Karl Marx, Clear as Mud

Bernard Rooney

[Reprinted from a Land-Theory online discussion, 7 March 2000]

Marx's waffling writings are sometimes cutting and brilliantly polemical but often confusing and clear as mud.

So what I mean by him being 'clear and radical' or shedding positive light, is something like this:

Marx understood that the intellectual or philosophical problem was in fact a social problem (the materialist basis of history). The problem was a social and economic system that is in fact a system of inequality and exploitation. (these of course have always existed throughout history in their various forms, e.g., slavery, feudalism, etc).

Marx understood that the necessary task was to understand and analyze the mechanics of the system of exploitation currently operating ('bourgeois society' or 'capitalism') To conduct this analysis, Marx began a study of English political economy, smith, Ricardo etc. This helped him, but also led him astray where their analysis, e.g., Ricardo's value theory, was flawed. Marx understood that there a need for a critique of political economy, and a criticism of capitalism, showing how the inherent injustice of it would lead to reaction and protest, and with the aid of 'scientific' socialism (provided by Marx), an irresistible push to reform and change would lead to utopia, which is 'communism' or the classless society. Starting his career as a philosopher, Marx became a classical economist, his study of political economy was thorough, and in the end a lifelong project.

Most importantly, Marx understood the crucial role that 'ideology' has in shaping and leading social movements, whether socialist/revolutionary or conservative/reactionary. He deliberately and self-consciously positioned himself as the leading 'idealogue' of the socialist movement. He had such success with this that much of the 20thC was spent dealing with his impact, the negatives (there of course were plenty) as well as the positives of Marxist analysis (which were not that many, unfortunately).

But there were two fatal weaknesses in the Marxian project, which I suspect are intertwined:

1. - revolutionary politics. Marx assumed or believed that revolutions would and must occur and this is how change and reform would be achieved. He generally derided 'liberalism' and pretty much had no faith at all in liberal institutions such as parliament, elections, free speech etc. etc. He maintained you really needed to cut to the chase and get on with the inevitable revolution. Of course this would be bloody, but it is the law of history.

The massive, fatal flaw in this assumption is not appreciating the corrupting influence of Power on human affairs. 'All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' The colossal, monstrous horror of Stalinism is directly related to marx's error here. The truth is that non-violence, democracy, civil liberties, devolution of power etc, mundane as they might seem, are in fact the right way, the only way forward. We need more, not less of these things and they are a prerequisite for real reform.

2. - economic analysis. Marx made a real head start with his economic analysis but got disastrously sidetracked with another colossal blunder. Marx through his studies had determined that 'the expropriation of the masses from the soil' was the basis of the 'capitalist mode of production'. Again and again he virtually gives a Georgist analysis of this. In fact, a Georgist can read many marxist passages with instruction and profit looking at it from the Georgist perspective. But again he made an assumption, that the market/price system could or should be dispensed with in a more 'advanced' (socialist) society.

He failed to perceive (or was unwilling to admit) that the single tax was in fact adequate to the task of destroying capitalism as an exploitative class system.

He also failed to perceive that modern production and economies could not even function without the aid of the price system. Famously, in Capital he fails to specify how production will occur in 'socialist' society and with a wave of the hand dismisses the whole question by saying he is not providing a 'recipe' for the 'cook shops of the future.' What a blunder!

George, of course, avoids both these blunders but his voice was not heard where it mattered. Our task is speak the truth of the Georgist message, in the places where it counts.