You cannot blame Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for getting some things wrong when they developed the concepts of “Marxism.” Part of the problem is that both men considered themselves to be philosophers, economists, historians, journalists, and political theorists.
Engels also added “businessman” to his resume since his father was a rich owner of large textile factories in Lancashire, England and Barmen, Prussia.
When you think of yourself as knowledgeable if not an expert in so many disciplines, it is easy to create a religion and Marxism is a religion. Notice that virtually all “theologies” offer particular rules—for want of a better term—for all aspects of life from personal relationships to economics.
In The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884), Friedrich Engels writes about the origins of the family structure. He concludes that women were originally considered equal in labor as men. But eventually women were forced into monogamy as part of domestic servitude. Engels describes this as coincidental to forced servitude as a dominant feature of society, leading eventually to a European culture of class oppression, where the children of the poor were expected to be servants of the rich.
The other consideration as noted by both men was that they were thinking and writing from their personal observations of the time. Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England spoke of “an industrial revolution [considered the first], a revolution which at the same time changed the whole of civil society,” not just economics.
Marx described a socialist society: “What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually.” All of the societal factors are addressed like in a traditional religion.
But it is those of the late 20th and 21st century that only read the headlines that did the most disservice to Marxism.
Marx wrote, “The same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.” In other words, one chicken is not the commodity equivalent of one cow. Likewise, the labor of a janitor is not the labor equivalent of the heart surgeon. St. Paul wrote a very Marxian idea: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”
But the headline readers jumped to what Marx said about the later and final stages of communism when there would be a large surplus and abundance of goods. Then “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” could make sense.
Latter-day Marxists use this as the principle of “eat the rich” for wealth distribution. However, early Marxism would have made Bill Gates rich until government decided “Windows” should be free. We probably would have never gotten past “Windows 3.1.”
“Historical materialism”—that a material possession is what develops human societies rather than ideals—had Marx and other historical materialists abandon rights such as “right to life, liberty, and property.”
Marx’s Labor Theory of Value says that the value of labor is its “socially necessary labor time.” Each hour worked by the unskilled worker will only produce a quarter of the social value of the skilled worker, so the skilled worker is worth—and paid— more. Further, there is “socially necessary” labor, meaning work product beneficial to society.
The dictum “from each according to his ability” does not necessarily mean that the one who can roll the fattest joint is going to get what he thinks is “according to his needs.” That happens in a Free Market.
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