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A Criticism of Communism, Socialism, and Marxism by Christopher Lau Click here to post your opinion on chat room Some people say that communism and socialism are great in theory, but not in practice. I would say that communism is not something I'd desire in theory and in practice. I would go so far as to say that I would hate to live in a communist/socialist state because I would hate to work in some state-run factory. I believe that ownership of businesses should rest mostly in the hands of the people, and not of the state. I don't believe the Marxist theory that communism and socialism is the only solution to exploitation of labourers. It's certainly better than having exploited workers (and yes, I am all for justice), but it rests on some pretty unstable assumptions on why it is the only natural progression to exploitation of labourers. It also rests on some pretty unstable assumptions on why capitalism always leads to injustice and exploitation. A quick note: I often use the terms communism, socialism, and Marxism interchangeably in this essay. It shouldn't cause any confusion except for the academics. A synopsis of Marxist theory and the exploitation of workers So Marxist theory was born out of the industrial revolution. Before the industrial revolution and before these big machines, merchants could have produced their own goods in a small shop, owned their own retail location, and sold it to their own customers. With the invention of industrial machines, these small merchants were outcompeted in price and quality, and forced to sell their labour power to the owners of the industrial machines. Machines required major capital investments, and therefore was limited to a few players (i.e. monopolists). These monopolies basically squeezed their labourers to work for a wage that would barely allow them to live and to recreate, and for as many hours as was needed. What is your alternative when there's only a few companies that are hiring and unemployment is high? Communists were pissed off that rich people were exploiting their labourers. That was the case back then. You had large chunks of the population working in crappy factories, earning barely enough to survive and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. Communists and Socialists believe in taking these factories, businesses, and objects of production and placing them in the hands of the state which would pay the workers a wage that allowed them to live in dignity with working hours that were more reasonable. Regardless of market forces. Interesting solution. So note that communism/socialism does NOT refer to any system of government that distributes wealth. And capitalism does not mean any system of government that promotes individual greed. These terms refer to who owns businesses (i.e. the people or the state) and NOT how much the government distributes wealth (as most people tend to believe). End of synopsis State-run factories and industries is certainly one approach. But Marx felt that this was the only approach, and the only natural progression to exploitation by unregulated capitalists. This is where we differ, and I'll explain why I believe some of his assumptions in making this case are flawed or an oversimplification of capitalism: 1) Capitalists make money only through paying labourers less than what they've produced First of all, I believe that when you work for someone, you should produce more than what they're paying for your labour power anyways. I taught violin and I got immense satisfaction from know they got more than $10/hr value from my lessons. But that's beside the point. Daily wages and the number of hours worked is not the only lever to increasing profitabilty. Absolutely not. If it really were that simple, companies wouldn't be paying strategy consultants millions of dollars to help them return to profitability. Value is added all the way through the supply chain and there are many levers to profitability including how you choose your suppliers, number of sales offices, distribution models, management efficiency, marketing strategy and financing structure. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Marx points to human resources and employee benefit packages as the only lever that capitalists use to increase profit, but I think this is a gross oversimplication. Wages are only one of many aspects of human resources, which is one of the many aspects to profitability. And how many times have you heard of people in capitalist Canada getting their wages cut? For me, once (and it wasn't really their wage, it was one of their benefits). Squeezing labourers is not the only way to increase profitability. Where capitalists squeeze labourers for wages and hours is when there are far more people willing to work than there are spots to work in. These situations exist nowadays(e.g. wherever sweatshops exists), yes, but this isn't an essential feature of capitalism. Which leads me to Marx's second false assumption 2) Exploitation is an essential feature of capitalism His argument is that through consolidation of companies and the resulting undercutting of prices, large monopolies are inevitable. And large monopolies always exploit. A couple things wrong. First, we look at our current capitalist Canada. Is every business a monopoly? Are all of us being exploited to work for what allows us to barely live and to recreate? Absolutely not. Why not? Because of minimum wage laws, social programs, the continual threat of being outcompeted technologically, and competition for good employees (and no, such social responsibility does not equate to socialism). Secondly, large monopolies are actually anti-competitive and hardly an essential feature of capitalism. But I agree that monopolies are the tendency in an unregulated capitalist society. But not every capitalist society is unregulated so this statement is a simplistic view of capitalism. Communism, indeed, is a good alternative to exploitation of workers in an unregulated capitalist structure. But there's other alternatives to UNregulated capitalism, including (you guessed it) regulated capitalism such as what we have in Canada. which leads me to his next oversimplification: 3) Nothing can be done to improve the system except to abolish it and replace it with communism Again, yes we should improve the unregulated captilist system because of its natural tendency towards the centralization of power and capital and the natural human tendency towards injustice. But it doesn't necessarily mean abolish capitalism altogether. Abolishing capitalism is only one option. What about changing it? Clearly capitalism isn't as universally apocalyptic as Marx makes it out to be. It might have seemed that way in industrial England in Marx's time, but we see nowadays that exploitation is not a universal outcome, especially where the labourers have power. In some cases in the capitalist world, labourers have TOO much power (e.g. in companies that are barely struggling to survive, while labour unions are pressing them to sustain previously agreed upon salary increases). Do we really need to abolish the system and replace it with commmunism? No. Nor is communism the only just way to justly divide profit among those who deserve it. The state might just as easily arbitrarily divide profit as a capitalist would. Which leads me to my final point against communist/socialist thought 4) Since surplus value is only created through labour, labourers deserve to keep the profit Marx may not have said this specifically, but it's certainly an argument I've heard before. Especially from those whining about all the rich, fat, and lazy pigs that run loose and sip on martinis while they watch their bank accounts swell up. But anyways, several big problems with labourers keeping all or most of the profit. Firstly, surplus value isn't only created through labour. It's created all through the supply chain. Secondly, surplus value isn't entirely pocketed by the owners. Some of it goes to pay overhead - leases, managers, office maintenance, electricity, interest. Sometimes it's still not enough to pay overhead! And are the owners just these fat pigs that do nothing? No way. Some of them actually orchestrate the various players along the supply chain, leverage their networks, mobilize capital, analytically calculate risk,and troubleshoot problems 100 hours a week. Sometimes, they work long long hours just like the labour class, and spend years and years in university. They are not always the undeserving fat, lazy, and greedy pigs that they're portrayed as. And I know that some of these guys pocket over 1,000 times what my maximum possible income will ever be, but that's not my concern. Yes, some of them are lazy pigs, especially in unregulated capitalism where they just rake in the dough because daddy set everything up for them. But in today's competitive world, these lazy pigs may not survive long anyways. So yes, some of these owners DO deserve what they make. Could you do what they do? Would you do it? And yes, labourers do deserve to keep part of the profit also. 19th century industrial england didn't share profit with the labourers because they didn't have to. But that is not an essential part of capitalism - that was unregulated capitalism a la 19th century England. And yes, those fat and lazy pigs deserved to get the boot (as do 21st century sweatshop owners in Latin America for instance). And this is my final final counterpoint to communists/socialists/Marixists 5) Capitalism is a form of society in which the endless and infinite search for money perverted the life of community There are always humans with an endless and infinite search for power. There are also uber humans that are above that, but I believe that genetically there will always be people that are hardwired to be ambitious and ever improving (I might even argue that most of our population is ambitious for power). Money is only one manifestation of power. In our capitalist society, people fight to be the head of corporate businesses and in a communist/socialist society, people will also fight to be the head of state-run business. What's the difference? One's owned by the people, and one's owned by the state. In the end, we all want to make our family proud. It is almost laughable that one would believe that our human thirst for power and money would be quenched by the waters of state-run industry. And another thing - even socialist states would have to compete with one another for limited resources. Power, ambition, money will always "pervert" society. So here's my point! Communism and socialism claim to be the only way to stop exploitation and to fairly distribute profit. However, this rests on some questionable assumptions, most notably that capitalism will always take the form of the unregulated industrialism that tore throughout 19th century industrial England. But look around you and you'll see that it isn't always the case. Fine, even in socially responsible countries, there are massive gaps between the rich and the poor and a disproportionate number of people that control the majority of capital in the world. At first glance, it might seem to be an arbitrary distribution of profit. But that doesn't mean let's abolish that rich class. If they want to be filthy rich, let them be filthy rich. Even with a filthy rich class (albeit LESS filthy rich), there's more than enough resources to allow everyone to live with human dignity, and I believe we need to regulate capitalism more especially in the vulnerable countries in order to ensure this (and even in rich countries too, such as Canada, but that's another essay). State-run industry, as communism/socialism would propose, is another way to ensure that everyone lives in human dignity, and it is better than injustice and exploitation. But it is not the only way. Personally, I would hate to live in a communist/socialist state, even in theory, because I strongly believe that the people should own their own businesses, and not the state. In a communist/socialist state, I'd be equally as ambitious, but feel even more helpless than I do right now. and capitalism doesn't always lead to exploitation of the labour class and the unjust distribution of profit to an arbitrary capitalist class. Marx was a brilliant man, but probably a little over zealous about his utopia and too quick to villainize people who are just human, like you, like me and like my mom. Click here to post your opinion on chat room |