Marx summarizes the entire aforementioned history as being a “history of class struggles” (Marx: Selected Writings, 246). He refers to the entire stages of development as “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild master and journeyman – in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another…” However, the capitalist system “has not done away with class antagonisms” but has “simplified them” into two factions that “directly face each other”: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. It is argued that the new found trade routes, development of colonization “gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development” (246, 247). The underdeveloped system of productions, and the “closed guilds” of feudal society no longer “sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets”, the division of labor developed, “machinery revolutionized industrial production”, and the modern bourgeoisie came into being. It is the bourgeoisie, “leaders of whole industrial armies” that have set the capitalist system in motion in their search for free trade, “has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors’, and has left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash-payment’” (247). The bourgeoisie, in want of “free trade” has launched civilization into an all-new level of development, and has surpassed all prior achievements in history (248). In ending exploitation that has been “veiled by religious and political illusions” of the feudal system, this new system has “substituted naked, shameless, brutal exploitation” (248).
Having placed capitalism into the historical context of class struggle, it is possible to move into an analysis of the capitalist economy and its contradictions in order to better explain the class conflict it gives birth to, from which communism will naturally arise. So how does this “naked, shameless, brutal exploitation” (Marx: Selected Writings, 248) take place? And how does the capitalist system in itself give way to communism? Firstly, flaws in the ‘presuppositions’ of capitalism must be located – and the first one Marx addresses is the one with regards to the alienation of labor. Marx asserts that the idea of the individual, motivated by self-interest and free to sell his/her labor in order to purchase more private property for her/himself is idyllic – and that the reality of the outcome of this premise is different. It is contended that the laborer, with nothing to sell but his labor, will be forced to work for the capitalist – so his labor will be something that he has to do, like a machine, in order to provide sustenance for himself, while others will ‘steal’ his labor from him (make profits of it). Marx words this situation by referring to the case of the worker who has been ‘alienated’ from his labor: “He is at home when he is not working and when he works he is not at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary but compulsory, forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need but only means to satisfy needs outside itself” (88). So, the person who has no means of sustenance but to sell his labor is at the mercy of the capitalist, and is not selling his labor to own property, but to survive. Without any alternative but to sell his labor so that ‘the capitalist’ can make money, the laborer becomes alienated from his own work. He becomes defined with the simple labor he produces, and an object used to generate profit – no longer regarded as a person, “self-alienation” as Marx puts it (89). In fact, the laborer becomes so objectified that he is the ultimate tool for profit – Marx argues that “instruments of labor” (machines, etc.) will give a constant output to a specific amount of investment, however the labor of the workers “reproduces the equivalent of its own value, and also produces an excess, a surplus value, which may itself vary…I therefore call it the variable part of capital” (510). So, it is ingrained in the system itself that the greatest margin of profit can be made from the exploitation of labor, labor that is sold without choice to the person owning the capital. The ‘free-market’, that is supposed to offer the laborer the option to sell his labor and own his property, according to Marx, enslaves him. It is out of contradictions like these that Marx’s idea of communism will arise.
Not only has Marx used the basic premises of capitalism to develop a criticism of it, but the main argument for the development of communism comes from the groundwork laid by capitalist economy. The class struggle that will peak in the capitalist system will bring the emergence of communism. It is speculated that the system of capitalism will become more unstable as competition and production increases without control, that “commercial crises that by their periodical return put on trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the entire bourgeoisie society” (Marx: Selected Writings, 250). So, the bourgeoisie puts itself at risk with over-production and reoccurring states of financial crisis, and this “weapon” that has “turned against the bourgeoisie itself” will be used on them by the “modern working class – the proletarians” (250). It is the bourgeoisie that creates this class, the middle class, “the small trades people, shopkeepers and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants – all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which modern industry is carried on…partly because specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production” (251). A growing army of laborers, all without nothing to sell but their work has formed, an army of slaves for the capitalist. This state in the end will form a movement, “self-conscious of itself”, independent, and eventually, for the good of the majority. This movement will be against the bourgeoisie, and with the central aim of abolishing private property (254). Communism in this sense seeks to abolish the means that allows labor to be turned into capital (258). This means that not only Marx’s criticism of capitalism develops out of capitalism itself, but his arguments lead to the conclusion that capitalism will develop it’s own end – that communism is only possible once the necessary steps of history has lead to capitalism.
Naturally, one would expect different kinds of approach to abolishing private property, and this is why Marx also defines different forms of communism. He firstly outlines “crude communism” (Marx: Selected Writings, 96), absolute abolishment of private property, but in the sense that it “wishes to destroy everything that cannot be possessed by everybody as a private property” (95) – it is still the idea of a private property of some sense, one that is simply extended to everyone, and will not free the workers of self-alienation. The second form of communism abolishes the state, and yet still cannot defeat “man’s self-alienation” since it is “still imprisoned and contaminated by private property”, even though it is after the goal of the “return of man into himself” (97). The third, and final form of communism is the one that eliminates the sense of private property as a whole, “the complete and conscious return of man conserving all the riches of previous development for man himself as a social…human being” (97). The movement in history will result in this classless state, where man will not be enslaved by the formation of a capital that will be used to ‘enslave’ him; he will exist as a human being, with his work.
Having identified the emergence of the criticism of capitalism, and communism briefly, it is now possible to focus on the methods of Marx. His “history of class struggles” (Marx: Selected Writings, 246) display a use of dialectical argument, an argument based on a ‘thesis’, an ‘antithesis’ that would contradict it, and a ‘synthesis’ which would reconcile the elements of both. However Marx lays the groundwork for his arguments strictly into observations in history, and place them within society – as opposed to a Hegelian understanding of dialectics that involves ‘looking down’ to earth from an impartial reality to observe the “thesis-antithesis=synthesis” model. Marx is strictly critical of this view, and satirizes it on numerous occasions; for example, he contrasts his observations with ‘German Philosophy’, stating “In direct contrast to German Philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven” (180) – a pun on how Hegelians view the world. Another example would be to refer to Marx’s criticism of different existing forms of communism; he singles out a form, among a few others, that he refers to as “critical-utopian socialism” that is in search of “improv[ing] the condition of every member of society” – but since it is based on creating an ideal state, it “bears an inverse relation to historical development”. We can further demonstrate his rejection of utopian ideals that are not based on the process of history, or material observations in his criticism of Jeremy Bentham: Marx ironically states “a very Eden of innate rights of man…[where] alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham…both buyer and seller of a commodity...are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents…” (492). This picturesque view of the capitalist economy, he has contradicted throughout his arguments, arguments that he chose to ground on how history proceeds, rather than premises that are assumed to be true, and then applied to society. Marx is in search of creating a solution that comes from the process of life itself, and not a planned ideal.
This is how Marx’s criticism of capitalism develops out of capitalism itself; he grounds his solution in history, stating it to be an inevitable consequence of the dialectical process that has rendered capitalism possible. By basing his argument on the contradictions of the ideals put forward, and the way history advances, Marx has sought to identify a solution that will not be a Utopian view that is based on an ideal vision that is to be imposed on the system, but rather something that will arise from the system, and the way history progresses itself. In this methodology he has sought to contrast other dialectical philosophers, and social theorists, and to assert his criticism of ‘political economy’.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
McLellan, David. Karl Marx: Selected Writings. 2nd ed. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print.