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MARXISM
Surplus Value
The theory of Marxism alleges “exploitation” in which some of the value
produced by workers is appropriated by the “capitalist”. In this sense the
worker is alienated from part of the product of his/her labour.
Inherent conflict
Marxists argue there is inherent, irreconcilable conflict between the
capitalist and the worker. The worker seeks the shortening of the work day
for maintenance of his/her health and quality of life while the capitalist seeks
the lengthening of workday for benefit of the capitalist.
History of revolution
Marx noted that the “Bourgeoisie” wrested power from old nobility. Their
power lay in money, influence on lawmakers, on ideology that claimed the
human condition could be improved for all by the tools and structures of
capitalism. Just as the structures and ideologies of Feudalism had inherent
contradictions that led to the downfall of the system and its replacement by
capitalism, so, Marx claimed, the contradictions of capitalism would
inevitably lead to the overthrow of capitalism by the proletariat. Workers
would take ownership of the means of production and thereby end the
contradictions of capitalism. Marx saw this proletarian revolution as certain
to replace the class-based society with a classless society.
In his time, Marx saw government as simply managing the affairs of the
Bourgeoisie. He saw personal worth is now determined solely by the
exchange value of one’s labour. Marx saw the Bourgeoisie as having
stripped every occupation – including those once honoured - into paid wage
labourers. Such occupations included doctors, lawyers, priests…etc.
Marxists contend that, as the repulsiveness of work increases, so wages
decrease.
Marxists argue that the Bourgeoisie provides the proletariat with the
weapons to fight. Such weapons include education, political know-how, and
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general pauperism (poverty). Such weapons eventually rally the proletariat.
It is a Marxist slogan and prediction that the Bourgeoisie produces its own
grave diggers.
Marx saw too that there would be a withering away of the state as the
proletariat took control.
Marx’s theory is analytical, predictive, and exhortative. It can work to
overthrow capitalism if people choose to participate in bringing about
change.
Does practice bear out Marxist theory?
The recession in the 1930s following the crash in the Wall Street Stock
Exchange came close to demolishing the capitalist system, which seemed
incapable of meeting most people’s basic needs of subsistence and security.
Soviet Union Communism nearly took hold in North America in the 1930s
but that system did not follow Marx’s prediction of the replacement of
capitalism by a classless society. On the contrary, top-down dictatorship
prevailed and it was as brutal as Tsarist rule or the absolute monarchies of
France and England prior to their respective revolutions. Such Soviet
dictatorship was contrary to Marxist predictions and has often been dubbed
as “state monopoly capitalism”, not “true communism.”
This does not eliminate the possibility of replacing capitalism with a
proletarian revolution. While President Fidel Castro of Cuba has the power
of a dictator and engaged in purging “enemies of the Revolution” in 1959,
Cuba has developed high quality social programs in the fields of education,
health, social security, in spite of immense opposition from the USA.
Interestingly, when the Klein government research overseas healthcare
systems, it did not investigate the Cuban system.
One should also consider successful ventures with workers’ cooperatives, in
which the organization is owned by the workers, not capitalists. Managers,
themselves part-owners of the cooperative, are accountable to the entire
workers’ collective not to shareholders. A successful example of such
worker-owned enterprise is the cooperative organizations originating in the
Mondragon community in the Basque Region of Spain. Workers’
cooperatives have also sprung up in Argentina (with resistance from the
State and capitalist organizations in Argentina. While such organizations are
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relatively small and represent only a small fraction of industry in Argentina,
they do suggest that the model of workers’ ownership of the means of
production is feasible and sustainable. (See website for article on
Mondragon).
The fact that Marx’s vision of revolution has generally not happened does
not entirely dispose of Marxist predictions. Following World War II in
Europe North America and some Asian countries, notably Japan, capitalism
was rebuilt on a model that involved greater state participation in managing
the economy than existed in Marx’s lifetime. Keynesian economics designed
to mitigate economic instability helped to maintain much of the essence of
capitalism. Social programs, such as state pensions, unemployment
insurance, minimum employment standards, public healthcare, public
education, publicly subsidized housing, collective bargaining, human rights
legislation etcetera, appear to have allowed capitalism to survive and even
thrive (in terms of the ability to generate monetary profits). This survival of
a mutated form of capitalism is hailed by the champions of Durkheim’s
“industrialization thesis” as evidence that there is no fundamental flaw in
capitalism leading to its inevitable demise.
In spite of the industrialization thesis and the pluralist social and economic
measures inspired by Durkheim and others, it is arguable that capitalism
continues to show signs of inherent conflict. The current federal election and
the continuing pressure from the WTO for freer international trade suggest
that the pluralist measures to mitigate the weaknesses of capitalism cannot
be sustained. Public healthcare is under great pressure from capitalist leaders
and their political allies to be privatized. The danger of this is that it will
cease to mitigate the effects of capitalism on the poor because healthcare
will become a commodity available only to the rich. Similar privatization
initiatives have occurred with respect to post-secondary education. Even in
primary and secondary education, soft-drink manufacturers see students as a
market not a social service designed to meet social goals of equity and
stability.
Arguably the apparent perpetual necessity for capitalism to find more
markets, more cheap labour, and more non-renewable resources suggests it
is unsustainable in the long run. A typical response to this reservation about
capitalism is TINA (there is no alternative). As evidence of this “fact,”
capitalists point to the economic, social and political disaster of Soviet
Communism. Anarchist Mikhail Bakunin was critical of the Marx’s
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approach to the process of revolution and recommended a quicker
revolution. Marx saw they state as withering away over time while Bakunin
predicted that revolutionaries who sought to perpetuate the institution of the
state were no better than the dictators who sought to preserve the state.
Bakunin stated:
“power corrupts those who wield it as much as those who are forced to obey
it…. All who put science before life defend the idea of the state and its
authority….the difference between such revolutionary dictatorship and the
modern state is only one of external trappings. In substance both are a
tyranny of the minority over the majority – in the name of the many and the
supreme wisdom of the few – and so they are equally reactionary, devising
to secure political and economic privilege to the ruling minority and the
enslavement of the masses, to destroy the present order, only to erect their
own dictatorship on its ruins” (see Bowles 1963: 321).
This seems to be an accurate prediction of the outcome of the Russian
Revolution and an equally accurate description of the American, French and
other revolutions. The work of anarchists suggests that there is more than
one option to the extremes of capitalism and Soviet style Communism.
The division of labour
Marxists argue that the division of labour is effective for capitalism and
capital is necessary for the division of labour. The division of labour is
necessary for the capitalist to remove control of how work is done from the
worker to “management”. Management is essential for production and to
feed and control workers etc. The capitalist is relieved from performing
work himself by handing over the work of direct and constant supervision of
the individual workman, and groups of workmen, to a special kind of wage
labourer. An “industrial army” of workmen under the command of a
capitalist requires, like a real army, officers (managers) and sergeants
(foremen, overseers) who, while the work is being done, command in the
name of the capitalist. The work of supervision becomes their established
and exclusive function. The worker becomes a machine.
One problem for workers arising from the division of labour and capitalist
control through management is that the resultant deskilling of work renders
the worker less valuable economically, and easily replaceable by another due
to the relative lack of skill required to perform the work. Deskilling reduces
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the market value of labour. Deskilling also reduces the pride in work and
alienates the worker from his or her creative being. Jobs become
meaningless and soul-destroying. Workers come to be viewed and treated as
means to the end of profit for the capitalist rather than ends in themselves
with value as creative human beings.
Marx sees such alienation and exploitation as inevitably provoking
resistance among workers and creating a force for revolution. There seems
to be little evidence of such resistance in Canada. Indeed the labour laws
seem to be designed to minimize resistance. The ability of capitalists to
contract out relocate work to overseas workers appears also to dampen
resistance of workers in Canada.
Marxists also see science as an instrument of capitalism as it facilitates the
concentration of skill in few hands. Science and technology require huge
investment of capital and to the extent that such capital is private not public,
the owners of the technology can control its use. Microsoft and its monopoly
illustrates this as it is essentially impossible for others to compete with
Microsoft.
ALIENATION REVISITED
1. The worker is separated from fruits of her labour. The object of the work
is purely and the external and the product belongs to others who haven’t
produced it
2. In most work the worker is separated from the creative process.
He is alienated from (a) nature
(b) himself, own vital activity
(c) from his human essence – parenting, family life
(d) other men (See Heather Menzies “Whose Brave
New World?)
3. Capitalism encourages and exaggerates competition between and among
men and women. It develops egoism and so alienation from others.
Note much of modern management practice is to overcome alienation. This
may have been successful in fending off the revolution predicted by
Marxists. However, the evidence of higher levels of stress among workers at
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all levels of employment in North America may be an indication of the strain
that capitalism puts on employees, including managers and supervisors. On
the other hand, followers of Max Weber see problems of industrialization as
rooted in bureaucracy not capitalism. Followers of Durkheim’s thesis of
industrialization believe social programs, economic safety nets and
collective bargaining are successfully resolving the transitional problem of
society’s evolution from a mechanistic to an organic society.
Assessment of Marxism
Arguably the division of labour has integrated workers into society rather
than alienated them. This would be accepted by Durkheim. However, a
different form of Marxian analysis may be more accurate in describing
alienation of human beings under capitalism. It may be argued that
alienation has occurred due to the negative impact on workers that occurs
when the commodities (objects) of men’s labour acquire an independent,
“anti-human” power. Perhaps such alienation is even more serious than
Marx imagined. The result is, the “consumer society” where everything,
including labour, is a commodity and valued not on the basis of intrinsic
worth but on the basis of market value. Traditional spiritual religions have
been replaced by materialism, their cathedrals replaced by shopping malls
and E-Bay. The slick messages of commodity marketers appears today to
carry much more weight in Canadian society than the words attributed to
Jesus Christ “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24). One
may note too the saying of Confucius: “In a country well governed, poverty
is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed wealth is
something to be ashamed of”.
Yet the relentless marketing of commodities (including services) is clearly
vital for the survival of capitalism. Is this consistent with the evolution of
human life in strong sustainable societies and with the teachings of religious
leaders throughout the ages?
White collar workers replacing the proletariat as antagonists of
capitalism?
Professor Anthony Giddens (in ‘The Class Structure of Advanced
Societies,’ 1973, London, Hutchinson) at p. 195 suggests a new emphasis on
the class struggle and the crucial importance of scientific and technical ideas
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to neo-capitalism
….. the production and dissemination of scientific
knowledge becomes the primary “force of production” in neocapitalist society. Engineers, scientists, technicians of all sorts
thus occupy a pivotal place in the socio-economic order. But
rather than affiliate themselves with other groupings in the
“middle class,” these workers constitute a new vanguard of the
working class – not because they are ‘proletarian’ in the
conventional sense of the term as regards income and economic
rewards, but because they experience, in acute form, a ‘contradiction’ between their need for autonomous control of their work
(the production of knowledge) and the bureaucratic exigencies of
the organization to which they are subject.”
On this view the class struggle goes on but the actors change. We shall see
that there has emerged some apparent alienation among teachers, health care
professionals, social workers and other professional workers. Bureaucratic
and commercial controls over their work may be good for “productivity” as
measured by capitalism, but less successful on allowing professional
workers to enjoy the subjective rewards of their profession. So while Marx
may not have foreseen the outcome of capitalist development, his analysis
may make sense of it in today’s world of work. See “The Ideology of Work”,
Peter Anthony (1984, Tavistock)
Other human needs may be compromised by capitalism. The recent
“downsizing” of General Motors’ and Ford’s operations will involve
significant labour redundancies in Canada and elsewhere. The instability of
capitalism and the resulting insecurity for workers raises questions about the
effectiveness of capitalism in our evolving society.
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