Defending Marx

Introduction

This aritlce will not go indepth into Marxist theory. If you want to do that, there is this site: http://www.marxists.org Instead, this article will expose the bankruptcy of basically all of the capitalist criticism of Marx. Hopefully it will prove useful to new Marxists who want to defeat capitalists in debate.

Generalizing History

Capitalists often criticize and attempt to discredit Marx based on the fact that he generalized about history. They argue that since he made generalizations, nothing he said should be taken seriously. But what philosopher doesn’t generalize? When looking at history as a whole, one must make generalizations to make sense of it. As such, we should appreciate the distinction between philosophy and actual understanding.

Philosophy can help us understand reality, but philosophy in itself is not an understanding of reality. Here is Marx on the subject:

“One has to ‘leave philosophy aside’ (Wigand, p. 187, cf. Hess, Die letzten Philosophen, p. 8), one has to leap out of it and devote oneself like an ordinary man to the study of actuality, for which there exists also an enormous amount of literary material, unknown, of course, to the philosophers… Philosophy and the study of the actual world have the same relation to one another as masturbation and sexual love.” (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, International Publishers, ed. Chris Arthur, p. 103)

Das Kapital and many subsequent Marxist writings serve as real, scientific study. What one must do is actually read them, and then combine them with one’s own observations.

In short, there is no philosopher who does not generalize. What we have to do is understand the role of philosophy (as Marx did) and act accordingly.

The “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” and the “Withering Away” of the State

Marx’s assertion that capitalism must be followed by a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which is a temporary necessity but will “wither away” in time, comes under a fairly large amount of criticism. Capitalists argue that, in the first place, “dictatorship” is never acceptable and secondly, in the USSR, the state did not “wither away;” nor was it remotely close to doing so.

The first criticism comes from a misunderstanding of the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat.” The meaning of the word “dictatorship” has changed several times and in Marx’s day, it meant something completely different than the modern definition (i.e. autocracy, totalitarianism, despotism, etc.).

For example, the democratic government of France between the French Revolution and Napoleon’s rule was viewed as a “dictatorship of the people” (http://marxmyths.org/hal-draper/article2.htm). In this sense, when the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat” is put into proper context, it simply means “workers’ rule.” The concept of workers’ rule is one in which (as becomes clear with more study of Marx) democracy is a fundamental concept.

The second criticism is a result of a giant mistake: equating Marx to the Soviet Union. Capitalists state that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” will not wither away, because that is not what happened in the USSR. What they don’t state is that the USSR was not an example of workers’ rule.

The reason the state did not wither away in the USSR and was not on the track of doing so was because it did not exhibit genuine workers’ rule. Marx argued that genuine workers’ rule would fight to eliminate the social causes of excess (i.e. property, money, and exchange of all kinds). When the rule of capital was eliminated crime would diminish, class struggle would cease, equality would ensue, and the role of the state, which is defined as the means by which one class rules over another, would be none. Serving no purpose, the functions of the state would be taken over by the people themselves.

The Soviet Union failed to eliminate property (state property is still property), money, wage slavery, exchange, etc. and in fact, inequality was higher in the USSR than in most capitalist nations. Capitalists state that they failed because such a thing is impossible. This is not true. The USSR failed because it did not have genuine workers’ rule. It is in the best interest of the workers to eliminate the sources of oppression, so when they run the show, they will fight to do so. When the workers do not rule, however, oppression will exist indefinitely.

The Impoverishment of the Working Class

One of the most-used arguments by capitalists is that a) Marx failed to predict the increased rights and benefits of workers in capitalist nations, and b) the impoverishment of the working class (i.e. the rich get richer and the poor get poorer) has simply not happened.

Neither of these statements is true. They stem from a misreading (or lack of reading) of Das Kapital.

To the first: Marx did predict that the workers could enjoy increased rights and working conditions. But he realized that better working conditions do not necessarily improve the situation of the worker because he/she would still be a slave to capital. In Great Britain, for instance, the average number of hours the worker puts in in his/her lifetime has increased by more than 10,000 hours since 1981 despite these improved conditions (Wheen, p.59). Further, better machinery and increases in technology which, the ruling class argues, somehow “liberate the worker,” show much more of a tendency to put people out of work, which is never good for the working class.

To the second statement: when Marx talks about the impoverishment and immiseration of the working class, he is talking in a relative sense; not an absolute one.

In Das Kapital he states, “[I]n proportion as capital accumulates, the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse” (my emphasis). Marx is talking about a relative decline in wages. For example, a company that enjoys a 20% profit increase does not raise the wages of their workers by 20%. If they did this, they wouldn’t make any money. Thus, the wealth gets apportioned into a smaller and smaller percentage of the population. This is more than obvious in today’s society.

Secondly, Marx’s view of poverty has more to do with the crushing of the human spirit than it does to financial well-being. This is exceedingly obvious in Das Kapital, but unfortunately, the capitalists seem to have ignored most of Marx’s work.

Conclusion

The ruling class wants Marx to say things he didn’t say. They know that what Marx actually said makes sense, but they cannot admit it, because it comes into conflict with their entire existence. So, the resort to imposing meanings on Marx’s work and distorting it. They claim that Marxism is dead and that it lies in “the dustbin of history.” But Marxism is far from dead. As long as capitalism exists, Marx will be read, and the principles he put forward will be advocated.