On the Pernicious Errors of Marxism

I beg indulgence if my chosen title seems grandiose, but I feel the need to disengage from the typical 'on one hand/on the other hand' detached approach to the systems of thought we have studied in favor of a stronger contention, one that I can scarcely make in explicit enough terms. We have made a distinction in our discussion of Marxism between the theory itself and its practice in recent history (the latter presumably suffering near-universal opprobrium), intending to concern ourselves only with the merits of the former. Very well; on those grounds, I contend Marxism to be a singularly ill-conceived and destructive ideological system. Indeed, the atrocities committed in its name over the past century derive not predominantly from the perversion of its tenets but are instead natural consequences of the attempt to realize them.

I: The Economic Naïveté of Marxism

Marx's analysis of the relationship between labor and capital rests on a number of broad generalizations which are grounded in the context of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, and which changing economic realities have rendered increasingly simplistic and inaccurate. Marx posits that the capitalist goal of creating surplus value (profit) creates an inevitable trend towards depression of wages and rise in prices. Yet just a few decades later, that great capitalist, Henry Ford, would say, "There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible." Ford, unlike the theoretical Marxist bourgeois, saw an incentive for the capitalist to set higher wages and lower prices, because of two phenomena for which Marx does not adequately account: employee retention and consumer choice.

In Marx's time, the industrial machine of Europe was dependent on waves of migration from the countryside to the cities which created a virtually bottomless pool of unskilled labor willing to work for a pittance. In this context, there was indeed little material incentive to raise wages, since there would virtually always be labor available no matter how low the compensation. But by the time Ford made his pronouncement in a more mature industrial society, the importance of specialization and skilled labor had increased to the point that an industrialist had a strong motive to pay his workers a sum sufficient at least to keep them around. In terms of pricing of goods, it was always the case that a business could realize greater profits by lowering prices to undercut its competitors, and the tendency towards lower prices of industrially produced goods only strengthened as more industrial competition took hold. Multiple means exist for a capitalist to increase profits without oppressing his labor force or bilking his costumers, such as increasing technological efficiency or acquiring cheaper suppliers, and the constant progress of business interests in these fields further serves to lower prices for the consumer.

The broad trend of rising wages and falling prices (and the tremendous economic growth that makes them possible) has raised the standard of living of the average wage-earner in advanced societies tremendously in the decades since Marx wrote, precisely to the contrary of his predictions. The man on the assembly line in modern America lives better than the average bourgeois in Marx's day. The argument that the proletariat is being pressed further and further into misery is difficult to maintain when the average wage-earning family can have two cars, three TVs, and annual vacations to Niagra Falls or Disneyland.

II: The Absurdity of Dialectical Materialism

One would be well-advised to be skeptical of any system that claims to have discovered an all encompassing theory of human history. Hegel's dialectical idealism nonetheless retains the saving grace of pairing the dialectical concept with its proper objects, ideas. Dialectic is a concept originating in classical logic, intended to mediate between opposing truth claims. While Marx's adaption of the dialectical principle to material relations between humans may seem somehow more practical or level-headed than Hegel's loftier conception, the objects of Marx's use of the dialectic method (that is, the entire spectrum of human economic behavior) are entirely unsuited for the logical straitjacket it imposes. Economic activity is the sum of manifold factors from the natural environment to political and cultural constraints to the divergent material interests of types and stations of men and women, which vary far more widely than any simplistic dichotomy such as "bourgeois and proletarian" can capture. But such a dichotomy is necessary to conceive of history in dialectic terms.

For Marx, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed." Marx's sense of history is so blinded by his economic bias that he ignores the gross dissimilarities of the relationships and epochs he has just breezily rattled off. Thus he must do, for close historical analysis (at least analysis unencumbered by Marxist dogma) fails to bear out his attempt to force past societies into the neat categories of oppressor and oppressed that he observed in 19th century Europe. The patrician and plebeian distinctions of ancient Rome were complex social phenomena that did not invariably imply economic superiority of one of the other; there were numerous wealthy plebeians, which eventually led the Roman concept of nobility to evolve. But though economic factors were inextricably linked with this evolution, social and political distinctions remained even economic ones faded.

What Marx does not (and cannot) admit is that the social and political activity, which do indeed operate within the constraints imposed by the material order, are not only affected by the economic order but are able to affect it themselves, independent of the eternal principle of class conflict to which he subscribes. Human history is determined to an extent by class conflict. Human history is also determined by ties of family, tribe, and nation, by religion, by philosophic and scientific curiosity, by a hundred other factors that describe what it is to be human, all of which are able to create changes in the world of their own accord, independent of economic relations, even as they may be subject to economic effects and are in turn capable of determining the terms of economic relations. No aspect of human affairs (even economics) occupies a vacuum.

III: The Marxist Misconception of Human Nature and Society

Much of the attraction to Marxist theory lies in his astute observations of the alienating tendencies of the capitalist system, expressing clearly the sentiments that most have held at one time or another towards the more dehumanizing aspects of wage-based employment. To give credit where credit is due, Marx is an excellent sociologist. He is correct that that capitalism necessarily removes the worker from the product of his labor and from the natural world, produces conditions under which he tends to be placed in competition against his fellow worker, etc. The question then is 'as opposed to what?'

Marx's conception of the alienation of the laborer from the natural world and from the product of one's labor presumably stands in opposition to the precapitalist state, in which the dominant economic activity was that in which the product of one's labor (as in subsistence farming, shoe-making, fishing, tanning, etc.) could be directly enjoyed by oneself and one's neighbors. Yet the state for the average individual in feudal or traditional economies was and is hardly as rosy as this would seem to make out; a peasant farmer merely a bad harvest away from starvation is more concerned with his own survival than with his intimate connection to nature and the product of his labor. Hoeing a field from dawn to dusk, he does not think "How wonderful it is that I enjoy the fruits on my own labor, the most human of activities!"

Labor is merely intelligent exertion which at its most basic level is about survival, and Marx is as guilty of labor fetishism as capitalists are allegedly guilty of commodity fetishism. It is all very clever to say that under a capitalist system, one finds one's humanity in activities common with beasts (eating, procreation, etc.) rather than the uniquely human activity of labor. But this too is another false dichotomy, neglecting such uniquely human phenomena such as contemplation and companionship that add meaning to our existence and need not bear any relation to creative endeavour. Bluntly, most people do not like to work, and any distinction in this regard between capitalist societies and pre-capitalist ones (or arguably even a Marxian post-capitalist system) is merely a matter of degree. Labor is a function of scarcity in a world in which our needs are not already fulfilled for us. If man dwelt in some Edenic state of nature in which our immediate needs were met, he might still desire as an intelligent creature to engage in creative labor in the form of art, philosophy, and so on, but such 'labor' would not meet material needs nor (in a world without scarcity of material needs) could its products be bought or sold to meet them, and thus such endeavour would not be economic.

The impulse for survival being the most universal of the species, the poverty-stricken peasant in our example would gladly give up his direct connection with the product of his labor in favor of a more secure existence by means of selling his labor. The capitalist system of production creates sufficient wealth to remove more persons from the edge of starvation than traditional non-profit driven economies can manage. This is the case because capitalism requires not just profit, but, as a consequence, the reinvestment of profit to expand operations and thereby allow for a greater profit. This is the basic principle behind continuous economic growth, a phenomenon often taken for granted in modern times but not at all intuitive through much of human history; such growth enables societal wealth to surpass population growth and improve the standard of living for all.

According to Marx, however, capitalism progresses not only towards alienation of labor but towards greater and greater monopolism in which power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few at the expense of the many. Here Marx confuses tendencies with inevitabilities; since he views all social and political phenomena as conditioned by economic relations, for him these tendencies of monopolization and alienation must progress unchecked until the system becomes untenable and a revolution results. Yet the history of capitalist societies shows that this has not been the case, precisely because the chief characteristics of the capitalist means of production (unfettered competition and pursuit of profit) are not the only organizing principles of capitalist societies. Marx is correct that capitalism tends to create monopolies; what he fails to note is that other people are equally capable of figuring this out and acting to limit the excesses of the system, thereby preserving it. This is precisely why antitrust laws exist in all advanced economies to check the system's natural impulses which would destroy its chief advantage, namely the system of competition which rewards efficiency.

The means of production are exactly that, a means, and do not operate of their own accord according to some esoteric historical principle. Social and political factors are capable of effecting changes contrary to the intrinsic trends of the economic system, as one can clearly see in the rise of the modern welfare state, which burdens capitalism with minimum wages, workplace regulations, social safety nets, etc. Even if one takes the cynical view that such accommodations are entirely due to the desire of a ruling elite to maintain the existing economic and political framework, this practical modification of capitalism against its own worst tendencies totally contradicts the Marxist view of the inevitable descent of the capitalist system into its own destruction, as mentioned previously. Marx is incapable of granting human beings the capacity to see beyond the parameters of their economic relationships to rationally critique and change them contrary to his laws of history.

The same principle applies in Marx's view of the alienation of labor. For him, because modern society is dependent on the capitalist means of production and because capitalism is dependent on pure profit, capitalist societies are rendered devoid of any relationship but "naked self-interest". This view effectively strips mankind of any humanity except in the circumstances of his labor and fails to account for the many impulses which drive human behavior. It is true that it is in the interest of the factory owner to keep wages down for his own profit; but in reality one may do so while the other decides to pay a decent wage merely out his own benevolent impulses. It is true that competition for employment tends to set workers against each other; but in reality two co-workers may find their own friendship more important than attempting to outdo one another in currying favor, or they may join a labor union to safeguard their interests collectively. The most base materialistic principles underlying the capitalist system are key to understanding it, but they are not the only forces at work in the world. Real human beings are too complex to be reduced to dialectical wind-up dolls.

IV: The Necessity of Private Property

For Marx the alienative tendencies of capitalism result from the institution of private property, which he deems unnatural beyond the ownership of basic personal possessions. In some idealized natural state is indeed conceivable that private property as modernly conceived would not exist. Yet the concept inevitably emerged in some form as human society settled and grew in sophistication. Marx would acknowledge this much, marking the emergence from primitive communism into a slave-based system in part by the institutions of private property. However, Marx also claims that the institution will be destroyed in favor of a society in which all are freely provided with their needs by all others. The question is whether such a society could exist and whether we would want to live in it if it did.

At any significant level of societal size and advancement, private property is an absolute prerequisite for personal freedom. In the reverse formulation, a society of any size without the institution of private property cannot be free. This truth is dependent upon two observable facts: the scarcity of material resources and the imperfection of human nature.

The capacity of humans to desire is unlimited; the capacity of the natural world and our fellow man to fulfill our desires is limited. Consequently a regulative economic principle must determine the method by which goods and services are distributed, which presently is primarily monetary exchange. Under a theoretical Marxist system, all products of labor would held communally and distributed to each individual according to need (Marx is remarkably vague on this point but I take him at his word). On a large scale it is impossible that such a system could be administered by anything other than a centralized authority, since it is beyond the knowledge of the individual what the needs of numerous other unknown individuals are; a civilization with a completely decentralized economic system lacking a medium of exchange would quickly sink into economic chaos.

Imagine a factory producing furniture in Marxist Never-Never Land, operated by a council of workers. The factory receives raw timber from lumberjacks according to its need and subsequently doles out chaise-lounges to the citizenry according to their respective needs. This factory is particularly good at what it does, and consequently all the locals desire to receive the finely made furniture from this manufactory as opposed to others like it. Lacking the production capacity to satisfy all comers, the workers council must make determinations of the various levels of need of those who desire access to its product. But they cannot possibly do this accurately for every person who walks by and asks for a lawn chair. Furthermore they will have a hard time negotiating with their lumberjack suppliers for greater timber supplies since they themselves can never be sure of the level of need for their product across an entire society. Consequently, one of two things must occur: either a centralized system of determining and filling the needs of each individual must be instituted, or some additional incentive must be offered to the producers to grant products to individual consumers, in the form of a medium of exchange. If the latter, then private property has in effect been instituted, as it is now up to the factory workers to alienate their products as they see fit.

But if it is the former, and the system must  be centrally administered, the next obstacle to a free, propertyless society becomes human nature. Even in a society in which all needs are guaranteed, it will be the case that some will desire more than they need. Consequently the basis for self-interested action remains, and even if all the customers to the furniture factory have a set number of ration points, one might still score an extra Barca lounge by sleeping with the foreman, etc. Consequently the distribution system must be not only centralized but coercive. Anyone who thinks that at some point human nature may be entirely stripped of any self-interested impulses whatsoever need read no further. But the sane remainder must recognize that in a system in which all economic relations are devoted to the principle of "each according to his need", all productive activity must be coercively regulated. All the goods and services one receives must become subject to a remote bureaucratic tyranny in order to preserve the integrity of the system. Meaningful liberty can hardly be preserved in such a predicament. What you get instead is strikingly similar to the Soviet Union.

Some will object that I am giving short-shrift to the ability of humanity to put aside its self-interested impulses (presumably warped and exaggerated by the depredations of the capitalist system). I respond that a system with a governing principle self-interested exchange does not rule out individual charity towards fellow men. Charity, that is, selfless love or benevolence, cannot by definition become a governing principle itself, except in the mind and will of the individual, since charity is to freely go beyond what one owes as a matter of strict justice. I can only freely give that which belongs to me by right. Under capitalism, benevolent impulses and behavior ameliorates the baser tendencies towards narrow-self interest. Under a truly communist system, benevolence (at least in the material sphere) does not exist. Such is the society Marx deems inevitable; if he were not so clearly mistaken one would be forced to tremble.