Karl Marx after 200 Years. Part 1

Karl Marx was born in Trier in the Rhineland on 5 May 1818. He came from a family of Jews though his father had converted to Christianity. He died a relatively unknown thinker – only eleven mourners attended his burial in London’s Highgate cemetery on 17 March 1889. Though his best known works, The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848 and the first volume of Capital in 1867, during his lifetime most of his works remained unpublished and only after his death did he become an influential intellectual. 

His impact was greatest during the Soviet period in the first half of the twentieth century when Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Che Guevara and Castro claimed his heritage. Outside politics, his works have strongly influenced writers in the humanities and social sciences, particularly in continental Europe, rather than in Anglophone countries. While his reputation and influence ebbed with the fall of the socialist states, in the late 1990s there has occurred a reassessment. In October 1997 a special issue of the New Yorker, devoted to Marx, John Cassidy defined him as the ‘next big thinker’ who would be able to unmask the dynamics of contemporary capitalism. In the past twenty years, however, his followers have made little impact on the hegemony of neo-liberalism. 

From Marx to Marxism

There are three interrelated components to his work: the methods of historical materialism, a socio-economic analysis of capitalism and a politics of class revolution. It also has had indirect effects on the humanities, especially as an interpretation of culture. What distinguishes Marx from other social critics is the interaction of his philosophy of history, his detailed analysis of the economics of capitalism and the ways that he combined historical and economic developments to predict the downfall of capitalism and its replacement by socialism.

The appeal of Marxism is that it provides a framework for the evolution of societies akin to that of Darwin’s ideas of evolution in nature. Capitalism brought with it a modern society (scientifically based, secular, wealthy, and politically democratic) which concurrently promotes human liberation and economic exploitation. The socialist future transcends capitalism by destroying the exploitative elements (the domination of capital and market relations) which originally were necessary for progress, to develop the emancipatory ones (an economy for public good rather than private profit, and real participatory democracy). Hence socialism is the heir apparent to the Enlightenment. For Marxists, socialism - embracing the emancipatory elements of modernisation and concurrently unfettered by capitalism – not only promotes the development of the productive forces but also promises the birth of a higher level of civilisation.

The Ambiguities of Marxism

Marxism was hailed as ‘an integral world-outlook’ by Georgi Plekhanov already in 1907 [Fundamental Problems of Marxism]. This approach laid the foundation for ‘Marxism’ to replace religion as a means to understand the world. After the October Revolution of 1917, his writings were transformed into state ideologies; and literature, genetics, politics as well as chemistry had the appellation of ‘Marxist’. It is in the interpretation of Marx that difficulties arise as intellectuals and political leaders adapt Marx’s ideas to legitimate their ideological or political positions.

All the major aspects of his work are open to criticism, to divergent and contradictory interpretations. Even Karl Marx, in commentating on policies advocated by Jules Guesde in his name, pronounced that: ‘what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist’. Evaluation becomes even more controversial when ‘Marxism’ becomes the official ideology of a state, albeit conjoined with Leninism or Mao-Tse-Tung thought.

As a scientific method, like Darwin’s theory of evolution, Marx’s thought can and should be developed and, where necessary, corrected. Marxism, like scientific theories, has to be appraised in the light of other theories and empirical findings. Economists like Ernest Mandel as well as Alexander Buzgalin, and E. O. Wright and Tom Bottomore in sociology have amplified and qualified Marx’s original works. Rather than a Talmudic examination of Marx’s writings, the method should be to study the structures of modern society to uncover their dynamics. This necessitates an analysis of capitalism and particularly its economics.

Only two crucial elements of modern capitalism can considered here: the class structure of capitalism and economic coordination under socialism.

Class Analysis

For Marx, ‘The owners merely of labour-power, owners of capital, and land-owners, whose respective sources of income are wages, profit and ground-rent, in other words, wage-labourers, capitalists and land-owners, constitute then three big classes of modern society based upon the capitalist mode of production’ [Capital Vol. III]. This definition captures the stark social reality of nineteenth century England but is inadequate for the much more differentiated class structure of the twenty-first century.

As Marx anticipated, capitalism increasingly reduced the numbers of people working in agriculture and self-employment and brought all the economically active members of the population into wage labour. In the USA, in 1776, 80 per cent of the non-slave population derived their income from their own property and labour, by 1980, 90 percent of the economically active population was in paid labour. This movement potentially provided the economic basis for the predicted antagonistic conflict between the bourgeoisie and working class.

However, power relations can no longer be analysed only in terms of relationships of class and exploitation (the extraction of profit) but are also constituted by other forms of domination (and discrimination) – such as patriarchy, bureaucracy and credentialism (power exerted by people with ‘expert’ knowledge).

The Changing Class Structure

Ownership of productive assets gives rise to economic exploitation (profit), in addition, growing armies of executives and professionals have significant powers of control. A ‘new bourgeoisie’ with cultural capital has arrived: its members control the creation of knowledge and are dominant in science and technology, education and media. However, the possession of cultural capital qualifies Marx, rather than negating him. Ownership of productive assets drives the activity of companies. Media companies, such as Google, Disney and Netflix, operate for profit and their economic developments are largely determined by their market position and a quest for profits.

But the ruling class can no longer be differentiated solely in terms of property; account has to be taken of positions giving control over resources (both physical and human). Such relations become of considerable importance in societies with state ownership of productive forces, as in them effective power often resides in a stratum of officials.

Modern sociology’s concern with race, ethnicity and gender relations is a form of domination/subordination which predates capitalism. Such relationships, however, which are important components of identity politics, cannot be equated with economic exploitation which remains a driving force of capitalism. Identity politics calls for justice and equal rights before the law, not the transformation of capitalism. It promotes individual liberation not the eradication of economic exploitation. Equal access to unequal structures of ownership may strengthen not weaken the composition of the class system based on property.

The Changing Nature of Capital

The form of ownership has also changed in two major respects compared to nineteenth century England. Firstly, in the leading capitalist countries there has been a depersonalisation of the capitalist class. The joint-stock corporation has fragmented into different components of ownership, financial instruments and funds have replaced the nineteenth century entrepreneur. Thus ‘capital’ takes a more abstract and less personalised form. Secondly, the geographical spread of productive forces has led to corporations becoming global in ownership and control. Multi-national corporations have replaced national capitalist firms.

A new class of globalising politicians (notably Tony Blair when Prime Minister of the UK and Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission) manage politics. International institutions (the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank) have arisen which coordinate the global system of exchange. Their representatives assemble at congresses such as Davos. The dominant bourgeoisie takes a new global form.

Deteritorialisation also segments the working class. As international companies seek to reduce labour costs, the greater mobility of capital and cheapening of transport enable manufacturing to be located in areas of low paid labour. Electronic communication under neo-liberalism promotes the almost unrestricted mobility of capital thus changing the combination of the factors of production in low income countries. Hence the focus on class conflict can no longer be contained within the boundaries of the nation state.

Advances in technology have led to an enormous increase in the productive forces of capitalism. Workers, even if unemployed in the post-industrial countries, have secured economic stability and, helped by the falling prices of manufactured imports, have even experienced a rise in living conditions. Consumption becomes more important in people’s lives than production. And ‘consumerism’ has replaced class as an integrating ideology and become a focus for individual identity.

Under these conditions, greater individualisation and the rise of a politics of identity have occurred. Such developments explain the absence of class consciousness and the rise of quite a different type of politics in the advanced countries to that anticipated by Marxists of the early twentieth century. All this leads to an absence of proletarian social consciousness which Marx thought would ripen and provide the stimulus for revolution.

Please read the Part 2 of the Article.



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