Karl Marx and the Birth of Social Stupidity

Vic Biorseth
The Thinking Catholic Strategic Center

(With the election only days away and Obama so clearly linked to Marxist theory as "Social Science" and philosophical happy-land, I felt it appropriate to touch up and send out an older existing page from the website explaining the dangers of Marxism, for what it's worth. I hope it does some good.)

Definitions: Definition of Marxism, Socialism, Communism, etc., all of which equate to Leftism. First, some "nut-shell" definitions are in order. Marxism is not merely an economic system, and it is not merely a system of government; it touches all areas of human endeavor, and seeks to replace or modify and rule them all. The broad sweep of it is simply breathtaking. Each of the definition links you encounter here will present a brief, short, one page or so description. I suggest you select them all as you encounter them, including any sub-links you encounter in the new windows that open up. As you finish reading each one, just use your browser's BACK button, and you will be right back where you were and you may continue reading.

(Note well that, to define Marxism, we must define the systems that opposes and would eliminator or replace such American concepts as free market Capitalism, true Democracy and representative government. While Marxist governments and organizations hide under typical titles such as “The People’s Republic Of (Whatever)” or “The Worker’s Liberation Party,” or The People’s this, or The Worker’s that, in actual fact Marxism represses and stifles the voices of the people and the workers. The People and The workers had no voice whatsoever in the governments of Lenin, or Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao, or Ho Chi Minh, or Pol Pot, or Castro, or any other supposedly “Marxist” absolute dictatorship.)

Marxism describes the overarching philosophy of Karl Marx, 1818-83, born in Trier, Germany as the son of a Jewish lawyer. He was the founder of International Communism. With the collaboration of Friedrich Engels he organized the Communist League and wrote the Communist Manifesto, which attacked "the state" as the instrument of oppression, and attacked religion and culture as the ideologies of the "Capitalist class." In 1849 he settled in England where he wrote Das Kapital, and was a leading figure in the First International. Thus was Marxism born.

Marxism falsely claims to be scientific; in truth, it is scientistic, in the manner of Darwinism and Freudianism. It begins with revolutionary overthrow of the state, moves into a phase of Socialism called the "dictatorship of the proletariat (meaning working class)" which is in actuality "the dictatorship of The Party," which is the theoretically necessary preliminary phase leading to what Marx called Communism, the theoretical state of perfect, harmonious, classless, stateless, government-less Utopia, meaning, literally, Heaven on Earth. Strictly man-made and man-maintained Worldly perfection.

The traditional Judao-Christian and Western culture wisdom handed on through the ages which tells us that perfection is not of this world, but the next, is directly opposed here. Flying in the face of logic, Marxism seeks to force this worldly perfection upon us all, whether we like it or not, at whatever cost. The Utopian ends justify any means whatsoever that must be used to achieve them, including even terrorism, mass enslavement and mass murder. A favorite Marxist motto is you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. In Materialist-Marxist moral standards, if you can call them that, people are equated to eggs. Marxism always seeks to forcefully impose itself upon everyone everywhere.

And in so doing, it seeks to eliminate free markets and Capitalism. Marxism also seeks to replace all existing forms of government, including even the older Socialism of the collective, including the Republic and including Democracy meaning most especially Liberal Democracy as opposed to that newer, Marxism-infected, pseudo-Democracy called Social Democracy.

In actual usage, Marxism is a sham, a false-front, a tool of use for a ruthless dictator to get into power and then stay in power, with a supporting new class of supporters and cohorts, comprising a thundering herd of submissive bureaucrats, who help to ruthlessly control and rule the workers and the people.

Over time, the terms Marxist and Socialist and Communist have blurred into one common-usage meaning, that being the governmental process exemplified by the old Soviet Union, which is held by all to be, at once, Marxist, Socialist and Communist. In common usage, the formula Marxism = Socialism = Communism is quite accurate. Although it may be technically incorrect, that is the most common usage.

So, to sum up: what we have here is a "scientific" socio-economic system with no price mechanism other than to have the Party fix all prices for everything, always; the Party (or Leviathan State) owns everything, the people all work for and are paid by the Party, they don't necessarily pay taxes because the Party already gains all profit; the people are all equal in housing and clothing and so forth; the only thing the people have to worry about is Party imposed work quotas.

The “People” (meaning, really, the Party) owns all of the “means of production,” meaning all the land, tractors, machines, factories, etc., necessary to produce the food and housing and stuff needed by citizens for normal living. The theory is that government bureaucrats can produce food and housing and clothing and factories and health care and stuff better, more cheaply, more efficiently and more “fairly” than can free entrepreneurs and investors and businesses acting competitively to bring all these things into the market place as cheaply and effectively as possible, for profit. And all of this is to lead to an eventual perfect classless society. See?

Karl Marx sought to lower or level all of human society to its lowest common denominator; he hated God, denied the right to private property, and stressed the need for class warfare and for violent revolution. Marxism was not limited to economics; it sought to “revolutionize” all of society and all fields of human activity, to destroy Christianity and existing human culture in general, to replace all philosophies with a New World Order, of Communism, which was to dominate all education, to remake the family, and, finally, to “recreate” the individual - the worker.

To this very day all Socialist (meaning Communist - devotee of Marxism) educators include these ideas in their educational agenda. The ideas of Marx joined those of Darwin and Freud to form the basic nucleus of modern Socialist thought, which is essentially atheistic, materialistic, naturalistic, relativistic, and secular, which is to say purely and strictly worldly, and purely and strictly anti-spiritual.

Marxism says that environment alone forms personality, controlled and manipulated environment will therefore form predictable personality; society creates and therefore may modify or destroy theology and philosophy, and, of course, any progress that is ever made is due only to society. Society and society alone makes, and breaks, gods.

In actual historical fact, no nation that ever entered the theoretically temporary phase of Socialism ever advanced beyond it. Socialism - the so-called Dictatorship of the Proletariat - was theorized to be an unpleasant yet necessary phase on the "evolutionary" road to eventual Communist perfection. This period of unpleasant but necessary dictatorship was theoretically needed to perfect the worker and the bureaucracy and the entire social order in preparation for entry into the theorized perfect man-made utopia. Russia, for example, remained in this unpleasant but necessary condition for some seventy years of unpleasant dictatorship. It is and was characterized by government of the people, by the bureaucracy, for the dictator.

Over time, even the most ardent Marxists quietly realized the impossibility of the total journey, and the goal became simply the achievement and maintenance of the Socialist phase itself. Socialism itself - dictatorship - is the real aim of today's Marxists.

Let us examine the theoretically "perfect" or "pure" applications of Socialism versus Democracy.

Pure Socialism

Pure Socialism involves a centrally planned economic system, which requires a government controlled population of workers to operate the system. Therefore Socialism is both an economic system and a government system. Socialism absolutely requires government control of all economic as well as political and public affairs.

Pure Socialism represents a completely planned economy, in which the means of production are collectively held, and in which state authorities rather than free market forces directly determine prices, output and production. Socialism is an economic and social system under which total equality of individuals is given preference over individual liberty, and under which all of the economic means of production, distribution and exchange are collectively owned.

The most important features of the planned economy are:

1. production targets for different segments of the economy,
2. rationing of certain commodities to determine demand for them,
3. price and wage fixing by the state, and
4. a conscripted labor market in which workers are assigned jobs by the state.

The right of the individual to excel, or to improve himself or his condition is denied, along with all other individual rights, in favor of one single individual right: the right to be exactly the same as everyone else. The balance between the mutually exclusive ideals of individual liberty and total equality always favors total equality at the expense of individual liberty.

Pure Socialism cannot coexist with the honest popular elections of representative Democracy because no population would ever willingly (or knowingly) vote for the total loss of individual rights required to achieve pure Socialism; thus the biggest problem of Socialism is how to select the leadership. In practice, the Socialist method of selecting leaders has been by use of force. In pure Socialism, all power is vested in the central government, and, economically speaking, the government does everything, and the individual, nothing, other than what he is told.

The rule of subsidiarity, whose two main precepts are that everyone who is affected by an issue should be in the jurisdiction responsible for it, and that as few people as possible who are not affected by an issue should have jurisdiction or responsibility over it, says that all political authority should be vested in the most local jurisdiction possible. Problems affecting only a town should be handled by that town, county problems by that county, etc., and problems that can be handled by any part of the private sector should not be given over to any level of government at all.

The rule of subsidiarity is denied under pure Socialism because the centrally planned economy requires the top level of government to be in charge of all aspect of economic, political and social life. Low level and local matters are handled, in accordance with central planning, by various bureaucrats in the vast government bureaucracy that is required of Socialism.

The ideal Socialist situation follows:

• The government should provide me with an education comparable to that of everyone else.
• The government should provide me with housing comparable to everyone else’s housing.
• The government should provide all of the food and other necessities of life and make them available in the market place.
• The government should provide me with a job, and provide payment for the job that is equitable and comparable to that of everyone else.
• The government should provide me with subsistence payments during periods of unemployment, and this pay should be comparable to working wages.
• The government should provide me with decent health care.
• The government should provide all the tools, factories, raw materials, farm implements, etc., which are necessary to sustain society.
• The government should provide me with a decent retirement income, comparable to that of everyone else.
• The government should provide me with all that I need, from the cradle to the grave.
• The government should take care of me and make me feel secure, and not let my world change.

Such a situation is, of course, possible only under the fiercest form of totalitarianism imaginable, where the central government involves itself deeply in the most minute and mundane details of the private affairs of the individual citizen.

Majoritarianism must be replaced by absolute authoritarianism (to use the Orwellian Newspeak terms favored by America's pro-Socialist Left against them.) The majority cannot rule; everything must be centrally planned. Von Mises argued that a planned economy is not only wasteful, but must ultimately fail because it lacks the most efficient basis of resource allocation, which is a natural price system, and it cannot institute a price system without betraying and destroying its political principle.

On the bright side, since the government is the only employer, pays all salaries and holds all wealth and property, there are no taxes to worry about. Only work quotas.

Under pure Socialism, increased population presents a problem. Experience shows that men not free to improve their own condition show less initiative, become more dependant, are seen by their own government as “mouths to feed” rather than as human capital, who consume wealth rather than generate it. More Socialist governments always therefore seek to reduce their population rather than increase it.

If that’s the Socialist “point,” let us look at the Democratic “counter point.” What other practical, workable system stands opposed to this supposedly superior and worker-friendly Socialist dictatorship of the proletariat?

Pure Democracy

Pure Democracy, built on the Jeffersonian model, is a representative government system that operates independent of free market Capitalism, except to keep it free. (For instance, to legally restrict monopoly, etc.) Free market Capitalism absolutely requires freedom from government planning.

Free market Capitalism is an economic system that must be free of any planning or excessive controlling influence in order to properly operate.

A pure Democracy cooperating with a natural free market Capitalism is the economic and social system in which individuals are free to own the means of production and to maximize profits, and where an automatic price system determines resource allocation in accordance with supply and demand. The right of the individual to excel, or to improve himself or his condition is granted, along with all other individual rights, at the expense of one single individual right: the right to be exactly the same as everyone else. The balance between the mutually exclusive ideals of individual liberty and total equality always favors individual liberty at the expense of total equality. (Constitutional and civil law guarantees equality before the law, but not equality of “outcome”, i.e., equality of income, housing, clothing, etc.)

The rule of subsidiarity, whose two main precepts are that everyone who is affected by an issue should be in the jurisdiction responsible for it, and that as few people as possible who are not affected by an issue should have jurisdiction or responsibility over it, says that all political authority should be vested in the most local jurisdiction possible. Problems affecting only a town should be handled by that town, county problems by that county, etc., and problems that can be handled by any part of the private sector should not be given over to any level of government at all.

Subsidiarity operates best in a pure Democracy where government is limited. The opposing position in the culture war has the top level of government in charge of all aspect of economic, political and social life.

Truly Democratic people should be given, or rather, allowed to assume, as much responsibility as they are willing and able to assume. The ideal situation under pure Democracy (in the Jeffersonian mode,) cooperating with a natural economy based on free market Capitalism follows:

• An individual citizen takes care of himself and his family.
• He farms, or finds work, or starts a business, as he wills.
• He pays his way, feeds, clothes, shelters and insures security to his family and educates his children to the best of his ability.
• When he encounters hardship to great to bear, whether draught, business failure, unemployment, accident or other disaster, he first seeks help from his family, friends and church; then charitable organizations, individuals and businesses.
• If he is still in need, he then goes to the township, and, if still lacking relief, moves his request up the hierarchy of county, state, and finally the federal government for relief.
• The federal government should be the last place to go for any such relief, not the first.
• Barring any such calamity, if the man is wise, frugal and not given to excess, he should be able in his lifetime to provide both for a comfortable retirement, and to leave his children at least as much, if not more, of an inheritance as his father left to him.
• If, for whatever reason, his retirement is not provided for, then the same hierarchy should be traversed - family, friends, church, etc., again, with the federal government as an absolute last resort.
• He should be willing and even anxious to take care of his parents and grand-parents in their dotage, and in a like manner his own children and grand-children should be a blessing to him in his old age.

That describes the ideal condition under pure Democracy. Many from the other side of the culture war call for personal liberty, or freedom, when what they really want is freedom to not have to do too much, or risk too much, or be responsible for too much, or suffer too many “liberty/responsibility” consequences; in other words, freedom to be lazy, and perhaps even freedom to be somewhat dependant. But true freedom is not for wimps, nor is it for the lazy; liberty has a price that is well worth paying at the individual level. Any person, left alone, will strive to improve his condition as best he can; nearly all will succeed; if they are left alone they will find a way. History repeatedly proves it.

This is where pure Democracy shines: very large numbers of people cannot improve their own condition without improving their larger environment. The greater the number of individuals striving for self-improvement, the greater will be the positive effect that this improvement will have on the entire economy.

Social “safety nets” need to exist at the lowest levels of government for the always very small number of people who cannot, as opposed to the always larger number of those who will not, be able to take care of themselves for whatever reason.

People free to improve their own condition are the only source of the creation of new wealth, and they are most free to do so under pure Democracy. Free people improving their own condition in life are what drive Adam Smith's "invisible hand of Capitalism." (Wealth Of nations.)

In the quite unique American version of Democracy, which is a Constitutional Republic, the people are sovereign. The state governments and the Federal government represent the people, through officials elected by them in elections within the individual American states. State Constitutions grant the right to vote to the people for local elections, state elections and federal elections. Elected officials swear a solemn oath to protect the Constitution itself and preserve it. The Constitution is a legal document, written in English, which says very specific legal things. Each individual state has a similar Constitution. We are a nation of laws and not just of men or current opinion.

In a pure Democracy, increased population is seen as a blessing. Only free people generate new wealth; governments only spend it. Experience shows that people free to improve their own condition show initiative, become more independent, generate new wealth, and are seen by their government as “human capital” rather than mouths-to-feed. More Democratic lands therefore should seek to grow their population, which is the source of all increases in national wealth. Here the natural or worldly incentive coincides with the moral and spiritual incentive.

The Rise and Social Domination of the New World Order

Nevertheless, Marxist "intellectualism" continually advanced and gained grand prominence in the twentieth century. In America, John Dewey carried it a little further, using it to redefine good and evil; that which is of social benefit is good, and that which is not is evil; society determines right and wrong. Society invented religion, and therefore society can abolish it. Social progress demands that, as the values of society change, the content of education must change, to be consistent with evolving “reality.” Or, the reality that’s real to most of us, perhaps. Or to the most important ones of us. (Marxists really think that reality evolves.)

The “modernist” Bertrand Russell, in his 1935 Religion and Science, declared the death of God, claiming that science had clearly refuted all of the main tenets of religion, based upon two scientific “revolutions,” those being the Copernican, and the Darwinian.

The declaration was perhaps a bit premature. (Note: God is not dead. Bertrand Russell is dead.) It claimed that science had more or less irrefutably shown that, first, the universe and the solar system and the Earth, and second, life and mankind, had come into being, balance and intelligence, not due to any Creator, but due to circumstantial happenstance, as a most curious accident in a cosmological backwater.

A statement that was, and remains, as we shall see, false; science has shown nothing of the kind, irrefutably or otherwise. All science did was increase man’s knowledge somewhat, which is what science is supposed to do, and science continues to do that, sometimes even in spite of many scientists.

But this Marxism-inspired kind of “God is dead” thinking had, and still has, much to do with the clear lack of objectivity and the lowered requirements for empirical evidence in all the sciences; in almost any field, once any “natural” theory is seen as plausible, and no other purely natural theory opposes it, the need for solid evidence and for falsifiability tests for the theory are lessened. So long as no credible (and very strictly worldly) alternative theory is presented, the theory will stand.

(It has reached a point today where lack of evidence is seen by scientists less as evidence against a popular theory than as a “failure” to prove a “known” theory; the conclusion comes first; all efforts after the conclusion are exclusively aimed at proving the conclusion. As we have already seen in “evolution science,” modern scientists, after huge expenditures of time and effort, often don’t even publish their “failures” to prove Darwinism, because they see it as personal failure.)

But Marxism was on the march.

Marxism moved under the International Socialist banner following Lenin and then Stalin, and Marxism moved under the Nationalist Socialist banner following Hitler.

Stalin and Hitler were secretly collaborating while publicly attacking each other. Stalin used the guise of anti-Fascism to cover his Great Terror campaigns, and Hitler used the guise of anti-Communism to cement his strength in Germany. A great evidence of the depth of their collaboration is the famous Reichstag Fire trial of 1933, in which it has always been historically held that the Nazis burned down the Reichstag and blamed the Communists, charging Comintern leader Georgi Dimitrov, who brilliantly defended himself and was acquitted of the charges. In fact the entire episode, including the fire itself and the mock trial, was orchestrated by a joint effort of the Russian NKVD and the Nazi Gestapo, through which Dimitrov was guaranteed acquittal from the very beginning, and both ruthless Socialists got a scapegoat to point at while committing atrocities, and advancing their variants of Marxism.

The “progressive” elements in the West were thrilled by Dimitrov’s brave direct challenging of the Nazis in the Leipzig courtroom; they didn’t know, of course, that he had such good cause to be brave. Until now, all of this has lain hidden in Comintern vaults. Hitler used the ruse to publicly discredit his SA Brown Shirts and their leader, Ernst Rohm, who was being prepared for slaughter. Stalin used it to purge actual anti-Nazi Field Marshal Tukhanchevsky, using as evidence against him incriminating documents forged for Stalin by the Nazi Gestapo. Stalin also used the new Nazi scapegoat to tell the world that his Great Terror was really an anti-Fascist action.

Stalin sent out into the world two different sets of Communist agents to further his internationalist aims in foreign lands; spies, under the NKVD, and Popular Front disinformation specialists, under Willi Munzenberg. Both groups were very successful. The goals of the Popular Front were to promote Communism as progressive and anti-Fascist, to promote the idea that criticism of Soviet policy constituted proof of bigotry and stupidity, and support of “anti-Fascist” Soviet policy constituted proof of decency and high morality. Agents of the Popular Front created a huge propaganda apparatus that popularized these ideas and gained allegiances among the most prominent writers, intellectuals, artists, scientists and politicians in all the major capitals of the Western world.

Particular attention was paid to promoting the false distinction between Communism, which was progressive, and Fascism, which was evil, and in denying the horrors being committed by Stalin, or, when they could not be denied, pretending that they were anti-Fascist in nature. It was Stalin’s mechanism for gathering support while carrying out the Great Terror, and he aimed it at the “enlightened elite” of England and America, in particular.

In America Popular Front agent Otto Katz was instrumental in creating Left-liberal newspapers, and won over many prominent Americans, including much of the Hollywood nobility; his purpose was to Stalinize the glamour culture and generate cash contributions for the causes of Internationalism. He succeeded. Guilt ridden millionaire stars were happy to support and give to such a noble, progressive, anti-Fascist cause.

In point of fact, both movements began as Marxist movements, they were two sides of the same coin, and, as all other Marxist regimes would do throughout history, the governments simply took on the prominent characteristics promoted by the dictator.

Between the Great Wars, several prominent Marxists and Freudian sexologists under the Italian Antonio Gramsci, known collectively as the Frankfurt School, tried to analyze the reasons that the Communist revolutions in Germany, Austria, Bavaria, Hungary and elsewhere failed so miserably. They concluded that direct seizure of political power was not possible in most places, and formulated a new and slower, but more certain path to world Communism.

If direct overthrow of governments could not succeed, then Marxism must embark on a long term mission advocating, promoting and inciting ongoing cultural revolution, whose aim is to transform all dimensions of every day life everywhere, meanwhile educationally building up the socio-psychological basis for Socialism long before the seizure of power is begun. Evolution as opposed to revolution, but a planned and controlled evolution, as opposed to any kind of natural evolution.

A group of Communists founded the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt in Germany in 1923, and the new mission of Marxism began. Opposition to Western teaching began with strong impetus from Soviet trained Georg Lukacs, who truly hated Western Civilization. Probably had a bad teacher. Lukacs and the institute created ways to destroy Western man’s relationship with religion and with established principles of reason, and to induce in students a sense of utter hopelessness and alienation.

Direct results of educational changes during this period are shown in the dismal and depressing art that was popularized on both sides of the Atlantic. The main idea of Marxism at this point was to create a “new barbarian” as a prerequisite for true revolution. In 1934 the Frankfurt Group became affiliated with Columbia University, where it renamed itself the International Institute of Social Research, and from which base it spread its influence throughout academia, radio, and eventually, television.

Marxism advanced after the second great war as the Frankfurt Group published many works dealing with psychology, character alteration, and the need to “reeducate” people for purposes of social change. They used the revolutionary technique of creating mythical and exaggerated straw villains, from which they would save mankind, if mankind would only listen to them. One of Marxism's mythical villains was, and is, “Authoritarian Personality.” This straw villain enabled them to ridicule the authoritarian patriarchal family, the authoritarian father, authoritarian religion, authoritarian education, authoritarian government, and authoritarian culture.

Imagine that. Marxism, representing as it does the most authoritarian widespread thinking ever done in the history of man, touts itself as the opponent of authoritarianism, and the savior of the victims of authoritarianism.

Two of Marxism's original Frankfurt Group, Eric Fromm and Abraham Maslow, were widely publicized, popularized and promoted in the press during the 60s and 70s. They were sowing the seeds of future revolution. Fromm described his ideal, admirable and non-authoritarian “revolutionary” this way:

“The revolutionary is the man who has emancipated himself from ties of blood and soil, from his mother and his father, from special loyalties to state, class, race, party, or religion.”

Doesn't that paint a pretty picture?

Few people in history had more impact on the education of educators – the shaping of future teachers – than John Dewey, Eric Fromm and Abaraham Maslow. Before the masses could be secularized - religiously cleansed - their teachers would need to be secularized and separated from all religious thought and influence. The main objective of these “thinkers” was to move formal education more away from producing scholars, in the classical sense of that term, and more toward producing anarchistic, sociopathic time-bombs such as their “revolutionary” described above.

Maslow sought to develop an educational revolution in which young people would have their beliefs and value systems reshaped to ensure that they are not potential “authoritarians.” God forbid. And as time goes on it becomes more clear and obvious that Socialist educators have no interest whatsoever in classical educational subjects. Language, mathematics, sciences, the arts and all other classical subjects are simply tag-alongs and while-you’re-at-its and basic inconveniences, unless they can be manipulated to further the ultimate mission; the real mission of Marxism in education is social and societal change, with the ultimate Socialist goal being the destruction of Democracy, Capitalism and of classical freedom.

And even Marxism itself is seen only as a point along the screwy Socialist view of social and economic “evolution;” the next step after that is, of course, leaderless, authority-less, government-less, absolute anarchy. Yes, my very dear, innocent, doubtful reader, Socialists - even those with lots of letters after their names - really are that screwy. Whether they will succeed or not remains to be seen; based solely on history and on the past performance all of the grand social plans pushed by Socialists, they are likely to ultimately achieve something very nearly opposite their original goals; but that is not to say that their efforts will not also do incalculable, immeasurable harm to society first.

The Communist Manifesto, written jointly by Marx and Engles, was published in 1848. To Marx, Capitalism was just an evolutionary stage in economics, between a primitive agricultural economy and the “inevitable” elimination of all private property and classes. He saw, and his Marxism defines, two classes of people in the Capitalist state; those who owned capital, and those who did not, a division which characterized the manner in which production was carried out. He believed that this “class structure” already had within it the necessary ingredients of change.

The Labor Theory of Value, held by economists Smith and Ricardo, held that the amount of labor used in the manufacture of a product was a rough determinant of relative prices in the long run. Marx, however, held that the amount of labor “used up” in the manufacture of a product determined the product’s value, and this value was fundamental and immutable.

Marx never satisfactorily explained any connection with relative prices. In a closed, non-free, non-Capitalist market place, all price structures must be completely artificial; they cannot be based on any reality of current condition. We're talking about all prices for all goods and services here.

Marxism holds that labor consumption determines exchange value, which differs from use value. The distinction is a vital one in Marx’s own analysis, which regarded labor as a commodity. In Marxism, people are things; mere commodities, no different than any other commodity.

In Marxist theory, the wages that the Capitalist pays are determined by the exchange value of the workers, which in turn is determined by the time required to “produce” the worker (that is, the sum of the inputs required to rear, feed, clothe, educate or train him and prepare him for work.) In return for the wages he pays, the Capitalist receives the use value of labor. Marx believed that the value of laborer to the Capitalist who uses him is greater than the value the Capitalist paid in exchange for his work; this difference Marx called surplus value, and only labor produced surplus value. His exploitation rate was computed by dividing the surplus value of labor by the amount of capital used to pay wages.

Marxism stood in direct opposition to the free market, and the rights of men to own property. It incorrectly assumed that Capitalists and laborers were the same as medieval “status classes” in which it was virtually impossible to move from one class to another, and that members of the working “class” could never, ever become Capitalists. It defined a grand, diabolical conspiracy of all of those who owned anything at all, whom Marx called the Bourgeois, to control and exploit the working class, or Proletariat, who were and would always be hopelessly poor and exploitable, and who did not and would never own anything.

Right.

Marxism is an unworkable pipe dream.

The Social Stupidity Embraced by the Intellectual Elite

In my humble opinion, Marx and Engles were a couple of real screwballs. Nevertheless, since publication, the Manifesto has moved many peoples to “revolution”, Communism, and impoverishment, to put it mildly. Marxism aims at total collectivization of all means of production, drafting of total populations into industrial and agricultural “armies”, elimination of private property, abolition of all inheritance, state control of all credit, capital and banks, state control of all transportation and communication, forced mass movement of the people for “equitable” distribution of the population between town and country, and the gradual elimination of families, churches and nations.

This is nuttiness and stupidity on a grand scale. It is the work of paranoid, wild-eyed, bomb-tossing revolutionaries and totalitarianists who would have us revolt against EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. Against institutions, governments, businesses, churches, and all individuals who own anything at all - there is no one left out. Small businessmen, landlords and farmers are attacked as Petty Bourgeois; even family farms and businesses are “exploiters” of their own children, or of each other, or of “the people's” resources.

As a simple matter of practicality - will it work or not - consider the following points.

First, consider the fact that the rigid, permanent class structures Marx spoke of disappeared from Western civilization with feudalism, and never even existed in America, with the single exception of the planters and the slaves during the period of slavery, and even those two classes were not absolutely rigid, and the vast, overwhelming majority of the population in America were neither planters nor slaves.

Second, imagine if you will the reaction of your entire family - including your grandmother, your uncle looking forward to retiring from the factory, your niece looking forward to graduating from law school, your cousins who are the tenth generation to run their family farm - to being informed that they will all have to immediately be moved off somewhere, in cattle cars if need be, in order to satisfy a need, which was dreamed up by some government jerk, for an “equitable population distribution;” but that’s not all.

Third, they will be assigned a job to do, whether they prefer to do that type of work or not, and another government jerk is going to determine how capable he thinks they are to work at it, and how much he thinks they “need” to be compensated.

Fourth, there is the matter of how to select our leaders. No one in their right mind, not you or your family, would willingly vote for such candidates and agendas as would support pure Socialism; therefore, if the socializers are to assume power at all they must rule out honest and open popular election as a method. Assuming that hereditary Monarchy is also ruled out, the only remaining option is either 1) trickery and fraudulent election, or 2) the direct, forceful assumption of power, meaning, exactly, civil war.

Now, I am just a simple, ordinary working man who lacks higher education and sophistication, and so I would be very pleased if any liberal intellectual would please step forward and explain to me in plain simple English how on this Earth any mature, responsible adult could ever even come up with such completely impractical and hare-brained ideas. I have asked several; I have yet to hear an intelligent answer from any of them.

It is even more difficult to imagine how any number of so called “sophisticated” men could ever judge such nonsense as represented by Marxism to somehow be “profound,” let alone to have any merit whatsoever. Just how did it ever come to be that, on any list of history’s greatest thinkers, the name of Marx appears in the company of such names as Einstein? One last question, for any non-intellectual to answer, is this: how did we ever allow ourselves to be duped into believing that the intellectual elite of our or any society are or were necessarily any smarter than you and me?

Marxism represents monumental, towering, and, you would think, suicidal stupidity - but somehow it still survives, thanks to the efforts of the elite. Even considering the vast differences in conditions between that place and time and this one, the basic idea of Communism was still quite stupid.

If you don’t believe it, the best advice I can give you is to go to your nearest bookstore or public library, get yourself a copy of the Communist Manifesto, and read it. It’s very short - a pamphlet, really. The copy you find may be larger, due to the original pamphlet being surrounded by “histories”, “backgrounds” and/or “interpretations” by various authors and famous historical figures. This is important information, but for your first reading, at least, cut to the heart of the matter and read the original pamphlet, which begins “A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of Communism.”, and ends with “WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!”. Anyone with any common sense at all will recognize this stuff at once as indefensible stupidity, and I don’t particularly care what your very dear old professor may say about it.

It was indefensibly stupid long before the Berlin wall and European Communism came crashing down; it was stupid long before the collapse of the Soviet Union; it was stupid from the start, and no educated man who believes in it can truthfully claim to be a non-zealous, dispassionate, honest, logical and thoughtful man.

History shows, after 70-plus years of the Communist Soviet Union, that the Marxist “Workers of the world, unite!” should logically now be changed to “Workers of the world, I apologize!” And it would, if Marxists had any sense of honor at all. Ironically, stupid though it may be, it is also the most successful little piece of revolutionary rabble-rousing literature ever published; it has caused the most human tragedy, and still presents the greatest danger to the rights of free men everywhere, of any document published in modern times. The enthusiastic acceptance by the elite of Marxism proves that our own intellectual elite, in its overwhelming majority, is, simply, dumber than a box of doorknobs.

Thus, so long ago, via Marxism, began the great historical conflicts of individualism vs. collectivism; the rights of men vs. the centralization of power; Capitalism vs. Socialism; Democracy vs. Communism. Soon after birth, the infection of hot Socialism began to have its affect on intellectualism everywhere, and among the intelligentsia it became a sort of pop philosophy, with many variants, first in Europe and England, and finally in America.

Interestingly, many of the people most enamored by Marxism were those most directly threatened by it. The lower class worker stood only to loose his liberty, his religion (or at least the ability to openly practice it), his choice of where to live and what work to do, and what compensation to receive for his assigned labor. But, as history has proved time and again, the upper class rich man stood to loose his very life. Nevertheless, from this class came most of the intellectual support for Marxism. Go figure.

But the truth is still available; all you have to do is seek it. Despite any typical, predictable secular American journalistic proclamations that, STNSEACPB that there is any question regarding modern social theory and the teaching of Social Sciences. And even despite how the question changes, as soon as the “journalist” of the moment detects that the target of the statement is actually serious, educated and adult, with neck stiffened and voice raised an octave, the next pronouncement will be - SNRTACBT that Capitalism is somehow superior to Socialism. Right thinking, in this context, means, of course, secular thinking.

This thinking is foreign to us; this ethos is foreign. Even the pre- Marxism Socialism of the "Collective" is absolutely foreign to the entire American experience. How can anyone say that they are even a little bit Leftist, or even a little bit Socialist, and feel that they represent a position that is somehow positive for America's future? Von Mises, Hayek and others have long warned that there is no middle ground here. All forms of Socialism - no exceptions - involve SOME level of planned, government control of the economy and/or the market place. Capitalism, a natural system, absolutely demands to be left alone and not planned or controlled in order to function properly. There can be no compromise here; any "Social-Democratic" approach, however limited, negatively impacts the natural working of free market Capitalism. Marxism represents controlled economies and markets, and Capitalism represents free ones. To negotiate any kind of compromise position is to harm Capitalism and prod it toward failure. Failure of Capitalism, i.e., expansion of Socialism, requires growing the government and increasing government power, with the flow of power going from the people to the government, in a one way stream. I promise you, the more Capitalism fails, the more it will fail. Beware of the Social Democrat.

Marxism, Socialism, Communism are all absolutely foreign to America; they did not form our common ethos, yet they appear poised to seriously modify and eventually replace it. Look at what's happened and is happening to Socialist societies everywhere, and compare them to America. When you ask the where's-it-coming from question, you don't have to look too far. The same ultra-minority of clowns who push Darwinism on us, and who push Freudianism on us, are the ones who push Marxism on us. This tiny minority of elitists is pushing on us the ethos of BMDFP and the SLIMC.

The New Marxism: The Global Village

Marxism is not dead. It simply took on new trappings. Marxism now promotes the "Global Village" rather than the rule of the Proletariat, and it awaits the sprouting of educational seeds planted long ago to produce Maslow and Fromm's anti-authoritarian, super-barbarian, Revolutionary Man. If you love America, and if you cherish our American heritage and the American ideal, then the time for action is right now. We need to do more than just plant our feet.

Figuratively speaking, it's time to lock-and-load, buckle your chin strap, fix bayonets, and get it on. We need to take back ground that has been lost, and settle this thing. The sad part is that most of us don't even know the fight has begun, let alone what is at stake.

Some good reading on the topic

The Road To Serfdom; F. A. Hayek, University of Chicago Press

Bureaucracy; Ludwig Von Mises, Yale University Press

The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality; Ludwig Von Mises, Libertarian Press

Capitalism and Freedom; Milton Friedman, University of Chicago Press

Free To Choose; Milton & Rose Friedman, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

The Great Terror - A Reassessment; Robert Conquest, Oxford University Press

Wealth Of Nations; Adam Smith, Prometheus Books

The Theory of Moral Sentiments; Adam Smith, Liberty Fund

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