rethinksocialism:

“Karl Marx may have been wrong about communism but he was right about much of capitalism, John Gray writes.

As a side-effect of the financial crisis, more and more people are starting to think Karl Marx was right. The great 19th Century German philosopher, economist and revolutionary believed that capitalism was radically unstable.”

This article, though a change of pace from the typical, still makes me rather angry. The author writes as if he is coming from a position of knowledge in the Marxist field of thinking. To the layman, this assumption may seem correct. However, any one who has read the Communist Manifesto could quickly point out many flaws in his point of view. Like this one, for example: 

“Capitalism has led to a revolution but not the one that Marx expected. The fiery German thinker hated the bourgeois life and looked to communism to destroy it. And just as he predicted, the bourgeois world has been destroyed. But it wasn’t communism that did the deed. It’s capitalism that has killed off the bourgeoisie.”

This author quoted the Manifesto, but did he read it? Marx never said communism would be the end of capitalism. He said that the proletariat (an inherent feature of capitalism) would eventually revolt and abolish capitalism. To rephrase it, capitalism would destroy itself because the oppressed proletariat is a permanent feature of the system. Then would come socialism, then communism, and so on… The author seems to misunderstand, or purposely distort the Marxist theory of communism. Communism isn’t just imposed or created out of thin air to destroy capitalism— it’s an evolution.

Okay, maybe I’m too picky. Yes the article has some good things to say, so I’m not going to pick through and find/argue all the flaws. This just made me think of something that I find I ask myself quite a lot when reading things like this— are some authors that tell half-truths just afraid of ridicule or persecution?  Do they really not fully understand what they’re writing about? Or are they catering to the ‘petty-bourgeoisie’? I see things written all the time that are along the same lines as what this author wrote:

“Marx was wrong about communism. Where he was prophetically right was in his grasp of the revolution of capitalism. It’s not just capitalism’s endemic instability that he understood, though in this regard he was far more perceptive than most economists in his day and ours.”

The author starts on the defensive (for lack of a better word) and continues with acknowledging truth in Marx’s theories. This is a pattern I often see repeated in the social democratic-bourgeois news cycle. Is it that the author thinks the audience will feel more comfortable if at first they deny the validity of something in the socialist/communist/Marxist field of thought, and then swoop in and accept some validity? I don’t know if this helps or not. I think in the end it just helps to continue and rationalize peoples irrational fears.

</rant>

What are your thoughts?

1. fullunemployment reblogged this from rethinksocialism and added:

   The problem with this kind of thing is that they are trying to read Marx in order to pick up tips, as it were, on how to...

2. abyssalaesthetics answered: The guy is pissy because he doesn’t want to accept the fact that he’s an overprivileged moron.
3. patzini14 reblogged this from rethinksocialism
4. nclrmrz liked this
5. tragicregimeofinfinitedebt liked this
6. heraclitorus answered: Sounds to me like the normal liberal game. “We can’t outright support Marx without being denounced as pinkos, so how do we still use him…?”
7. 432 reblogged this from rethinksocialism
8. laughing-rabbit answered: people are less likely to listen to some one who views the world so radically different than theirs. I think that’s why, so they can be heard
9. pieceinthepuzzlehumanity liked this
10. myspaceskrilla liked this
11. rethinksocialism posted this