Post #6 - Karl Marx

Karl Marx was a 19^th century philosopher who was often called the ‘father of communism.’ In his book, The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx argues that capitalism will produce tension between the classes which will lead to its destruction. He believed that capitalism would be replaced by communism, the classless society. Marx predicted that before this switch happens there would be a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, or the ‘workers’ democracy.’ The workers’ democracy is the period when the proletariat (working class) replaces the current political system which is controlled by the bourgeoisie (propertied class.) The bourgeoisies were the land owners in Western Europe and the proletariats were the working class which had to sell their labor power in exchange for wages. The bourgeois society, or capitalism, sprouted from the ruins of the feudal society and increased the struggle between the classes.

Marx believed that capitalism was immoral because it encouraged the separation of classes. The bourgeoisies not only owned the forces of production, or the land, natural resources and technology necessary for material production, but they also had the relations of production. These are the social and technical relationships people have acquired as a means of production. Marx believed that the social relationships of production not only destroy relations between individuals but also between different classes. He was also concerned with the working classes’ alienation from their own nature, or spiritual loss, due to their loss of ownership of their own labor. Marx describes that under capitalism, social relationships among and between workers and capitalists (bourgeois) is harmed because it is mediated by the buying and selling of commodities, including labor, on the market. The capitalist mode of production developed in Europe because people had to sell their labor-power in order to make money to survive because they no longer possessed their own land. These workers are not only selling the product of their labor, but their capacity to work. The capitalist system results in a class system where the individuals who own the land and technology, maintain the power over the working class. Marx also discusses that the working class is suppressed because they do not have time to come up with new ideas, while the bourgeoisies are able to follow their interests since they do not have to spend time working. The capitalist system is also immoral because when the rate of profits falls and results in a depression, it is the working class that suffers since the price of labor also falls.

Marx believed that a moral society could be started in Europe if the proletariats stood up and revolted against the bourgeois. He pointed out that the cycle of growth and collapse which came with improved means of production only made the capitalists richer and the working class poorer. He encouraged the proletariats to seize the means of production because they would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally. Marx did not believe peaceful negotiations would work, so the working class should have a massive well-organized violent revolution. In the second section of The Communist Manifesto, Marx explained that the Communists would not form a separate party to the working class parties, but work as a mediator. It would point out and bring to the front the common interests of all working people internationally and help with the various stages of development. Marx explained that the Communist party and all the proletarian parties have the same idea: “Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.” Marx believed in the idea of allowing working class individuals to work towards acquiring their own property, as opposed to working on someone else’s land. Marx believes in a moral society where the present dominates the past, not in the capitalist system, which allowed the past to dominate the present.

Marx offered a list of guidelines for a moral society. His ideas were to abolish personal property and make it open to the public. He wanted to incorporate income tax and abolish the rights of inheritance, so the past can not influence the future. Centralizing all means of communication and transportation and making factories state owned. Everyone has to work and free public education for children. He suggested that the agriculture and manufacturing industries should merge so that the distinction between the town and county fade away. If all these guidelines were followed then it would result in a developed class-less society which functioned as a whole nation.