The Ideas of Karl Marx 1¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter Digest: The Ideas of Karl Marx 1¶
This chapter argues that the 2008 economic collapse dramatically vindicated Marx’s core predictions, exposing the bankruptcy of bourgeois economics and its faith in self-regulating markets. The crisis, which establishment figures like Paul Krugman were forced to admit mainstream theory could not explain, confirmed Marx’s analysis of capitalism’s inherent tendency toward self-destruction. The concentration of capital foreseen in the Communist Manifesto has reached extreme levels, with the Fortune 500 now accounting for 73.5 per cent of US GDP. Globalisation, also predicted by Marx, has subordinated every nation to the world market, while class polarisation accelerates: the richest 400 US families hold as much wealth as the bottom 50 per cent of the population. Unemployment has become permanent and structural, with world unemployment and underemployment likely exceeding 1,000 million; youth unemployment in Spain stands at 55 per cent, in Greece at 62 per cent. The system, the chapter contends, is unable to provide for its own slaves, confirming Marx’s claim that the bourgeoisie is unfit to rule.
The crisis of overproduction is systemic. The bourgeoisie destroys productive forces to fit capitalist limits, slashing public expenditure while global overcapacity—30 per cent in automobiles alone—remains unresolved. Alienation intensifies: work loses all individual character, the worker becomes an appendage of the machine, and as the repulsiveness of work increases, wages decrease. In the USA, CEO pay rose 725 per cent over thirty years while worker pay rose 5.7 per cent; the minimum wage would be $21.72 if it had kept pace with productivity. American workers labour 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 499 more than French. Productivity rose 400 per cent since 1950, yet living standards fell. The class struggle persists as society polarises into bourgeoisie and proletariat, with previously middle-class layers—teachers, civil servants—having been proletarianised.
Drawing on Marx’s Critique of Political Economy, the chapter explains that people enter into definite relations of production independent of their will, corresponding to a stage of development of their material productive forces. The mode of production determines the general character of social, political and spiritual life; social existence determines consciousness. Historical materialism holds that ideas reflect objective conditions, and history is the activity of humans pursuing their aims, conditioned by the development of productive forces. Socialism is not a good idea but the necessary result of capitalist development. The chapter applies dialectical materialism, arguing that history, like nature, involves explosions and mass extinctions—Stephen Jay Gould’s theory of punctuated equilibria shows evolution involves sudden leaps, not merely gradual change. Similarly, history has long periods of gradual change interrupted by wars and revolutions, which are the main motor force of development. The root cause of revolution is when a socio-economic system reaches its limits and cannot develop the productive forces.
The transition to socialism requires the active, conscious participation of the working class in running society, industry, and the state; it is not handed down by capitalists. The early Soviet state under Lenin and Trotsky, based on the Paris Commune model, was designed to draw workers into control and accounting, with strict limits on officials’ salaries and privileges to prevent a privileged caste. Stalinism, the chapter insists, was not a product of Bolshevism but its enemy. The rise of capitalism in the Netherlands and northern Italy was accompanied by new attitudes and religious beliefs; the English Revolution of 1640-60 was a class war that destroyed feudalism, while the French Revolution of 1789-93 appealed to Reason before the bourgeoisie rediscovered religion to justify its privileges.
The chapter concludes that the decay of capitalism threatens to unleash terrible violence. To reduce this and ensure a peaceful transition to socialism, the working class must be mobilised for struggle. The crisis is intractable because capitalists have used up the mechanisms needed to escape it, paving the way for more destructive crises. Revolutionary movements have occurred in Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, Spain, and the US, but the Occupy Wall Street movement lacks a coherent programme. The only alternatives are socialist transformation or the destruction of civilisation. A planned socialist economy is necessary; the superiority of planning was shown in WWII, when Britain centralised its economy and the USSR’s nationalised planned economy enabled it to defeat Hitler and rebuild