Marx

Karl Marx (1818-1883) is one of the most notorious political philosophers, whose philosophy bears the name "Marxism." However, despite this title which suggests that Marx is different from other philosophers, in many ways Marx fits into the larger tradition of political philosophy and deals with many of the core questions of political philosophy: what is human nature, the nature of state and society, is democracy the best form of government, how much inequality should we tolerate in society, etc. Marx is different from most other philosophers in that he openly advocated for a political and social revolution to abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism. Most other philosophers up until now had only a fairly dim understanding of capitalism as it emerges only in the course of the nineteenth century, although developing for several centuries before that. Marx's revolutionary ideas are explained in many of his writings, but probably none more well known than the Communist Manifesto, written in 1847.

Marx's manifesto, written during a period of revolutionary upheaval in Europe, begins with one of the most well known first lines ever written: "The history of all hitherto existing society, is the history of class struggles". With this line, Marx sets up everything that is to follow, beginning with his account of the rise of the modern "ruling class", the bourgeoisie. The growth of this class is tied to the development of modern industry and trade, as he says, tracing their development over the last few centuries:

Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturer no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionized industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class the industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeois developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.

We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and exchange.

The political theorist Marshall Berman, of the CUNY Graduate Center faculty, until his death in 2013, is one of the definitive modern interpreters of Marx. Berman focused in particular on one key passage in the Manifesto:

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

What is compelling about Marx's account of the bourgeois epoch is how it parallels the experience of urban life: fast-paced, dynamic, constantly moving from one thing to another, whether its moving through the streets, or the latest trends and fashions. Of course, the bourgeoisie sprang out of the urban centers whether London, Paris, New York, etc. Technology, too, plays a big role, as it changes how we produce things, it changes the social relationships that allow production to take place, and through that changes all of society. Since changes in technology drives social change, then society itself must always be in flux or transition, this being the means by which capital is generated. That is why the bourgeois cannot exist, as he says, without constantly revolutionizing technology, or the instruments of production. Marx, in his day, was reacting to the technological changes he saw. In our time, what role do computers, the Internet, biotechnology, and other forms of technology play in changing these relationships as well?

Marx saw capitalism as a necessary stage of development societies must go through. Since the time of the Russian Revolution, it has been common to associate Marxism and communism with poorer, underdeveloped states, however Marx believed that the kind of socialist revolution he had in mind would occur in the most developed states like Britain or the US.

Marx's account of the causes of the French Revolution are still the standard explanation. The revolution, or the overthrow of the monarchy and feudal nobility, was led by the bourgeoisie, who had grown over the preceding centuries, thanks to the gradual development of technology, commerce, and industry. The politics of the 19th and most of the 20th century were based almost entirely on class issues, over conflicts with the bourgeoisie, and the proletariat. The displacement of the feudal ruling class by the bourgeoisie, also sets the stage for their eventual replacement by the proletariat.

Today, the proletariat is identified with the working class in general, but Marx originally meant the proletariat to be the specific kind of urban, working class created by capitalism. The proletariat are the workers who do not own property, who are forced to sell themselves, sell their labor, or ability to work, physical or mental, in exchange for a wage paid by the employer. There are various other social classes, but, as Marx argues, the current epoch simplifies the class struggle to a conflict between bourgeois and proletariat. Today theorists often speak of the precariat, a combination of "precarious" and "proletariat," or a class of workers who have no job security and seem to move from job to job in various different fields.

Brazilian favela in Sao Paulo

Two aspects that Marx focuses on are urbanization and globalization, both issues people are concerned with today. The growth of industry, and decline of agricultural employment, draws in people from the country looking for work, leading to the immense growth of cities. The living conditions in European cities in the 19th century are notoriously bad, as developing countries like Brazil modernize we can similar developments occurring, again understanding the dual nature of this development: wealth and culture on the one hand, poverty and misery on the other.

Sao Paulo from another angle

Globalization is another phenomenon closely related to urbanization. As capital and industry expand, more areas of the world are integrated into this system. The growth of a global proletariat, although it did not exist in Marx's day, would follow from his explanation of the growth of the world market, and how the bourgeois makes a world out of its own image. Again, Marx sees a progressive element in this as well:

In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

Here, again, Marx's ideas should be updated to include things like movies, and other art forms, as well.

Marx elaborates on what communism (derived from the French for commune) or its English equivalent, socialism is, particularly on the issue of property. Socialism seeks to abolish bourgeois private property, but what does that mean? It does not, as commonly assumed, mean the end of all personal property, but it does not mean the end of private ownership of the means of production. These means, or instruments of production, are things like technology, as mentioned, and large scale industries that are necessary for society. For Marx, as is the case now, ownership of most property is already by a minority, so why do the majority fear the idea of socialism so much? As he says:

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is due solely to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society. 

In the modern era, as the work by many economists, like Piketty and Saez, show, the share of income among the top 10 percent and 1 percent has increased dramatically over the last few decades. Wealth includes income paid to employees, but also ownership of pretty much any property of value, and while the top 10 percent in the US earn 50 percent of income (up from a third in the 1970s), they own 75 percent of all wealth. 

On the other hand, according to the Social Security Administration, which keeps records of payrolls and wages, 50 percent of income earners in the US earn less that $30,000 a year, while 70 percent make less than $50,000. Only about 20 percent of earners have at least a six figure income, so at best, the current system only really benefits about 20 percent of the people, and even then there is a big gap between that and the 1 percent and .01 percent.

Marx's work is certainly complex in many ways, but when you get right down to it, his critique of capitalism is fairly simple: capitalism is  an economic system that produces extreme inequality, and makes a relatively small group of people very wealthy, but leaves the vast majority in poverty or close to it. American history confirms this to be the case when examined from the perspective of the study of inequality shown above. The only period of time when inequality was somewhat controlled (if you were white) was in the middle part of the twentieth century when the government redistributed wealth in the form of higher taxes on the wealthy. Redistribution of wealth is exactly what it sounds like--socialism, or at least a step towards socialism as the US never really became socialist but took several steps in that direction during the New Deal of the 1930s and lasting until the 1980s. Other than that, capitalism produces the very extreme levels of inequality that Marx predicted it would.

The more complex aspects of Marx's thinking deal with how he defines capitalism as a system of producing commodities for exchange in a market, and how the profits created under capitalism come from what he called "surplus value" which is produced when workers are paid less than the value of what they produce. In Marx's view to make profits capitalists would always have to either a) force workers to work very hard; b) pay them very little; or c) both. This is one of the more complicated aspects of Marx's theory, but I think, at least, the importance of outsourcing or shifting production to countries where workers are paid very little seems to provide evidence for Marx's theory. The surplus taken from the workers which takes the form of money is further concealed when the capitalist pays landlords, bankers, and others who the capitalist deals with. Another influential Marxist theorist is David Harvey, also of the Graduate Center faculty, who speaks at this at length in many of his books and articles, and even his lecture series which can be found online.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9qzXVDKmBdbTlID3HLHe9Q

Marx addresses other common criticisms of socialism, and outlines goals for communists during this period of time. Marx also addresses the concept of ideology, although something not well developed in his theory:

Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views, and conception, in one word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?

What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.

When people speak of the ideas that revolutionise [sic] society, they do but express that fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.

One thing that has changed in modern consciousness is a less male-dominated view of the world. People today do not talk exactly the way Marx did, but the basic connection between material production and ideas are there. Ironically, Marx predicted the expansion of women in the proletariat, who now make up at least half of the world's workforce. According to the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the song "Imagine" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, is socialist, if you read the lyrics, so are romantic poets like Byron and Shelley. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkgkThdzX-8

Marx also distinguishes his views from other groups that call themselves socialists. It is not like Marx had a monopoly on criticizing capitalism, plenty of people do, from many different points of view, but he finds them all lacking in some way. One thing that is important to remember about Marx's theory is that he is consistent in seeing capitalism as a volatile system that is not fully under the control of anyone, or any class, even the bourgeoisie. This also means that the bourgeoisie are not wholly responsible for every bad thing that happens, and if you are throughly consistent in this view, are even themselves somewhat the victims of this system. To be fair, it is difficult to think of Trump or George Bush as victims of society, on the other hand its not that hard to show them as undeveloped or broken in some way.

In sum, Marx's views are very relevant today. It is interesting to point out that during the 1960s and 70s when inequality was relatively lower, was also the formative period where "second wave" feminism took shape, as well as the gay rights (now LGBTQ) movement that placed emphasis on other issues of identity besides class. These movements do reflect changes in production as more people enter the workforce, and always had an economic aspect like the Equal Rights Amendment, or Harvey Milk's campaign against the Briggs Initiative in California. At the time, these movements called themselves the "New Left." Now, with forty or fifty years behind the New Left it is easy to say that class should be re-emphasized more than it has been, without losing sight of other forms of oppression and violence. 

Even though inequality has been dramatically increasing since the 1980s, economists, like Robert Reich, have pointed out that the full impact of this was concealed from people due to three interconnected developments: one, people in general are working longer hours; two, more women have entered the workforce, and three, consumer debt has increased substantially as well. But only recently, as Reich argues, have all three of these "mechanisms," as he calls them, become exhausted. In other words, people cannot really work more than they already are, all or most of the women are now working, and credit card and other debts are maxed out. Without these, the full impact of this inequality is now being felt, or has been for the last decade.

If there is any major weakness in Marx's analysis it is that he tends to underplay the importance of ideology, even though he does talk about it. Why is that? I think you have to take into account what Marx meant by ideology. In his day, ideology meant the writings of people like Adam Smith and David Ricardo, who were known as political economists, that is why he writes of a "critique of political economy." However, obviously these works were not read by the public at large. Marx did not live to see the development of the mass media but it has served as a vehicle for transmitting ideology to the larger public and thus makes ideology much more important in modern society. This is why many later Marxist theorists have focused on the mass media as much as economics. Many interesting studies have been done examining the role the media plays in spreading or disseminating ideology to the public through movies, television, the radio, and even more recently through social media.