The Communist Manifesto Hits 160
This year marks the 160th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto and capitalism, aka "free enterprise," seems willing to observe the occasion by dropping dead. On Monday night, some pundits were warning that the ATMs might run dry and hinting that the only safe investment left is canned beans. Apocalypse or extortion? No one seems to know, though the populist part of the populace has been leaning toward the latter. An email whipping around the web this morning has the subject line "Sign on Wall St. yesterday," and shows a hand-lettered cardboard sign saying, "JUMP! You Fuckers!"
The Manifesto makes for quaint reading today. All that talk about "production," for example: Did they actually make things in those days? Did the proletariat really slave away in factories instead of call centers? But on one point Marx and Engels proved right: Within capitalist societies, or at least the kind of wildly unregulated capitalism America has had, the rich got richer, the workers got poorer, and the erstwhile middle class has been sliding toward ruin. The last two outcomes are what Marx called "immiseration," which, in translation, is the process you're undergoing when you have cancer and no health insurance or a mortgage payment due and no paycheck coming in.
Marx predicted that capitalism would fall in a spirited, pro-active, fashion: The workers, fed up with immiseration, would revolt, seize the "means of production," and insist on running the show themselves, that being the original, pre-Soviet, notion of socialism. The revolution didn't happen, of course, at least not here. For the last several years, American workers have sweetly acquiesced to declining wages, rising prices, speed-ups at work, disappearing pensions, and increasingly threadbare health insurance. While CEO pay escalated to the 8-figure range and above, so-called ordinary Americans took on second jobs and crowded into multi-generational households with uncomfortably long waits for the bathroom.
But all this immiseration - combined with fabulous enrichment at the top - did end up destabilizing the capitalist system, if only because , in the last few years, America's substitute for decent wages has been easy credit. Until about a year ago, we got almost daily messages, by telemarketer and by mail, urging us to consolidate our debts, refinance our homes, transfer our debts from credit card to another, and try tasty new mortgages that didn't even require a down payment. All too often, we bit. It sounded so reasonable, for example, not to let our assets just "sit" in our houses but to start spending that money now.
At the other, Lear jet, end of the economic spectrum, there was the problem of what to do with too much money. Yes, this can be a problem. Some of the super-rich have to hire consultants to help them spend their money: Where do you get a $20,000 bottle of wine or find a Picasso for the bathroom wall? More seriously, there was the problem of what to invest in. As Chuck Collins of the Working Group on Extreme Inequality has pointed out, huge concentrations of wealth can function like rogue waves, smashing around recklessly in their search for ever higher returns. A lot of these money waves flowed, directly or indirectly, into the dodgy credit schemes that were engulfing the un-rich majority, leaving even the fat cats imperiled by the toxic debts of the subprime class.
Marx's argument was that the coexistence of great wealth for the few and growing poverty for the many is not only morally objectionable, it's also inherently unstable. He may have been wrong about the reasons for the instability, but no one can any longer deny it's there. When the greed of the rich collided with the needs of the poor - for a home, for example - the result was a global credit meltdown.
Obviously, the way to address the crisis is to deal with the poverty and inequality that led to it: bail out people facing foreclosures, increase food stamp allotments, extent unemployment insurance, and, make a massive job-generating, public investment in infrastructure, and, since medical debts are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy, enact universal health insurance immediately. But not even Obama, whose lawn sign I still proudly display, seems to have the stomach for such a "trickle upwards" approach. He has announced that he won't bother taking the bail-out as an opportunity to change the bankruptcy law so that people facing foreclosure can renegotiate their mortgages.
So happy birthday, Communist Manifesto - although I'm hoping that capitalism survives this one, if only because there's no alternative ready at hand. At the very least, we should get some regulation and serious oversight out of any bail-out deal, meaning that, yes, the economy will look a little less like "free enterprise." But one thing we should have learned in the last week, if not the last year, is that, when applied to enterprise, "freedom" can be just another word for someone else's pain.
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Sverdlov
Kaminev
Radek
Marx
Kaganovich
Yagoda
Trotsky
etc.
I've always admired Cuba for some reason. Admired it for a long time, too, despite being mostly dissuaded by those who mock it because it doesn't have enough of this and it doesn't have that. Blah, blah, blah. Yet, deep down I really admire that feisty little Republic. Sure, there's not a lot of glitz, opulence or, for that matter I suppose what most of us, by now, consider necessities; you know, shiny Hondas or pick-ups, big screen t.v.s, supermarkets the size of soccer fields, etc.
Still, there is much to admire, no? And there's a heck of a lot of charm (okay it's a little worn-down kind of charm, but hey isn't that what charm is?) The spirit of the place, the music, the street-life, all kind of tugs at me.
They have decent health-care, and it's all but free. (I certainly don't and that makes me a second-class citizen here). As far as I can tell everyone that wants it gets a good education.
Would I live there? I am not quite sure. But lately I have been kind of day-dreaming about it.. or someplace like it.
P.S. Barbara E. You'll always be one of my favorites. You are a true hero, er, heroine.
Communism remains a titanic failure. Any plan that says that the government owns everything is bull.
Rather than the extremes of Communism or Wall Street Capitalism, We The People need a return to Unionism. We need the ability to join Unions if a majority of workers at a company desire it. To learn more, check out : www.freech
Communism does not posit that the government owns everything, but that the workers do, such that ownership (and government) disappear entirely in their current forms. In fact, Marx's vision of communism was, essentially, trade unionism taken to its logical conclusion.
The sad fact of the matter is that Marx's historical plan of dialectical materialism is not dead, it is rushing toward fulfillment, since Marx predicted that the means of production would be placed in fewer and fewer hands, necessitating a fascist world government of the few "capitalists" over the vast world proletariat, which would in turn lead finally to the last revolution and the "worker's paradise."
The bloody "communist "experiments of the 20th century actually set back the Marxist dialectic for a time.
Marx was no fighter for social justice. He was a mean spirited misanthrope, financed by many of those he professed hatred for. He was a left wing Hegelian, who turned Hegel on his head, replacing Hegel's "spirit" with "lifeless matter" as the driving force in the world dialectical process.
The true model that should be emulated to achieve progress in the world, a greater equality of incomes, the development of peoples is progressivism, along the lines of FDR's New Deal, which eschews totalitarian coercion and class hatred , as it seeks of the public good, via progressive taxation, economic expansion, social safety nets, the rights of labor, etc.
Wow!
What a thoughtful article. I wish we had more such articles in the main stream press.
I am also impressed with the comments on this article. Very professional and thought provoking.
Most comments I read these days are pedestrian. Normally, the moment the word Communist or Marx appears in an article the author is slammed irrespective of what the context.
Whoever the next president, I hope that steps will be taken to remove the gross inequality between the rich and the poor.
Peace.
I hear North Korea is just beautiful in the spring! At least, that is what the Dear Leader says.
Actually, I heard from a reliable source that the Mongolian elite go to North Korea because they have "beautiful beaches." I am not kiddin' you!
Optimism, Pessimism, and Dirty Water
My hard-line view on the financial crisis facing America and by extension, the world, is let the sad song play to the end. I take this stance with the knowledge that it often requires serious pain for people to get it.
It is said that some view the glass as half-empty or half-full. I always say there is water in the glass, and if we are thirsty, then the amount of water does not matter to dry throats needing moisture. My comments in public forums can sometimes be viewed as pessimistic or optimistic. They are neither and they are both. My comments reflect that there is water in the glass, that America has a throat that longs for justice, for peace, for fairness, for vision beyond the status quo. I sometimes give a view that can be seen to be Pollyannaish in tone. You have to trust me when I tell you I am no Pollyanna. I sometimes give a view that is seen to be cynical, defeatist, and dire in tone. You have to trust me when I tell you that I hope America’s best days lie before it and not behind it.
I see water in the glass and I take note of the dry American throat that causes the painful thirst that begs to be quenched. The water in the American glass is dirty however. It is dirty with campaigns based on racial innuendo and not national peril and a national need to succeed that binds us all. It is dirty on choosing vice presidents based on political calculation of divide not individual suitability for the necessary and tough job of uniting a fractured and reeling America. It is dirty because the Fourth Estate has a rat and termite infestation and weeds growing in the garden of truth. The water that sits before America as the possibility of the moment that is now can quench our thirst but we will also gag and may become sick from drinking the dirty water that is our current state. Water that sits and does not flow is considered stagnant water. The water in America’s glass is dirty and stagnant water and it smells bad of corruption, greed, ethnic hubris, gender bigotry, years of neglect, years of subterfuge and political immorality, and mostly systemic hypocrisy. The water that sits before us is the past. Shall we drink of it to temporarily quench our thirst and buy time to find a clean source of water, and risk becoming sick or dead from drinking what we already know to be tainted? This is the financial and political package we are being asked to swallow.
Shall we forego drinking dirty smelly water and take the pain of taking the time to fill our glass with nothing but the pristine possibilities of clean water filling a clean glass. Shall we clean our thoughts to realize a clean mind? Shall we hand over responsibility clean of the potential for corruption to clean hands? Shall our considerations of who is best to lead come from a clean conscience? Can we wipe the historical slate clean by a current manifest will to rise above the stagnant dirty water of past failings at all levels of society?
I have failed once again in words, to capture the meaning I had when I began this comment. I wish I was ignorant then I would be blissful. However, I am astute concerning my shortcomings as well as my gifts. Writing is not something I have mastered. I am working feverishly on mastering love though and so it is with love that I give these thoughts and ask once again, that you think on these things as my dear departed brother Krishnamurti asked us to do long ago. May we heed the lessons of the dirty water! May we come together as one nation and recognize the toxicity of the water that now sits before us as the culmination of a divisive, spiteful, greedy, and harmful past, and may we promise -- NEVER AGAIN!
HuffPost's Pick
Why is it not clear to everyone at this point that any governmental system devised by mankind will be corrupted by mankind when it is adopted UNLESS strict scrutiny and rules to rein in the loophole seekers are followed?
Socialists cheat, communists cheat, capitalists cheat when they are given the opportunity.
Only in the Kingdom of Heaven do we not cheat (unless miscounting the 72 virgins applies. ) Sorry, girls, I don't know what the equivalent reward for you is!
Damned until dead...I was afraid of that.
They work in heaven's kitchen.
Agree with your point here, mostly. Individual greed tends to bring down any system, and regulation and transparency help to mitigate these effects. But it's worth remembering that rules can be rewritten, particularly when those in charge of writing and enforcing them discover how much they can profit from obscuring these systems from regulatory scrutiny--or creating new shadow systems where that oversight does not apply. That's how we got into this mess (ditto other Bush messes). New regulations may solve this crisis, but what's to say they won't disappear in twenty years, or that some clever bankers won't find a way around them?
As Marx would put it, as long as the bourgeoisie are ruling over us, they will design a government that governs us and not them. A permanent solution to this problem consists only in the dissolution of human greed. Marx saw the potential for this in the organization of the proletariat into a united class-for-itself, but given the power- and money-mongering that goes on in our so-called "unions," I have my doubts. At very least, we're a long way off, awaiting a sea change in the way people think: that is, the mass epiphany that we are an interconnected society, and a widespread understanding of collective prosperity as something more important than individual prosperity.
"But it's worth remembering that rules can be rewritten, particularly when those in charge of writing and enforcing them discover how much they can profit from obscuring these systems ..."
The point exactly. People argue philosophies of government failing to take into consideration the weakness of the men and women implementing the economic and political systems. And, their humanity and the fact that they die and those panderers and yes people wanting power will take their place.
On another note, I have a bone to pick with your aside about the 72 virgins. You probably meant it as a harmless joke, but the reason people will laugh at your joke is because of a fundamental Western misconception about Islamic eschatology and a longstanding stereotype of Middle Eastern people as oversexed. The virgins are not included in the heavenly package as sexual playthings of men. Closeness to God provides a happiness so great that one would have no desire for such base and earthly pleasures (another example: the wine in heaven does not make you drunk). The houris are symbols of innocence, pure beauty, and the majesty of God: to be admired, not fondled.
Ah, I see, you have seen the stagnant dirty water that lives within us all. We all contribute to the fall by how we treat one another by failing to be earthly sisters and brothers. There is hope and it is us [sic].
Thanks for the explanation as well. I did not know any of what you wrote yet I always knew there was a Western filter on everything I heard about the subject -- virgin as sex object as opposed to a virgin spirit, which makes sense. Religion fails at the people level for most of the texts agree on the basics. In the attempt to put Islam in a bad light, American journalist have spoken about a subject of purity through the filter of hypocritical propaganda -- shame, shame, shame!
"The houris are symbols of innocence, pure beauty, and the majesty of God: to be admired, not fondled."
A couple of questions from an infidel.
Why do you need 72?
Why can't you be close to God without an innocent girl?
WILL AMERICANS REVOLT AGAINST POVERTY AND INEQUALITY?
In 1975 the average American CEO made 40 times more than the average worker. Now it's about 400 to one. More personally, in 1970 I made $10 dollars an hour as a housepainter. Today, painters still get $10, or less. Is it any wonder people can't survive without borrowing? Is it any wonder we have a "debt crisis"? Unless president Obama (barring escalated Republican fraud) directly addresses inequality and poverty, the next crisis will be both inevitable and more severe.
Will Americans finally revolt? That depends on whether the left learns how to build solidarity and community. We live inside of the military - industrial - ENTERTAINMENT complex. The average American watches four hours of TV a day, and talks to their spouse 20 minutes. So not only do most of us get our information from the tube, but WE ARE LOSING OUR SOCIAL SKILLS. And Internet 2.0 does not take the place of actually talking to people. If socialist revolution requires that we form the co-operative "embryo of the new society within the womb of the old," then we had better learn how to organize. Otherwise, when the inequality-debt crisis really explodes, we will not have socialism but full-on fascism.
First step? We need schools for organizers, labor and community, in every city. When our meetings are more attractive than television, THEN we might be able to talk about socialism.
my grandfather, Rodney Salisbury, was elected sheriff of Sheridan County, Montana in the 1930's on the Communist ticket (twice!). This was the communism of Marx and Engels not what the Soviet 's co-opted and called communism while leaning much closer to facism.
In the 1930's (middle of the real Great Depression), the American communists were throwing rent/mortgage parties for people who were losing their homes and working to help unionize the backbone of our country, our workers. It is a disservice to Marx and Engels to call what the USSR and China did and called it "communism".
On a humorous note, my grandfather was later thrown out of the Montana Communist Party for being a Leon Trotsky supporter. (That great mass murderer, Stalin, had Trotsky murdered (by icepick) in Mexico.) So now my family can always say "we've been thrown out of better parties than this!"
Pure genius, Barbara. As a nurse, it's with great sadness that I agree with your assertion. With regards to the health insurance industry, freedom, (to them), has become another word for the ability to ignore someone else's pain. Freedom to make a profit at the expense of the sick and injured should not be tolerated in a just society. How many deaths will it take until we know that too many people have died as a result of our failure to have a universal health care system?
We've got to stop allowing insurance companies to make a profit by denying health care. We must eliminate them, and we can begin by collectively affirming that health care is a human right. To paraphrase Marx, "the insurance industry has produced its own gravedigge
Yes we can!
The problem isn't easy credit it's that people always want more than they can afford. We are bombarded with images of what a good life should be, what everyone must have in order to be part of the mainstream culture and we blindly decide we must have them. I spent 5 years getting out of debt from credit cards, they didn't charge themselves I did it. I took responsibility to pay them off giving up what I didn't need to live and slowly worked my way out of debt. I could not afford cable, video or a TV so for the time until I could I read. I would recommended giving up TV to everyone, first I found my local library system was stocked with wonderful books I always wanted to read but never found time for, including The Communist Manifesto, plus I found new authors and cultures I had never thought of before. Secondly I found the things everyone else wants of no interest to me; a car is just transportation I don't need something so big or so fast that it breaks the bank, I could careless for the latest trends in fashion, food or just about anything else. I live within the earning power I possess and refuse to spend what I don't have. One of the discoveries I made in those five years is how much time and money we waste on things that are truly irrelevant.
Soooo.....
People who borrow at a rate well within their means, who suddenly lose the means due to stagnant wages, health problems, or lay-offs, are wanting more than they can afford?
If that is the case, shouldn't the banks have not lent money to them? Isn't that what credit checks are for?
It's good that you are so pure as to not want anything, like say a home, so you are completely above the "irrelevant" mess we are in, but the rest of us, who like owning things and using the internet, can see this for what it is.
The banks (not credit cards, I don't know where you came up with that nonsense) handed out money left and right, while the housing bubble grew and grew, then burst, and no one had money to give the banks back.
They did not act wisely. Neither did you with the credit card. You had to pay for it, why shouldn't they?
Yes, because they never stopped to plan what if, what if I don't get a raise, what if my insurance doesn't cover everything, what if I lose my job. I am far from pure but my lesson was learned, I work for a small business, less than 25 employees, my wages have been stagnant for three years, I had renal cancer two years ago and while my companies insurance paid for most of it my deductible and copay was around $5000 dollars but I had saved because I knew what my insurance would pay and what I would have to pay if something happened. My luck was early detection, surgery and no radiation or chemo. My point was it is a cultural issue, how we decide what is a good life, we put great import on owning things, even things we don't need and could live without but somehow we feel the need to have them. Part of the problem with credit cards is we don't see the bank or institution backing them, I wonder how many people even read the terms and do I think banks bare some of the blame of course they've been their won worst enemy but then so have most of us. To say it's not our fault we overspent, over bought and over consumed is silly but I guess why not blame it on the idiot who told us consuming was our sacrifice when we are at war.
I took a course in Marxist theory at the University of texas almost 40 years ago and it seems to me that Marx's critique of capitalism is and was right on most of the major points. Of course communism has proven to be a poor system of government but "extreme" capitalism as currently practiced in the US is much worse. When the workers are alienated from the fruits of their labors and when the bosses produce nothing of any concrete value, the system is doomed to collapse. When the CEOs make 275 times what the average worker is making, the system is doomed to collapse. When people buy things they don't need and can't afford, the system is doomed to collapse. When people save, buy only what they need, and the banks have hard assets on hand to insure their deposits, the system will work to the benefit of both citizens and bankers. We're all in this together, like it or not.
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