Lesson 14: The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2: Part 2

I hold weekly anti-communist meetings for interested parties here in Hendersonville, NC.

Synopsis of Week 14, Part 2

I will be completing The Communist Manifesto this week, but I'll be delivering it into smaller bites over the next several days.

Chapter 2: Proletarians and Communists (second installment)

This is structured as Marx's quote followed by my remarks

(a) “In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.” The only way this is possible is through central control and sub-standard living which is equal among all. That communists claim their utopia has never actually been attempted is worse than frightening, for it means that in every generation they may claim capitalism “stole” their revolution, whether in Russia, China, or anywhere else.

(b) “In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.” A catchy slogan which means nothing, based on assumption and generalization, supported by incorrect facts and biased conclusions.

(c) “And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at. By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.” Do you follow the convoluted logic? As long as it is maintained that the bourgeois society is a police state, the abolition of it by any means is a righteous abolition. Therefore, the ends justify the means, which under Marxist standards may be any means. What is considered theft (redistribution of wealth) is therefore “restitution.” Coveting is “revolutionary philosophy.” Murder is “self-defense.” As long as the target is the capitalist, no problems.

(d) “But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other “brave words” of our bourgeois about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.” There you have it. No trading, no selling, no production – unless it meets the communist standard, which in most cases means it is verboten. Note the elimination of the bourgeoisie also, which will come, as already explained, by any means. Cheerful, yes?

(e) “You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.” From the middle-European medieval view, this is interesting. However, it pertains not to America or other socially-advanced nations. The problem here is, Marx is not typifying the ancient world and excluding the modern age, but is reproaching all of technological society. We might agree that backward nations require some revolution to move them forward, but we would never assent that advanced nations need to regress. In any case, burdening capitalism with the responsibility for tyranny is a form of psychological projection, for the communist, even here ideally, is not different from any other Oppressor, intending to set the regulations for the brave new world. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

(f) “In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.” Thus, Marx has made it a life-or-death struggle. You cannot escape this reality by imagining he means this figuratively or through some political process. He says the opposite. It is literal and visceral. Marxists view capitalists as perversions of nature, Oppressors by choice, driven by religion, urged in some (quasi-)genetic manner. Murder is not in their lexicon when it involves capitalists; it is instead a mercy killing.

(g) “From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised, i.e., from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes. You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible. Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.” The quintessential argument against private property is the exploitation or theft by which it is amassed. Whether or not this is true, it is a moral argument. Marx therefore, who claims to eschew philosophy and religion, must use this morality as his core bludgeon. The further assertion that communism deprives no man certain power but permits a different power is only a “nice” way of saying that there’s a new sheriff in town. Naturally, only the “best” communists are able to discern and administer such tenets; and such elite reign in reality after a communistic revolution. One only need ask, “Who made you boss?” to find out the answer, for communism is no egalitarianism but only another thuggery.

(h) “It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.” Not so! The potato fields will be well-attended under threat of privilege loss or worse.

(i) “According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work. The whole of this objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.” First, let us note the illogical stance taken by Marx by requiring that capitalism ought to have become filled with laziness. Capitalism, not being coercive, is self-motivating. As long as the government does not fund laziness, such attitudes fall in favor of food and lodging. Second, note the linking of “tautology” in attempting to disprove that rich people are the employers of the wage-laborer. If A is true, B must be true also? Or false? Neither is correct. The only thing Marx has “proven” is that communism intends full employment by some means other than self-motivation, which is to say, by slavery.

(j) “All objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture. That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine.” At least Marx is entertaining! This is filled with error. First, there is no distinction between the capitalist and the communist when it comes to loss of productivity, for both are in the business of producing goods, only for different ideological purposes; the former for individual property rights, the latter against. Second, the disappearance of class culture is a stylized way of calling someone a snob or an elitist. It points to, for example, the country club as the playground of the Oppressors. Infantile. Third, the “blueblood” caricature is drawn in order to criticize again the culture, and therefore the economic structure. It is a stilted, static, and very small way to define one’s nemesis, never mind the world in general.

(k) “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.” In other words, the police and judges are there to protect the rich, not the poor. Once again, not a Judeo-Christian, not a British, not an American jurisprudence. Instead, Marx fights against the brutish tactics of barbarians. And how? By invoking barbarism as the solution!

Furthermore, there is an egoism here, which decides communism to be so well-attended that the “police state” exists mainly for its suppression. But though their agitations produce many insurrections populated by dupes and idiots, actual communists are few. The law is therefore meant to prevent loss of property and life from whipped-up mobs, not civil rights protesters. But if police fascism exists at any time, it is not communism which will be our savior!

(l) “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.” By a clever device, Marx is able to ask, “Do you still beat your wife?” If the past equals the present, Marx proves a lineage or pattern. If the present is worse, the guilt is more so. But at no time does Marx allow that capitalism may evolve into equity and compassion; that would steal his show.

(m) “Abolition [Aufhebung] of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.” It is imperative for Marx to both inculcate the youth and divide them from their foundation. He embarrasses any who would dissent from this plot by insinuating they are not true radicals, a badge of dishonor.

(n) “On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.” In a perversion, Marx causes the proletarian to envy family unity among bourgeoisie, then proceeds to slam that unity as a result only of wealth. In other words, even though a strong family structure is something to treasure, the working class ought not aspire to it lest they should appear upper crust. A famous philosopher once said that the poor have a peculiar bias in that they look down on the rich, and Marx here attempts to cement such philosophy as active social revolution. A strong family, according to Marxist doctrine, results from privilege. Yet, wealth is no guarantee for a strong family, and poverty does not prevent it. The rich also have their share of broken homes and wayward females. Perhaps we can say these miseries among the rich are fewer, but only because there are fewer rich. Regardless, Marx’s target is not the family but the structure, which by its very nature threatens the authority of the Marxist, a competition of blood against water. By linking wealth, specifically accumulated wealth, to this competitor, Marx pits envy against love, a sociopathic ploy to divide and conquer. If successful, however, the overthrow of private property becomes a simpler matter.