Marxism as a Failed Model

By Glen Wallace                                                                       December 2, 2023  

Marxists seem to be under the impression that they have discovered a 'secret sauce' allowing them to bypass the usual arduous task of searching for the best possible way to govern. For the Marxist, there's no need for the search, dialogue and debate to find the way to govern. Instead, all the Marxist has to do is turn to the ready made, off the shelf, plan created by Hegel and Marx. Hegel laid the ground work, and Marx outfitted the Hegelian structure with the accouterments and interfaces necessary for the structure to be usable in the everyday world of governing. The problem is that Marxism and Hegelianism are merely coherent systems, but not foundational. The structure of Marxism has no foundation. Proponents of Marx and Hegel are confusing coherentism with foundationalism. But there's no way to differentiate a coherent ideological system that lacks an epistemological foundation from a coherent fictional structure. Any fantasy fiction such as the Harry Potter series or the Hobbit may be very coherent, but that coherence does not in itself make it non fiction. Hegel never provided or even seemed to attempt to give good reasons for believing his philosophy of history is grounded in reality; that is, I can't tell whether Hegel's works were works of fiction or non fiction. And because I can't tell the difference, I've come to the conclusion that the works of Hegel are fiction. Or perhaps a better description would be that Hegelianism is a type of religion. The problem is that Marxists don't treat their ideology as either a fiction or a religion; they treat it as a foregone conclusion to be a prima fascia evident fact. But for something to be a prima fascia evident fact, all sane rational people should be agreeing with it. However, that's obviously not the case. There needs to be some reasons and evidence to support the Marxist positions, but, by and large, none are provided. Instead, Marxism is frequently just the opposite of forthcoming with reasons end evidence; it's often contradictory. For instance, a central tenant of Marxism is that all the events of history are inevitable, including what is to come in the future. But to claim something is inevitable is to assert that it will happen regardless of our choices as humans. If that is the case, then why are Marxists working so hard and diligently to bring about revolutions and continually trying to sway everyone to their side if everything will happen in the course of human events regardless of anyone's intervention? Why don't the Marxists then just sit on the sidelines and watch all of that inevitable history to unfold, much as a spectator would watching a parade go by. A parade spectator doesn't need to intervene to direct the marching band or tell the floats where to turn along the route. The spectator doesn't' need to intervene because there are others in charge of making sure the planned events of the parade go forward as planned. Marxists are contradicting themselves when they simultaneously hold that all the events, past, present, and future are inevitable while also clamoring to intervene in the course of human history presently to alter the course of the future.

I can imagine Hegel waving a magic wand as he says “thesis, antithesis, synthesis!” and as he says synthesis he emphatically swings the wand forward and all sorts of special effects are forthcoming, including fireworks.

The dialogues of Plato should have remained central to the philosophy guiding the formation of Western governments. While Plato and Socrates have remained enormously influential, the French Revolution of 1789 and Hegel have acted as a scab, or lesion on the progress of political philosophy throughout the modern era. Hegelian philosophy has largely represented the abandonment of the humble inquiry of Socrates. Instead of engaging in all that difficult inquiry, Hegel decided to just make a lot of stuff up using overly long and convoluted sentences that sounded profound, but were really mostly gibberish.

The French Revolution was a disaster at the time and resulted in a disaster for the societies indirectly influenced by it. It is a roundabout influence but it is an influence nonetheless given, to no small extent, to Hegel treating the Revolution not as the disaster that it was but instead as a wonderful, glorious event. You will even hear of Marxists saying the Revolution was something that “had to happen.” When anyone speaks of an event as something that “had to happen” they are making the naturalistic fallacy of confusing what has or will happen with what ought to happen. The Revolution happened and happened in the way it did because people made deliberate decisions that can be judged as good or bad. Whether or not the Revolution was inevitable is irrelevant to the judgement as to normative nature of the revolution. Additionally, the revolution led to divisiveness we still hear today with the conflict between the political left and right; two terms that owe their origin to the revolution. Leading up to the revolution, the French Legislative Assembly met with the revolutionary minded Jacobins sitting to the left of the speaker of the Assembly, while Assemblymen defending the monarchy of Louis the 16^th, sitting to the speaker's right. But these days people use the terms 'left' and 'right' typically having no idea of the word's origin. Instead, they usually make the unsafe assumption that being politically left is progressive while being politically right is conservative. But the modern left has no idea of the brutality that ensued during the Jacobin's reign of terror. And the modern right fails to acknowledge the selfish hoarding and disregard that King Louis had for the struggling commoners. The reality is that the commoners, the third estate, included not just peasant serfs, but also merchants. And merchants were capitalists. Marxists try to claim that capitalism didn't start until the end of feudalism. Marxists try to make such an absurd claim in order to fit the stages of history into the form Marx said it did, and Marx in turn was trying to fit history into Hegel's model of history. But there was even markets back in the time of Socrates, thus capitalism existed even way back then. Now, in China, ironically, the Bougie class has been replaced by the Bureaucratic class as the dominant class in the master slave dialectic.

People have long had an affinity for ready made programs that promise to deliver results the audience is looking for. Whether those results are weight loss, physical fitness or financial fitness, it's always nice to have a program that will lead the way for the follower to find their way through the inevitable uncertainties to be found along the way to their goal. When there is an off the shelf program available that, if followed step by step as instructed, all those uncertainties have already been figured out for the customer who purchased the program. The program is akin to a road map with a the whole trip already charted out and highlighted for the customer before she embarks on her voyage. Marxism provides a similar, easy to follow, ready made program for the socioeconomic planner. But like many programs touted on infomercials that promise success for anyone who purchases and follows their program, Marxism provides an incomplete program that only succeeds in convincing the audience to buy into it. Marxism is incomplete insofar as it fails to account for so many variables in an economic system.

Perhaps the most glaring omission is the failure to account for the element of risk in any productive enterprise. In Capital, Marx speaks of a hypothetical business that makes coats. He talks of the costs of linen, the weaving equipment, the weavers themselves and the tailor. But Marx fails to mention the risk taken on by the owner of the coat making business. Does he think that a coat making business or any other business pops into existence out of thin air? Of course it doesn't. Instead, some capitalist decides to risk their own capital under the belief that there is a good chance they will be able to enjoy enough profits from their new enterprise to eventually enjoy those profits, surplus capital, for themselves. But for the Marxist, the capitalist doesn't deserve one penny of any profits; all surplus capital should go exclusively to the labor involved in making the product. But that premise fails to recognize that there wont be any labor to be paid anything in the first place if the capitalist didn't decide to risk capital in the business that pays the laborer. After all, why would anyone risk their own money and time on a new business if all of the profits the business might make would have to go to the workers? Nobody would start any business and thus there would be no businesses to pay workers anything. The only alternative would be for the government to own all means of production. Is that something that the general public wants? If the government owning all businesses, including businesses making products that, under the current capitalist market model, offer a tremendous variety to meed the tremendous variety of tastes of the customer, was offered as the only solution in a Marxist government, then do you think you'd have many new converts among the plebs? While those are mostly rhetorical questions, let's still give them some thought. Let's go back to the example of the coat making business from Marx's Capital. If the government were the ones owning the business, then who would decide what style to offer the customer? Would we even be offered any different styles of coat or would the coat be more along the lines of a uniform where everyone would have to wear the same coat; a return of the 'Mao suit?' While there may be some hardliner Marxists who would be perfectly content with the return of the citizen uniform Mao suit, I highly doubt many normie plebs would be OK with that. The capitalist business entrepreneur has in mind the goal of finding ways to please his or her customer with products, so that the customer might be pleased and buy one of those products. In Capital, Marx doesn't give any consideration to fashion trends and styles for the coat maker and whether or not what is now in style might go out of style by the time the coats are produced and put on the market. Again, while it may be true that there would be some folks who find some appeal in veering away from the style conscious consumer who is chases fashion trends from one season to the next, I think most people want to have some choice in what clothes they wear, including coats, if not to follow fashion trends, but at least to act as a reflection of their own unique style and personality. With the return of the Mao suit, all that freedom to reflect your personality in your choice of clothing goes out the window, and in comes required, totalitarian conformity.

While looking for work, I frequently read reviews written by current and former workers of various employers I'm considering working for. In the most critical reviews, I've yet to read a complaint decrying the practice of capitalism whereby the owner takes some portion of the surplus capital from the operation instead of giving it all to the employees. Instead, the most critical reviews are much more nuanced and frequently are directed at management. But I'm certainly not getting the impression that any workers are advocating for a Marxist Communist Party system whereby the government owns all of the means of production. I've worked for pretty much all forms of employers, from non profit, to mega cap corporations, to the government and all of them share much of the same problems for the rank and file hourly workers. And I, of course, have only been a rank and file hourly worker throughout my working life. Regardless of the type of employer, the higher ups get special privileges, and, as a rule, do not appreciate nor understand the struggles of the hourly workers working under them. There is no special, miraculous cure found in Marxism for the common worker. People don't just change their nature because the nature of the employer changes from the capitalist form to the public, government form. The only way a significant change might occur would be for their to be a flat corporate structure where everyone is treated equally. The problem there is that form of employment structure usually doesn't work. There is a reason there is a hierarchy of rank in any nation's military organization; hierarchical organizations work. It's not just money that drives the worker; the psychology of motivation is much more nuanced and complex than that. There is also the creative drive to invent something new that never existed before and solves a problem. There is also a competitive drive to beat one's peers at the workplace in whatever endeavor is being worked on. And there is also a drive to attain the prestige and respect that comes from achieving a higher rank in a company organization. And reality is, most workers need, do a degree, to be held accountable for their work by the person they report to in order to find sufficient motivation to complete a given task. Although, I would say that employee reviews of employers who are for profit tend to indicate that those types of employers tend to be more prone to driving, often over driving, the workers to increase revenue for their employers than either government or non profit employers. That drive for sales and revenue is a trait not usually found in the government or non profits, unless, in the case of charities, the employer works in a fundraising division of the organization. But, regardless, there's still plenty of other causes for the unfair treatment of workers besides the drive for profits. There are plenty of problems just from the issue of drama alone between management and workers and between workers of equal rank that don't disappear with the formation of a Marxist employment system.

Capitalism is not a general economic system. Why isn't it a system? Capitalism is an activity that fits within a general economic system. What is a system? A system is a planned logically ordered movement of a given thing. Capitalism is the activity of maximizing capital return on an investment of time, work or money. While capitalism usually involves seeking a profit, that is, returning more money than from an investment than was put in to the business. But there are some cases where a loss is inevitable, such as in the case of poor sales of a product, but as long as an effort is made to achieve the best sale price as possible, the activity of capitalism still exists. Someone may also have to sell at a loss due to depreciation, which typically occurs with motor vehicles, but as long as maximizing capital return is done, capitalism is being engaged in. Now, every capitalist business will necessarily have a system for achieving that maximizing of capital return on investment, but that system is not in itself capitalism. There are of course a myriad of different business money making systems, just as there are many different systems for achieving success in any given activity. Take competitive distance running as an example. No one would refer to running itself as a system. But there are many different systems that have been devised for achieving success as a competitive distance runner. The same goes for capitalism. Capitalism is no more a system than distance running is. So it is absurd to ask someone if they are a socialist or a capitalist. To ask such a question is comparable to asking a runner if they are a competitive runner or a competitive runner with a system or plan for achieving success in their sport. All governments are socialist if we take the term socialism in the most generic sense of a government devised plan for success for the society that is being governed. If we go back to the original definition of a system as a planned logically ordered movement of a given thing, then in the case of socialism, what the thing moving around in a planned logically ordered manner? Well, there is money, workers, equipment and goods. Even in the most 'free market' oriented government system, all of those people and things are being moved around in a logically ordered, planned manner. There, for one thing, public law enforcement being ordered to come to the aid of businesses that have been burglarized. And if law enforcement arrests someone for such a burglary, there is a government owned, operated and planned justice system in place to punish those found guilty of burglarizing a private, capitalistic business.