Monday, March 7, 2011

Myths About Marx

In my first post, I listed some common misconceptions about Marx, Marxism, and communism... sort of as a teaser.  Now that I have sketched a rough outline of my Marxist perspective, I thought it might be a good time to revisit that list of myths and explain (briefly) why these beliefs are unfounded.  Hopefully I will have time in future posts to expand on some of these a bit more.  (The last two on the list I have already touched on to some extent, so I will postpone, for now, discussing them further.)

1.  Marx advocated the expansion of state power.
Marx believed that the state was only a tool of ruling class interests.  Rather than wanting to expand state power, Marx looked toward a future without any state.

2.  Marx called for the obliteration of any forms individuality, and the imposition of complete and absolute equality in all aspects of life, most particularly with wages.
Marx did not advocate total and absolute equality.  He never criticized individual expression.  The thing that he opposed was exploitation and the thing that he supported was production that was oriented toward fulfilling actual needs (rather than creating needs... and waste) and making the most of human creative and intellectual potential.  In his communist utopia there certainly could have been room for inequality and diversity in different aspects of life.  However, production in general would not be based on relations of exploitation, labor would be fulfilling rather than grueling and inhumane, and production would be communally guided to satisfy real needs.  


Furthermore, Marx did not focus that much on his vision for the future evolution of society, and much of it remains sketchy.  Most of his work was occupied with historical and economic analysis, which is unparalleled in its detail and explanatory value, and still hugely influential to this day.

3.  Marx advised the working class to rise up and rule over the other classes, effectively reversing the class hierarchy.
Once again, Marx opposed exploitation of any kind.  Although there is some mention in his writing of possible "transitional states," this is even more sketchy than his communist utopia.

4.  Marx did not find any value in capitalism.
Marx thought that capitalism was a necessary and valuable step in the evolutionary process that would eventually lead to communism.  Primarily, it was valuable in that it promoted technological innovation on such an unprecedented scale.  One of the conditions of the transition to communism was that technological development would reach such a level that human beings would be freed from the drudgery of mindless physical labor:  machines would be able to do all the jobs that were degrading or alienating to the human intellect and spirit. 

5.  Marx favored violence and insurrection.
Marx was never trying to precipitate class warfare.  He never advocated violence.  He thought that conflict was the inevitable, natural result of exploitation.  (If you piss someone off enough, they will retaliate eventually.)  Thus, he said that revolution was going to occur, organically, he didn't say he wanted to make it occur.

6.  Communism, as it has existed historically, is an accurate reflection of Marx's vision.
There are many reasons why the communism of the USSR and its satellites does not reflect the writings of Marx... probably because it bears absolutely no resemblance to Marx's communism.  I will only point out a couple of glaring differences here, because this could easily turn into an essay of its own.

  • Marx argued that the communist revolution could only occur after attaining a certain level of technological development and globalization, which had certainly not been reached by 1917, nor even now.
  • Marx was very clear that true a communist revolution had to be a global movement.  It could not occur in one country or one region of the world alone.
  • Marx's utopia was stateless... it was not a ruthless, genocidal dictatorship/empire.
  • The revolution in Russia turned into a movement toward industrialization, which, I have already argued, made it more capitalist.  For Marx, the communist revolution was a movement from industrial society to something different.
I should definitely do a post about this one, because I could keep going on and on and on....

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