible to subject history to real scientific study. The Marxist view of history holds that all historical forms of social organization (with the exception of pre-historical tribalism) are based on the rule of an owning class, which lived entirely off of the labor of the toiling class. (Whether slave, serf, or proletarian). It also holds that in each society there are contradictions which will invariably lead to its replacement by a new form of social organization which will further the development of productive forces.
The Specific Characteristics of Capitalism
Despite what many have been led to believe, Marxists do not “hate” capitalism on principle, nor do they believe that “capitalists are evil”: In fact, Marxists recognize capitalism as the most progressive of all historical social systems. Capitalist competition created never before seen revolutionization in the productive forces, and led to increased globalization on a scale which was far beyond anything that could be imagined under feudalism or slavery.There are those today who are quick to proclaim the “end of history” - the perfection of human society incarnated in modern capitalism, and the bourgeois-Democratic Republic. What these propagandists do not take into account, is that capitalism also has its share of contradictions. In Fact, along with the historic advances that capitalism brought over all other systems, it brought contradictions much sharper than at any other point in history.
Capitalist society is divided into two main classes: The bourgeois capitalist class who own property, and the proletarian who owns only their own ability to work. Because he/she lacks capital, the proletarian must sell his labor to the capitalist for a wage. The capitalist buys this labor (variable capital), and invests in machines, equipment, and raw materials (constant capital) in order to produce goods or services for sale on the free market. The capitalist is only able to turn a profit by ensuring that the value of wages paid to the laborer is much lower than the total value of the goods produced - it is this that leads to capitalism’s most dangerous contradiction. As mentioned before, Marxists do not criticize capitalism simply out of disdain for exploitation or injustice - but because it is not capable of fulfilling human needs, and is inherently unstable.
The reason for this inherent instability lies in precisely the same economic transaction which allows it to work in the first place: The capitalist is forced to pay the worker only a small portion of the value of the products he produces. This leads to an unavoidable disparity between the number of products on the market, and the amount of money which can be spent on these products. The working class cannot afford to buy back all of the products which it has produced, leaving many of these products unsold - leading to a loss for the capitalist. This loss may temporarily be averted through the use of credit, but only at the cost of a much deeper crisis down the road.
The Proletarian Revolution
Marxists hold that this contradiction will ultimately lead to the radicalization of the proletariat, and the replacement of capitalism with the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. While it is easy to understand why someone could confuse this term as implying a totalitarian autocracy, the term actually has its origin in the belief that the working class must necessarily take over state power in order to expropriate capitalist industry, democratically plan the economy, and defend against capitalist counter-revolution. This “dictatorship” does not “equalize the classes”, but in fact abolishes them. Friedrich Engels wrote extensively on this concept in “Anti-Duhring”:
““The proletariat seizes from state power and turns the means of production into state property to begin with. But thereby it abolishes itself as the proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, and abolishes also the state as state. “Shall all people in a workers’ state receive the same wage?The simple answer: No, socialism does not demand the equalization of all wages to the level of being identical. What it does require, however, is that an equal wage be paid for work of equal value. Money is not something which can be abolished overnight, and even if the democratic planning of the economy has raised the productive forces to never before imagined levels, it may for a time be necessary to allocate goods through the use of money. If not equality, what is the goal of Scientific Socialism?The goal of scientific socialism is the liberation of the proletariat from wage slavery, and the development of society to a higher level. Rather than an abstract notion that “All should be equal”, the Marxists instead say that all individuals must be able to pursue their own interests and self-development with absolute freedom. In the words of Marx:
“In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” No man or woman shall be deprived of the right to enrich themselves, but only of the right to enrich themselves off of the labor of others.”
By providing for each individual to have the time, and the means to pursue their own interests, we open up the path for expansion of culture and technology in ways which have never before been imagined. How many great philosophers or scientists shall we find, who under capitalism would never have discovered their true potential? The internal contradictions of the capitalist system are already causing unrest and revolutionary upheaval around the world. The question is not whether the working class will rise up against the system, but whether there will be a capable revolutionary leadership which can lead this movement to victory. The International Marxist Tendency and its U.S. section, the Workers International League are dedicated to building this revolutionary leadership. The United States will be the most decisive battleground in the world revolution, and only a Mass Party of Labor with a Marxist analysis and Socialist Program can lead the revolutionary masses to victory.
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