Over a hundred and fifty years later, the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels live on, like a cancer that has metastasized throughout academia and intellectual thought. As an economic system political leaders espouse, Marxism may be dead, but the “Marxist mindset” continually pops up in new forms.
The latest incarnation of Marxism appears to be in the realm of race relations. Recently, the Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, presented a plan to teach school children “civics”. Essentially, as a conservative, Republican governor, he wants to teach children about what made America a great country. (Unfortunately, as a political conservative, with little understanding of philosophy or history, the Governor of Florida probably doesn’t fully grasp what made America great. I’m also wary of public schools teaching ideology, even when it is pro-American. But, at least his heart is in the right place.)
In the process of explaining about his civics courses, Governor DeSantis emphasized that there would be no funding in public schools for what is commonly called “critical race theory”. De Santis described this ideology as essentially Marxist:
“‘Critical Race Theory is basically teaching people to hate our country, hate each other. It’s divisive, and it’s basically an identity politics version of Marxism. It has no place in the classroom and certainly shouldn’t be funded by taxpayers,’ said the Governor.” (https://hannity.com/media-room/desantis-critical-race-theory-is-teaching-people-to-hate-our-country-and-hate-each-other/)
There is some debate as to whether and to what extent “critical race theory” is influenced by Marxism. (I believe it is.) But, before one could make the case for the intellectual connection between “critical race theory” and Marxism, one must first understand what Karl Marx said. That is the aim of this essay.
Here, I will be comparing and contrasting the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as expressed in “The Communist Manifesto”, with the ideas of Ayn Rand.
Marx’s Collectivist Method of Thinking In The Social Sciences
Marx, like almost every economist and social scientist before or since, starts with a collectivist vision of mankind. Individual human beings become interchangeable entities. He starts with concepts like “proletariat” and “bourgeoisie”, and never connects that to actual people, living their actual lives. Rand, by contrast starts from the perspective of the individual:
“Mankind is not an entity, not an organism, or a coral bush. The entity involved in production and trade is man. It is with the study of man—not of the loose aggregate known as a “community”—that any science of the humanities has to begin . . . .
A great deal may be learned about society by studying man; but this process cannot be reversed: nothing can be learned about man by studying society—by studying the inter-relationships of entities one has never identified or defined.” (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, “What is Capitalism”, Ayn Rand, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individualism.html )
An example of Marx’s collectivist method of thinking can be seen when he discusses the “alienation” of the “proletarian”, whatever that is, from his labor brought on by industrialization. Here, Marx conflates a skilled artisan with a “workman”:
“Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
Mechanization allows a low-intelligence person to do what would have required a skilled workman before, while the higher-intelligence skilled workman can focus on the design of the technologies and machines. Both parties benefit from this.
This always occurs with technology. The high intelligence and high ambition people develop ways for the lower intelligence and lower ambition people to do part of the work. Think of the difference between a command line operating system and a graphical user interface in a computer. Lower intelligence people, with less inclination to learn DOS or UNIX, can now use a Microsoft Windows machine. I think this example of Windows replacing DOS is an example of what Economists call “comparative advantage”. (https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/Details/comparativeadvantage.html)
Imagine an Engineer and a high school dropout. There are two jobs that need to be done. The first job is the design of new computers. The second job is issuing commands to a computer to print out letters in an office, for the manager. Only the Engineer can do both of these things because the computer is quite complex, and it has no graphical user interface. It’s using some text-based operating system like DOS or UNIX. The Engineer has an absolute advantage over the high school dropout at both these jobs. In fact, the high school dropout can do neither job. Issuing commands in a text-based operating system is simply beyond his mental capability. The Engineer builds a graphical user interface for the high school dropout. Now, the dropout can issue the “print” command to the computer, by clicking on a visual icon to print out the boss’ letters. The Engineer prefers to let the dropout issue the commands to print the letter for the office boss, allowing him to focus on designing new and better computers. By designing the graphical user interface, the Engineer has given the high school dropout a comparative advantage in printing letters for the boss as a sort of secretary or office worker.
In the Late Middle Ages, I suspect something similar happened with respect to skilled artisans. (This is more of a hypothesis on my part, that would require historical investigation to confirm.) The craftsman who made shoes, for instance, would both design them, and then also physically manufacture them. The assembly line system allows for splitting up of labor between those with high intelligence and knowledge and those with low intelligence or low knowledge. The craftsman, who is good at coming up with designs for shoes, specializes in the design of shoes. He became what we would today call an “Engineer” -a designer of machines and products, but not the person who actually physically assembles them. The manufacture of each shoe is broken down into simple steps that don’t require much intelligence or knowledge. (This process of designing the assembly line is usually done by another, Industrial, Engineer today. This is also an example of comparative advantage and the division of labor.) A single person need only learn how to shape a piece of rubber into the shape of a heel. Another person need only learn how to cut a piece of leather into a sole. Another person only need to learn how to make a shoelace. Etc., etc. These simple steps can be performed by people with relatively low intelligence, and/or who have little education. The Engineer created jobs for low-skilled/low-intelligence people that didn’t exist before, which allows the Engineer to focus on more creative endeavors.
Marx fails to see the phenomena of comparative advantage probably because of his collectivist mindset. He thinks of “workers” as interchangeable. To Marx, the Medieval craftsman is the same person that would then be put on an assembly line doing “mind-numbing” manual labor. In reality, that craftsman is the high-intelligence, high-knowledge person who is more likely to become the Engineer, who has created jobs for many low-intelligence and low-knowledge farm-hands or vagabonds. The Engineer has an absolute advantage over the factory worker – he could do both jobs better. Due to the principle of comparative advantage, however, which is based in the Engineer’s opportunity costs, he prefers to specialize in the design of products like shoes, while letting others physically assemble them.
I think this is what Ayn Rand meant when she spoke of the “pyramid of ability”:
“When you live in a rational society, where men are free to trade, you receive an incalculable bonus: the material value of your work is determined not only by your effort, but by the effort of the best productive minds who exist in the world around you.
When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom you spend your time denouncing.
The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the power that expands the potential of your life by raising the productivity of your time. If you worked as a blacksmith in the mystics’ Middle Ages, the whole of your earning capacity would consist of an iron bar produced by your hands in days and days of effort. How many tons of rail do you produce per day if you work for Hank Rearden [an industrialist and inventor]? Would you dare to claim that the size of your pay check was created solely by your physical labor and that those rails were the product of your muscles? The standard of living of that blacksmith is all that your muscles are worth; the rest is a gift from Hank Rearden.” (Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.)
In the above quoted passage from “The Communist Manifesto”, Marx wants to make it seem like the skilled workman has been “alienated” from his labor -whatever that means. But, the skilled workman of the Middle Ages is the Engineer of today. The Engineer, backed up by the intellect of scientists like Isaac Newton, who were in turn backed up by the intellect of philosophers like Aristotle, created wealth for countless starving Medieval serfs and peasants, living a precarious, near-starvation, and very unfree, existence until the Industrial Revolution. The Engineer presumably gains enormous satisfaction from the design of new products and advancing the boundaries of technology and civilization. He’s hardly “alienated” from his labor. (Whatever “alienated” means in this context.) He derives a sense of purpose and meaning from his work. The assembly line worker making shoe heels, or the office worker using Microsoft Windows, can earn sufficient wealth more quickly, thanks to new technology. This gives some of these workers time to improve their skills by going to school if they are young, intelligent, and ambitious. If an assembly line or office worker is older, and perhaps of lower intelligence, it allows him to earn his daily bread more quickly. Then, he can get home to his wife and children. He may find his meaning and purpose in life through his growing family, rather than through his job. Either way, the assembly line worker and the office worker are better able to find whatever meaning there is to be found in their individual lives, thanks to the likes of Aristotle, Newton, and Thomas Edison.
Given Marx’s Collectivist Method of Thinking About Society, He Develops Poorly-Defined Terms Like “Proletariat” and “Bourgeois”
The Communist Manifesto is based in the assumption of a “class struggle”:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
Marx says that “in a word” society that has existed until now has always been one of “class struggles” between “oppressor” and “oppressed”.
Marx and Engels speak of “oppressor and oppressed”, which forms the basis of the “class struggle”, which in turn is the history of all “hitherto existing society”, but what does it mean, “to oppress”?
Ayn Rand doesn’t speak of “oppression”, per se, but of concepts of “justice” and “individual rights”. For Rand, rights are violated by means of the initiation of physical force:
“Man’s rights can be violated only by the use of physical force. It is only by means of physical force that one man can deprive another of his life, or enslave him, or rob him, or prevent him from pursuing his own goals, or compel him to act against his own rational judgment.” (The Virtue of Selfishness, “The Nature of Government”, Ayn Rand.)
“Oppression” implies the use of physical force in an unjust manner, or at least action in an unjust manner. What is Marx/Engels’ theory of justice? What does the term “justice” mean to them? As will be discussed later, the logical implication of Marxism is that “justice” is nothing but a “tool” of the ruling class, and has no objective connection to the facts of reality or man’s life. The concept of “objectivity”, of true and false, would be considered a “bourgeoisie prejudice” by anyone following Marx and Engels’ ideas to their logical conclusion.
The Communist Manifesto assumes an inherent and inevitable conflict between different groups of people. Class relations are always class conflict. Force is the only means of conflict resolution. One side or the other will be destroyed:
“…the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
“Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
“…every class struggle is a political struggle.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
“In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
Rand, by contrast, says that there are no conflicts of interest amongst rational men, in the ordinary course of life. (Possibly leaving aside “lifeboat emergencies”):
“The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.” (The Virtue of Selfishness, “The Objectivist Ethics”, Ayn Rand)
Instead of poorly defined terms like “proletariat” and “bourgeoisie”, Rand describes the “producer” and the “looter” as two groups of people fundamentally at odds:
“With very rare and brief exceptions, pre-capitalist societies had no place for the creative power of man’s mind, neither in the creation of ideas nor in the creation of wealth. Reason and its practical expression -free trade- were forbidden as a sin and a crime, or were tolerated, usually as ignoble activities, under the control of authorities who could revoke the tolerance at whim. Such societies were ruled by faith and its practical expression: force. There were no makers of knowledge and no makers of wealth; there were only witch doctors and tribal chiefs. These two figures dominate every anti-rational period of history, whether one calls them tribal chief and witch doctor -or absolute monarch and religious leader…” (For The New Intellectual, Ayn Rand.)
“You stand in the midst of the greatest achievement of the greatest productive civilization [The United States of America] and you wonder why it’s crumbling around you, while you’re damning its life-blood -money….Throughout men’s history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves -slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody’s mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers -as industrialists.” (Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand)
Marx failed to distinguish between those who achieve wealth through production, and those who seize it by means of the initiation of physical force. To him, the Medieval nobility that held people in virtual slavery as serfs, and by force of arms, was no different from the voluntary relationship between the owner of a factory and one of his employees. But, one uses whips and weapons, while the other uses dollars and persuasion.
Marx on the Origin of the “Bourgeoise” and “Proletariat”
Although it is not a well-defined term, Marx describes the “bourgeoise” as having started out as medieval serfs, who formed independent towns in the European Middle Ages, then eventually displaced the Nobility and Monarchy altogether, to form the “modern state”:
“From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed. “(Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
“Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility…or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility…in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
This is a fairly accurate description of how medieval towns formed. Historians have described the rise of the “burgers” and the “bourgeois”, who were often escaped serfs that had run away from the manor they were legally tied to:
“The term bourgeois originated in medieval France, where it denoted an inhabitant of a walled town.” ( https://www.britannica.com/topic/bourgeoisie )
These towns did form the social and economic basis on which Europe moved from its medieval social and economic organization to modern society:
“While the manor remained the principal unit of European society until the eighteenth century, the seeds of ‘modern’ civilization were being nourished as early as the eleventh. With the reopening of trade routes and the appearance of new marketing centers came the emergence of the towns that were destined to convert Europe from a rural to an urban society. The lords and peasants who remained on the manorial estates played a negligible role in the growth of these towns. An expanded cast of characters gradually appeared there, consisting of merchants, entrpeneurs, bankers, lawyers, artisans, and unskilled laborers. In the thirteenth century these groups made up but a fraction of Europe’s population (less than 10 percent), but their numbers were destined to grow until, by the twentieth century, they would be a majority….
…The mideval towns were essentially trading posts where local produce could be sold and foreign merchandise purchased…
The new towns presented an avenue of escape to men and women who were seeking release from the drudgery and routine of the manorial village. This was especially true for serfs who longed to cast off their inferior status. They could, if they grew desparate enough, run away from the manor and lose themselves in a distant town. According to custom of the period, they were legally free if the lord failed to recapture them within a ‘year and a day.’ (Later in the Middle Ages serfs could gain their freedom by making a cash payment to their lord.)” (A Brief History of Western Man, 3d Ed., Chapter 5, The Creation of Europe: Political and Social Foundations, by Thomas H. Greer)
Marx/Engels show ambivalence on whether the bourgeoise destruction of the old medieval order was a positive change. In fact, they seem to regard many aspects of pre-modern times as superior to the present, capitalist order:
“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. … It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation….
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation….
The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto; emphasis added.)
These above passages seem strange in light of Marx/Engels’ belief that all of history is the history of oppressor and oppressed. It also seems odd because of their belief that the bourgeoisie had their origins in runaway serfs who went to the towns and formed armed associations for mutual protection.
Marx/Engels, at least implicitly, seem to prefer the social organization of the Middle Ages to social relations existing since the Industrial Revolution and Capitalism.
Other Randian intellectuals have noted that socialists are often “closet medievalists”. While he was still associated with Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Nathaniel Brandon made this observation about psychologist Erich Fromm:
“Scratch a collectivist and you will usually find a medievalist. Fromm is not an exception. Like so many socialists, he is a glamorizer of the Middle Ages. He [Erich Fromm] perfunctorily acknowledges the faults of that historical period—but in contrasting it with the capitalism that succeeded it, he is enchanted by what he regards as its virtues….
… It is not uncommon to encounter this sort of perspective on the Middle Ages, among writers on alienation…. The complete lack of control over any aspect of one’s existence, the ruthless suppression of intellectual freedom, the paralyzing restrictions on any form of individual initiative and independence—these are cardinal characteristics of the Middle Ages…. all of this is swept aside, so entranced is Fromm by the vision of a world in which men did not have to invent and compete, they had only to submit and obey.” (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, “Alienation”, Nathaniel Brandon, emphasis added.)
Additionally, Marx/Engels certainly prefer the tribal pre-historical past of mankind, which they regard as a sort of “lost golden age” of communism. The Communist Manifesto hints at a distant past in which there was no class struggle:
“That is, all written history. In 1847, the pre-history of society, the social organisation existing previous to recorded history, all but unknown. Since then, August von Haxthausen (1792–1866) discovered common ownership of land in Russia, Georg Ludwig von Maurer proved it to be the social foundation from which all Teutonic races started in history, and, by and by, village communities were found to be, or to have been, the primitive form of society everywhere from India to Ireland. The inner organisation of this primitive communistic society was laid bare, in its typical form, by Lewis Henry Morgan’s (1818–1861) crowning discovery of the true nature of the gens and its relation to the tribe. With the dissolution of the primeval communities, society begins to be differentiated into separate and finally antagonistic classes. I have attempted to retrace this dissolution in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, second edition, Stuttgart, 1886. [Engels, 1888 English Edition and 1890 German Edition (with the last sentence omitted)] “ (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
“The “Manifesto” being our joint production, I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus, belongs to Marx. That proposition is: that in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes” (Engles, Preface to Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
This is significant today, given the “multicultural” turn of modern leftism, in which primitive, “indigenous societies”, are viewed as “pure” and “good” while Modern, Western Civilization is viewed as always bad. There is textual support in The Communist Manifesto for this viewpoint held by the modern left.
Rand agrees that primitive tribes were fundamentally collectivist in organization. Unlike Marx and Engels, she recognizes that the modern move away from primitive tribes promotes and enhances the life of any person who wants to flourish. The “morality of altruism”, for Rand, is a “tribal phenomenon”:
“It is obvious why the morality of altruism is a tribal phenomenon. Prehistorical men were physically unable to survive without clinging to a tribe for leadership and protection against other tribes. The cause of altruism’s perpetuation into civilized eras is not physical, but psycho-epistemological: the men of self-arrested, perceptual mentality are unable to survive without tribal leadership and “protection” against reality. The doctrine of self-sacrifice does not offend them: they have no sense of self or of personal value—they do not know what it is that they are asked to sacrifice—they have no firsthand inkling of such things as intellectual integrity, love of truth, personally chosen values, or a passionate dedication to an idea.” (Philosophy: Who Needs It, “Selfishness Without A Self”, Ayn Rand.)
The Communist Manifesto seems to say the “proletariat” was inadvertently created by the “bourgeoisie”:
“But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons – the modern working class – the proletarians. “ (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
What is this “proletariat”?
“In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed – a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. “ (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
As already discussed, Marx’s description of those who own no property and live solely by being paid a wage is simply not an accurate description of reality under capitalism. Marx and Engels apparently had no concept of the economic concept of comparative advantage. They also had not even the slightest inkling of the “pyramid of ability” Ayn Rand has described. Capitalism and technological progress often create new jobs for people who have low skills or low intelligence. The example of the movement from text-based operating systems to graphical user interfaces, already discussed, is an example of this. Software engineers and entrepreneurs have made it possible for people with minimal computer skills to operate a computer by clicking on a series of “icons” on a computer screen. (Which was another invention -at one time all input and output on a computer was nothing but punched cards, requiring highly specialized knowledge and great intelligence to understand.) Every person working for wages in an office today has capitalism, and the technological inventiveness it unlocks, to thank for their increased productivity, which makes their higher standard of living possible:
“In proportion to the mental energy he spent, the man who creates a new invention receives but a small percentage of his value in terms of material payment, no matter what fortune he makes, no matter what millions he earns. But the man who works as a janitor in the factory producing that invention, receives an enormous payment in proportion to the mental effort that his job requires of him. And the same is true of all men between, on all levels of ambition and ability. The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the ‘competition’ between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of ‘exploitation’ for which you have damned the strong.” (Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.)
Marxist Determinism
Marx views the proletariat as the “exploited” and the bourgeoisie as the “exploiters”. The proletarians are perpetually the victims of the bourgeoisie, with no autonomy or free will whatsoever:
“No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
Note how Marx regards the proletarians as somehow lacking in agency. They are unable to resist paying for too large of an apartment or house by the landlord, unable to resist buying things from the shopkeeper, and also unable to continually seek high-interest loans from the pawnbroker. (Where the “proletarian” gets the stuff to pawn, Marx doesn’t say. The proletarian envisioned by him is both simultaneously unable to afford anything but the basics in life, and also has items of value to take to the pawnshop. I suppose I’m just not steeped in enough “Marxist Dialectic” to see past the contradiction.)
Since “proletariat” is a poorly defined term, in modern times, any group that is less culturally advanced tends to be viewed by political leftists as “exploited” by whatever group they regard as “bourgeoisie” -which, in practice, ends up meaning the more intelligent, knowledgeable, and better cultured people.
Marx views people as primarily products of their environment. Their ideas, attitudes and beliefs are shaped by their “material circumstances”:
“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?” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
Is there any sense in which Ayn Rand would agree with that? Rand recognized that a dogmatic refusal to question any aspect of the established social order seems to be a feature of many people’s minds. Rand described several different types of “collectivist thinking” that were common in human society. Two of these are the “tribal mindset” and the “second-hander”:
“What are the nature and the causes of modern tribalism? Philosophically, tribalism is the product of irrationalism and collectivism. It is a logical consequence of modern philosophy. If men accept the notion that reason is not valid, what is to guide them and how are they to live?
Obviously, they will seek to join some group—any group—which claims the ability to lead them and to provide some sort of knowledge acquired by some sort of unspecified means. If men accept the notion that the individual is helpless, intellectually and morally, that he has no mind and no rights, that he is nothing, but the group is all, and his only moral significance lies in selfless service to the group—they will be pulled obediently to join a group. But which group? Well, if you believe that you have no mind and no moral value, you cannot have the confidence to make choices—so the only thing for you to do is to join an unchosen group, the group into which you were born, the group to which you were predestined to belong by the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient power of your body chemistry.
This, of course, is racism. But if your group is small enough, it will not be called “racism”: it will be called ‘ethnicity.’” (The Voice of Reason, “Global Balkanization”, Ayn Rand; http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/tribalism.html )
“Men were taught to regard second-handers—tyrants, emperors, dictators—as exponents of egoism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. Which is a synonym.
From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded.
He invented altruism.
The creator—denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited—went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.” (The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand; http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/second-handers.html)
For Rand, these aren’t mindsets to be blindly accepted by those who choose to think. Such irrationality should be criticized. Social institutions, educational institutions, laws, and ethics should be aimed at critiquing and discouraging such a passive mindset. Until the early Twentieth Century, the United States of America had a set of institutions in place to discourage tribalism:
“Tribalism had no place in the United States—until recent decades. It could not take root here, its imported seedlings were withering away and turning to slag in the melting pot whose fire was fed by two inexhaustible sources of energy: individual rights and objective law; these two were the only protection man needed.” (Philosophy: Who Needs It, “The Missing Link” Ayn Rand, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/tribalism.html)
Furthermore, for Rand, tribalism and second-handedness are not an inevitable mindset. People become this way through their own default. They fail to think, and that is the result. The solution is to encourage thought. What system of social organization encourages thought and discourages the failure to think?
“Capitalism demands the best of every man—his rationality—and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him. His success depends on the objective value of his work and on the rationality of those who recognize that value. When men are free to trade, with reason and reality as their only arbiter, when no man may use physical force to extort the consent of another, it is the best product and the best judgment that win in every field of human endeavor, and raise the standard of living—and of thought—ever higher for all those who take part in mankind’s productive activity.” (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, “What is Capitalism”, Ayn Rand, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/capitalism.html )
The Communist Manifesto on Women
In a departure from the more modern, “feminist”, interpretation of Marxism, The Communist Manifesto regards the damage to the family as another harm caused by the “bourgeoisie”. Specifically, Marx and Engels say capitalism has made women too independent:
“Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. …The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
For Marx, the Industrial Revolution has made it possible for women to do the work that used to be done by men, and that is a bad thing. Jobs that would have required great physical strength are replaced by machines, which can be operated by comparatively physically weaker women. Even poor women no longer need be dependent on men for their subsistence.
Further, in a knowledge-based, intelligence-based, industrial economy, intelligence becomes more important than physical strength, allowing for women to rise in the business world, if they so choose. Ayn Rand recognized this fact, which is why she created the character of Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged: A female businesswoman and engineer. Rand agrees with Marx that capitalism and the Industrial Revolution gave women greater independence. As one writer in a collection of essays approved by Rand noted:
“The factories were held responsible, by such critics, for every social problem of that age, including promiscuity, infidelity, and prostitution. Implicit in the condemnation of women working in the factories was the notion that a woman’s place is in the home and that her only proper role is to keep house for her husband and to rear his children….
The factories were blamed simultaneously for removing girls from the watchful restraints of their parents and for encouraging early marriages; and later, for fostering maternal negligence and incompetent housekeeping, as well as for encouraging lack of female subordination and the desire for luxuries….” (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, “The Effects of the Industrial Revolution on Women and Children”, Robert Hessen.)
In reality, the factory system provided women with a means of survival and independence unavailable to them before the advent of the Industrial Revolution:
“What the factory system offered these women was—not misery and degradation—but a means of survival, of economic independence, of rising above the barest subsistence….
…women increasingly preferred work in the factories to any other alternatives open to them, such as domestic service, or back-breaking work in agricultural gangs, or working as haulers and pullers in the mines; moreover, if a woman could support herself, she was not driven into early marriage.” (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, “The Effects of the Industrial Revolution on Women and Children”, Robert Hessen.)
Capitalism has done more to liberate women than all the political agitation of feminists, to Marx and Engels’ consternation.
The Communist Manifesto on Property
Marx says that the abolition of property is not a “distinctive feature of communism”:
“The abolition of existing property relations is not at all a distinctive feature of communism.
All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.
The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour of bourgeois property.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
Instead, Communism aims at the abolition of only “bourgeoisie property”:
“The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.“ (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
Marx says he does not mean he advocates the abolition of the property acquired by “the fruit of one’s labor”:
“We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
But, Marx says, such private property is no longer a feature of the system of “bourgeoisie property”:
“Hard won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
Marx says that modern “wage labor” does not create private property for the laborer:
“But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
“Capital”, by which Marx seems to mean “property” as that term is understood in modern times, is collectively produced by proletarians, and is a tool of exploitation by the capitalist:
“To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.
Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power. “ (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
So, for Marx, the “liberation” of “capital” by the proletarians is not theft, it is merely an elimination of its “class character”:
“When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.“ (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
As has already been discussed, Rand would simply have a fundamental disagreement with Marx about (a) studying groups of people and social systems without understanding the fundamental nature of man; (b) the grouping together in Marx’s mind of all people into either “proletarians” or “bourgeoisie”, without recognizing the individual nature of human beings; and (c) the assumption that technology, created by the more knowledgeable and intelligent people, is somehow “exploiting” the less knowledgeable and intelligent. Instead, Rand, in accordance with the “Pyramid of Ability” principle, would say that the more able make life better for the less able -although Rand would also adamantly say this is not, and should not be, the life’s goal of property owners:
“The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man…” (The Virtue of Selfishness, “The Objectivist Ethics”, Ayn Rand; http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/selfishness.html)
For Marx, property rights are a form of “exploitation”. For Rand, property rights are moral principles defining and sanctioning an individual’s freedom of action to live his life in a social environment. To create the material means of his survival and flourishing:
“Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.” (The Virtue of Selfishness, “Man’s Rights”, Ayn Rand.)
Also, for Rand, since the interests of rational men generally do not conflict in a free society, the fact that the more able are able to produce great new technologies actually benefits their intellectual inferiors, in accordance with the economic principle of “comparative advantage” and Rand’s concept of the “pyramid of ability”.
Marxist Epistemology
For Marx, at least when it comes to normative concepts like “law”, “morality” and “government”, there is no such thing as “objectivity” -of “true” and “false”. All ideas are just a product of one’s “material conditions”:
“But don’t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law, &c. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto; emphasis added.)
Marx views the contents of the human mind, our ideas, as nothing but a sort of rationalization for advancing our class. For instance, when addressing some of the criticisms of communism, Marx notes that:
“The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
Why does Marx dismiss philosophical and “ideological” criticisms of his viewpoint? Because all philosophy and ideology is nothing but rationalization for him. There is no such thing as “objectivity” for Marx and Engels:
“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?” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
The predominate ideas of a society are nothing but the “ideas of the ruling class”:
“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.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
Education of children is premised on the idea that some ideas are true, while others are false. It is also based in the belief that some concepts will help you to live your life better. You learn how to read because literacy is better than being illiterate. It allows for greater communication and easier learning. You learn arithmetic to keep a budget of your spending, and to determine quantities more quickly than you could through simple counting. You learn calculus to be able to determine the instantaneous velocity of a rocket to put satellites into orbit for tracking the weather. Etc., etc. But for Marx, all education is nothing but a perpetuation of the system of exploitation by the “bourgeoisie”:
“And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, &c.? The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto; emphasis added.)
Normative concepts like “law” or “morality” for Marx merely reflect the “selfish interests” of some particular group. All such concepts are merely a reflection of “present modes of production”:
“The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property – historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production – this misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of property.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto; emphasis added.)
Strangely, Marx uses the term “selfishness” here to refer to a group interest, not self-interest -the supposed group interest of the “bourgeoisie”, whatever that is.
Rand agrees with Marx that reason and the discovery of laws of nature is only necessary if one is selfish. She agrees that property rights are related to selfishness. But, for Rand, “selfishness” is actually related to a “self”, which Marx, as a collectivist, barely even recognizes:
“…the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests.
This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions.” (The Virtue of Selfishness, “The Objectivist Ethics”, Ayn Rand.)
Rand, unlike Marx, regards one’s self-interest as the only reason ethics, politics, or any other normative concept is necessary. It is because one chooses to live that ethics, rights, or questions of the concept of “property” even arise:
“There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms….It is only the concept of “Life” that makes the concept of “Value” possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.” (Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, emphasis added.)
Marx, like almost every philosopher before him, starts from the assumption that the only way for there to be “truly objective” concepts like “rights”, “law”, “government” or “ethics” is to somehow eliminate all self-interest from the equation. Since that is not possible without dying, Marx throws up his hands and declares the whole enterprise to find objective law and government nothing but “….the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property…”
Rand, on the other hand, recognizes that it is only because one wants to live that these concepts are necessary. Therefore, an objective definition of “rights” or “law”, to say nothing of morality, depends on man’s choice to live:
“My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these.” (Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand)
The Communist Manifesto’s Nihilistic Tendency
As discussed, Marx views all ideas as nothing but the ideas of the “ruling class”:
“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. “ (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
In reality, some ideas are true and others are false. What makes an idea “true” or false”? It’s correspondence to reality. The idea that the Earth is flat is false and the idea that the Earth is round is true. Why does one accept the latter and reject the former? Because it has consequences for living. If you operated on the assumption that the Earth was flat, it would lead to a whole host of contradictions, and would put you at war with reality. Human life would be worse if people continued to insist that the Earth was flat.
People who continue to accept false ideas will be less successful at living. People who insist that vaccination is, on the whole, bad for them, will tend to be killed by that idea. People who regard vaccination as generally a good will tend to live longer and better lives.
Taken to its logical extreme, a Marxist analysis of vaccination will call it nothing but a “bourgeoisie prejudice” and claim that the reason the vaccinated live longer and better lives than the unvaccinated is due to “exploitation” of the later by the former.
Furthermore, taken to its logical extreme, a Marxist analysis of vaccination would say that precisely because people who are vaccinated are living longer is proof that they are exploiters, and that they must be “swept aside”. The desire to live as the basis for objectivity is regarded as a distorting agent by Marxists. Those implementing Marxist political theory will then hold a simmering grudge against the successful and the able. The able tend to be the people who want to live, and therefore conform the contents of their minds to reality in order to achieve that objective. Marxist resentment will focus on the most rational and most successful people. It focuses it’s hatred on us, the living. The Marxist mindset is a psychology of nihilism -of hatred of the good.
This is why Marxism tends to devolve into full-throttle mass-murder and destruction of the able wherever it is implemented. (For instance, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge murdered anyone who spoke a foreign language or wore glasses because they were viewed as intellectuals -as people who used ideas to improve their lives. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-10684399)
Marx said:
“The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder that its development involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” (Communist Manifesto; https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/marx-manifesto)
In practice, this has meant the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Cultural Revolution of China, and the Gulags of Stalinist Russia. The blood of the people murdered under those regimes is on the intellectual hands of Marx and Engels.
