In the second chapter of the Communist Manifesto, Marx shifts up a gear to reinforce his unfounded claims of bourgeoisie social malevolence. For the purpose of advocating his communist utopia, Marx employs a manipulation technique that simplifies, misrepresent and anchor social ills with divisive emotional claims. As was underlined in the opening chapter, Karl Marx is not interested in facts or logic. Marx’s primary interest is in deflecting the malevolent goals of Marxist ideology on to those he identifies as his competitors for political power, the bourgeoisie. Marx then positions plausible statements as a matter of fact for the purpose of persuading the reader of their helplessness in order to recruit their support for his social agenda.
Marx baits the reader with the selfish promise of a Utopian society. The selfish promise of Marx’s communist utopia is freedom from responsibility and accountability to yourself, your family and your community. In Marx’s Utopian mirage, the proletariat can benefit from the productivity of others at no personal cost. In reality, Marx’s commune utopia comes at the high personal cost of your freedom, independence, right to self-expression and right to self-determination.
In Marx’s commune society, the avenue for advancing yourself and your community retracts from the two-way street where individuals and organisations create value for society by offering continuously advancing products and services, to the one way road whereby the only street to advancing oneself is by serving the communist party bureaucracy.
In the communist bureaucracy, all are equal except those who serve the bureaucratic hierarchy, who are more equal than others.
In the chapter “Proletarians and Communist”, Marx touches a wide range of social concepts. Marx meanders from nationalism to his definition of the capitalist, individualism, the value of labour, private property, family, education, religion, morality and history.
Importantly, Marx closes the second chapter by defining the 10 communist ideals.
In this blog we consider the validity of Marx’s position on 4 concepts;
- Nationalism,
- the Capitalist,
- the Value of labour and
- Private property.
It is important to underline the impact of Marx’s writings. The idea of the communist state had the impact of advancing horrific social revolutions in the 20th century. Moreover, it is the tactics and methods Marx weaves in formulating his persuasive words that are arguably more important to understand. Marx’s tactics in formulating the words of the Communist Manifesto are leveraged today in the political battle field for social influence. The concepts and methods that Karl Marx used to promote his communist Utopian mirage are employed today by post-modernist along with the historical revisionist, the peddlers of divisive identity politics, the science deniers, the self-appointed fact checkers and the Neo-Marxist of the 21st century.
4.1 Nationalism
The second chapter begins with Marx making a case for globalism. Marx states that an aim of the communist movement is to “bring to the front the common interest of the entire proletariat, independently of all nations”.
In true Marxist manipulative fashion, Marx ignores the changing social structure of progressive nations versus regressive nations at the time of writing. In Western Europe and the United States of America, advances in living standards for the ordinary citizen were accelerating at a rate not seen in human history. Old “class” boundaries had been redrawn. Free markets and competitive industry had provided the opportunity for wealth and influence to be accumulated by those outside of traditional social hierarchies.
Ironically, both Russia and China who together become the principle proponents of Communism in the 20th century, are both poverty stricken nations’ in the early 19th century. Both were experiencing societal decline. In the 19th century, neither Russia nor China had experienced the social change required to free their society from the various forms of feudal hierarchies they inherited. The feudal hierarchies Marx describes as “idyllic”.
Western Societies in the same period had advanced in leaps and bounds largely by embracing the concept of free markets, free thinking, and the principle of mutual benefit from voluntary exchange. The outcome of the principles were further enhanced through the competition of nation states.
In contrast, the absence free trade and the social mechanisms that enabled capital accumulation by all, stalled the advancement of ordinary living standards in both Russia and China. The backward state of Russia and China in the early 20th century provided fertile ground for revolution and turmoil. In the early 20th century, unlike their “Western” counter parts that were enjoying the relative benefit of embracing “free” societies. The Russian and Chinese society flipped from their feudal hierarchical power structures to the power structure of the communist politburo in a relatively short period of time, experiencing unprecedented death and social turmoil. Perhaps the gravest example of a Communist revolution tragedy was Pol Pot’s Cambodia in the 1970’s where it is estimated one quarter the entire population was murdered in the name of advancing the communist utopia.
Nevertheless, for the sake of promoting his argument built on emotion, Marx simplifies all society’s challenges into an identity battle between the Proletarian and the Bourgeois.
In respect to Nations, Marx predicted that an outcome of free trade and free markets advocated by the bourgeoisie would lead to globalism where “national differences and antagonisms between peoples are vanishing”. As a result Marx concludes that “The workingmen have no country” and the proletariat “must acquire political supremacy, must raise to the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation”. In effect Marx advocates for one nation, a globalisation of all classes into one Proletariat governed by the communist ideology. Karl Marx was an early advocate for Globalism.
4.2 The Capitalist
Capitalist as defined by the Macquarie dictionary is “someone who has capital, especially extensive capital employed in business enterprise”.
The Oxford dictionary extends the meaning of capitalist to mean “a person who uses their wealth to invest in trade and industry for profit in accordance with the principles of capitalism”
However, Marx defines a Capitalist not as a person who employs capital for profit. Marx defines a capitalist as a person who aims to “have not only a purely personal, but social status in production”.
Marx’s addition to his definition of a capitalist is important.
Marx shifts the purpose of a capitalist away from being purely focused on the employment of capital for capital return.
In Marx’s definition, the primary purpose of the capitalist is to advance ones’ social status, climb the social hierarchy and manipulate the productive output of society for personal gain. In short, the definition of a capitalist according to Marx is one who seeks Social Power.
The addition of Social Power to Karl Marx’s definition is an important distinction.
The threat of the capitalist to Marx was not necessarily their accumulation of wealth. What was threatening for Marx was the ability of the capitalist to challenge the “idyllic” social order which he sort. That is, the utopian commune governed by a committee of benevolent despots. The benevolent despots being the ruling politburo of the Communist Party.
For Marx, the Capitalist and all things associated with the accumulation of capital, whether it be private property, family, entrepreneurship or free trade has to end. All mechanisms that enabled capital accumulation to an individual had the potential to threaten the authoritarian rule of a commune society and therefore had to be abolished.
Marx in his typical manipulative form claimed that the everyday proletarian has no opportunity to be a capitalist. Marx claims in his Communist Manifesto that wage labour, the most fundamental form of capital accumulation does “not a bit” create any property for the labourer. Marx claims that all wage labour only creates “the kind of property that exploits wage labour”. Marx avoids addressing the simple concept that personal savings provides a foundation for wealth creation and escaping poverty for all individuals. From personal saving, every individual has the opportunity to accumulate capital that overtime can be invested to generate additional income or to accumulate additional assets. In a free market, citizens are empowered to incrementally advance their personal financial position through choices on resource allocation and consumption.
In Marx’s deceitful world of the Proletarian and Bourgeois identity duality, the opportunity for the “freed serf” to accumulate wealth no longer exists.
As it has come to pass, the Marxist lie that wage labour does not create any property for the labourer is still a lie today. The opportunity for the everyday citizen to accumulate capital wealth and to be a “capitalist” existed at the time of writing (1848) and still exists today, nearly 200 years later.
4.3 Value of Labour
According to Marx “the average price of wage labour is the minimum wage.” Marx defines minimum wage as “the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer“.
Marx makes a fundamental error in his characterisation of the price of labour. Marx’s definition of the minimum price of labour is based on the principles of slavery. That is, Marx’s price of labour is framed in the context of owning a slave or serf. In Marx’s flawed concept of production, an individuals’ personal characteristics, values, beliefs and traits that add additional value to the tasks assigned to the labourer are not considered, and don’t exist.
Marx defines the price of Labour from the perspective of the cost to the slave owner or feudal lord for the “requisite subsistence of bare existence of the labourer”.
Marx’s definition is consistent with his authoritarian ideology and his conveniently simplistic view of the productive world. A world where the individual proletarian has no distinction, has no say in their destiny, is not able to negotiate their value and are bound by a command and control society. A society where nobody does more than what is asked as there is no incentive or reward to speak up, advance their circumstance or enhance the task at hand.
Interestingly, the opposite circumstance was unfolding in Europe in the 18th and 19th century. The industrious “bourgeois” and their principles of free markets, free trade and open competition for capital was enabling the “freed serfs” to become wealthy and independent of their feudal lords. This change in the European social fabric was undermining Marx’s utopian ideal; the commune society of the controlled population, serving the unelected bureaucracy of your betters.
In the Marxist utopia of the authoritarian commune, there is no competition for providing products and services to advance all of society. The authoritarian commune has no reward mechanism to create value for the community. There is no distinction or difference in a person’s productive output based on individual effort, motivation, ingenuity, behaviour, values, beliefs, aspirations or responsibility to one’s family.
Ironically, the only reward system in a communist society is to serve and promote the communist party and the communist ideal. To monopolise a reward system to serve the authoritarian power of communism is inherently to service a corruptive power. The corruptive power where positions of authority are rewarded unequally, avoid transparency and where unequal access to private gain of “state” resources is the accepted norm.
The communist utopia is a mirage sold to the proletariat for the purposes of serving not the proletariat but the malevolent few who seek personal benefit from the privileged positions within the communist bureaucracy. Marx refers to the relationship between the proletariat and the malevolent few the bond of man to his “natural superiors”.
Conversely, an environment of free markets and open competition acts as a catalyst for creating value for the community. The market forces will determine the price of labour. Free citizens can choose not to participate when the price offered for their labour is valued at “bare existence”. In a free society, citizens can choose to participate in productive environments where the specific characteristics of their knowledge and labour is valued at a price that serves their specific household needs and aspirations.
A “free society” commits participants to educate themselves, to look after their health, to train, gain and maintain a tradable skill, to maintain a healthy social network, to be a ”valued” member of society and to participate in the maintenance of a healthy community.
Most importantly, members of a “free society” must participate as custodians of the belief systems that maintains the “free society”.
Fundamental to the Marxist sales pitch is to advocate the benefits of outsourcing the “burden” of personal responsibility to your betters. Your betters being the lords and societies bureaucratic nobility. Marx refers to your relationship with the anointed overseers as the idyllic relations of “the motely feudal ties that bounds man to his natural superiors”
Marx with his manipulative techniques of influence, leverages the false claim that the entire proletariat population has no power to determine the value of their labour and that the average price of Labour is equal to the cost of bare existence. In effect, Marx contends that all proletariat are no better than salves and serfs of the feudal society and therefore will benefit from outsourcing all decisions on the price of your labour to a central bureaucracy.
The key fact Marx avoids highlighting to his readers is the cost of outsourcing the value of your labour. That is, the personal cost of outsourcing the value of your labour is your freedom itself!
The implication of the communist ideal is the return of society to that resembles feudalism, a commune of serfs and that are governed by the appointed natural superiors.
The price of the wage labour of an individual is the function of the distinctive attributes the individual brings to their role, the competitive market for their skills, their ability to negotiate and the market value of the aggregate product or service they produce.
The average price of labour is not the minimum wage as it would be in slavery as Marx defines.
The average price of labour is the aggregate productive value of the distinctive competencies held by the collection of individuals in question.
4.4 Private Property
“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 appropriation”
The paragraph above is perhaps amongst the most forked tongued, duplicitous and hypocritical of all paragraphs in the Manifesto of the Communist Party.
Communism in itself is a means of appropriating the labour of productive individuals. Communism appropriates the productive labour of the proletariat to your “natural superiors”. In a communist society, the politburo, the Communist Party leaders are your “natural superiors”. The politburo in turn decides the distribution of fruits of your production.
In a Communist society the grand assumption is made that the Politburo is a collection of benevolent despots.
The trouble is, as the transfer of productive output represents the transfer of property;
- Who appoints the despots?
- Who decides the definition of benevolent activity?
- Who determines what is benevolent appropriation or distribution of production?
For the purposes of manipulating the proletariat, there is an undeniable nature of human productivity that Marx along with the ideas of the Communist utopia ignores.
That is, each individual has varying capacity of production. The key elements that contribute to individual productivity include and is not limited to motivation, values, beliefs, cognitive skills, acquired knowledge, personal circumstance and family support.
None of the variables of human productivity occur in a vacuum, can be controlled independently or remain static over time. An individuals’ capacity for production changes with the passage of time.
Communism aims to subjugate and appropriate the labour of the most productive citizens of every community at every point in time.
For the purpose of manipulating the proletariat, Marx makes a number of baseless and duplicitous claims in the attempt to define “bourgeois property” and the notion of “bourgeois freedom”.
Marx attempts to define private property in terms of what it is, what it is not and what private property can be used for.
“We communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour” Marx writes. To address the communist position on private property and the concerns that arise, Marx states that communism does not intend to abolish property of the “petty artisan and of the small peasant” instead the aim of the communist movement is to abolish “bourgeois property”.
A key manipulative tactic of Marx reveals itself in his words on private property. The steps of Marx’s manipulative tactic is as follows;
- Accuse your ideological enemy of the malevolence you are trying to achieve
The communist movement seeks to forcibly appropriate, monopolise and control all property that is required for the means of production, communication and financial transactions to the “State”.
The goal of the communist manifesto is to re-establish static social power structures that resemble a feudal society. The feudal society that had been “torn asunder” by the capital accumulating peasants (freed serfs) through the practice of individual freedom, free trade and competitive markets.
Marx’s sleight of hand is that he avoids informing the proletariat that the productive output of any asset is not static.
The productive utility of an asset is determined by the energy, ingenuity and applied knowledge of the asset owner.
i.e. the State cannot generate the level productive output of an asset for the benefit of society as a private owner or a collective of private owners in a competitive environment. For the state to achieve a similar level of productive output the conditions that allow for individual initiative, motivation, reward, certainty of ownership, the freedom to unilaterally coordinate applied knowledge and the presence of external competition are all required.
The communist movement is not about the emancipation of the proletariat, it is purely a document for the manipulation of the masses for control by the authoritarian few.
The aim of the communist manifesto; the authoritarian control of the masses, is precisely what Marx accuses the Capitalist of in Marx’s bourgeoisie conspiracy.
2. Fabricating a scenario that does not exist but appeals to the sense of helplessness and victimisation of the masses
To persuade proletariat, Marx claims that “in your existing society private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population”.
The purpose of the sentence is to feed the emotional claim of helplessness and position the everyday citizen as the victim of the bourgeois conspiracy. In Marx’s manipulative techniques, actual facts are not required. Simply present plausible statements as a matter of fact for the purposes of emotionally assigning blame, arousing the sense of helplessness to recruit followers of your cause.
That is you, the ordinary individual, has no hope in furthering or improving your circumstance. As a result when individuals have no civil avenue for advancing their circumstance, one option remains; upend society through revolution in the name of the communist ideals.
3. Present a fabricated scenario as fact for the purpose of manipulation and persuasion.
Marx contend the foundations of capital accumulation do not exist for the proletariat. Marx wrties “But does wage labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit.”
The foundations of freedom are established on personal savings. That is, the value derived from the productive output of your labour less the cost of living.
Marx doubles down on his erroneous claim by tethering the average price of labour to equal the means of subsistence, hence claiming there is no ability for the proletariat to save.
What Marx is doing is describing the environment he actually advocates. That is, a society where the value of your labour is no more that the cost of your bare existence. In a communist society you only receive what a bureaucrat determines is what you need.
However, Marx twists his meaning of the average price of labour to reflect the circumstance as the making of the bourgeoisie in an attempt to assign emotional discontent and contempt for the bourgeois “class” identity.
The circumstance Marx describes in the second chapter is not represented by facts. It is a manipulative use of words to assign the troublesome world that Communism advocates as the product of his adversaries.
The purpose of projecting communist goals on his adversaries is to conceal the purpose of communism, that is;
- the authoritarian control of the masses by a select few;
- to keep at bay the any potential challengers for the control and influence of societies, in particular “the Capitalist”.
Why the Capitalist? The successful capitalist has the means to assign human effort (productive capacity) for the purposes of challenging social power and influence.
Even in 1848, Marx understood that many of the successful capitalist had become the growing middle class of Western Society. The middle class themselves had the potential to assign capital savings to challenge an authoritarian government, hence a stated goal of the commune state is to eliminate the middle class. Marx writes, “the middle class owner of property….must indeed be swept out of the way and made impossible”
In the Marxist society, the owners of private property including the middle class owners must be controlled.
The means for challenging the established authoritarian power by a successful capitalist or any middle class collective must be eliminated.
Private property provides the control of resources that can be employed to threaten the authoritarian power of the communist politburo, the power of the senior members of a state bureaucracy.
As a result, the proclivity for the private use of property in western society as an accepted social norm serves as a constant threat to the Marxist authoritarian state.
The Liberal RedPill 