“In a capitalist society, labor is organized in such a way that the worker in fact slaves for another social class. Thus the worker transfers his own labor—and with it, the whole of his life—to the bourgeoisie.”
“Is it really that bad?”
“We’re talking about Marx, and we must therefore take our point of departure in the social conditions during the middle of the last century. So the answer must be a resounding yes. The worker could have a 12-hour working day in a freezing cold production hall. The pay was often so poor that children and expectant mothers also had to work. This led to unspeakable social conditions. In many places, part of the wages was paid out in the form of cheap liquor, and women were obliged to supplement their earnings by prostitution. Their customers were the respected citizenry of the town. In short, in the precise situation that should have been the honorable hallmark of mankind, namely work, the worker was turned into a beast of burden.”
“That infuriates me!”
“It infuriated Marx too. And while it was happening, the children of the bourgeoisie played the violin in warm, spacious living rooms after a refreshing bath. Or they sat at the piano while waiting for their four-course dinner. The violin and the piano could have served just as well as a diversion after a long horseback ride.”
“Ugh! How unjust!”
“Marx would have agreed. Together with Engels, he published a Communist Manifesto in 1848. The first sentence in this manifesto says: A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism.”
“That sounds frightening.”
“It frightened the bourgeoisie too. Because now the proletariat was beginning to revolt. Would you like to hear how the Manifesto ends?”
“Yes, please.”
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!”
“If conditions were as bad as you say, I think I would have signed that Manifesto. But conditions are surely a lot different today?”
“In Norway they are, but they aren’t everywhere. Many people still live under inhuman conditions while they continue to produce commodities that make capitalists richer and richer. Marx called this exploitation.”
“Could you explain that word, please?”
“If a worker produces a commodity, this commodity has a certain exchange-value.”
“Yes.”
“If you now deduct the workers’ wages and the other production costs from the exchange-value, there will always be a certain sum left over. This sum was what Marx called profit. In other words, the capitalist pockets a value that was actually created by the worker. That is what is meant by exploitation.”
“I see.”
“So now the capitalist invests some of his profit in new capital—for instance, in modernizing the production plant in the hope of producing his commodity even more cheaply, and thereby increasing his profit in the future.”
“That sounds logical.”
“Yes, it can seem logical. But both in this and in other areas, in the long term it will not go the way the capitalist has imagined.”
“How do you mean?”
“Marx believed there were a number of inherent contradictions in the capitalist method of production. Capitalism is an economic system which is self-destructive because it lacks rational control.”
“That’s good, isn’t it, for the oppressed?”
“Yes; it is inherent in the capitalist system that it is marching toward its own destruction. In that sense, capitalism is ‘progressive’ because it is a stage on the way to communism.”
“Can you give an example of capitalism being self-destructive?”
“We said that the capitalist had a good surplus of money, and he uses part of this surplus to modernize the factory. But he also spends money on violin lessons. Moreover, his wife has become accustomed to a luxurious way of life.”
“No doubt.”
“He buys new machinery and so no longer needs so many employees. He does this to increase his competitive power.”
“I get it.”
“But he is not the only one thinking in this way, which means that production as a whole is continually being made more effective. Factories become bigger and bigger, and are gradually concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. What happens then, Sophie?”
“Er. . .”
“Fewer and fewer workers are required, which means there are more and more unemployed. There are therefore increasing social problems, and crises such as these are a signal that capitalism is marching toward its own destruction. But capitalism has a number of other self-destructive elements. Whenever profit has to be tied up in the means of production without leaving a big enough surplus to keep production going at competitive prices . . .”
“Yes?”
“, . . what does the capitalist do then? Can you tell me?”
“No, I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Imagine if you were a factory owner. You cannot make ends meet. You cannot buy the raw materials you need to keep producing. You are facing bankruptcy. So now my question is, what can you do to economize?”
“Maybe I could cut down on wages?”
“Smart! Yes, that really is the smartest thing you could do. But if all capitalists were as smart as you—and they are—the workers would be so poor that they couldn’t afford to buy goods any more. We would say that purchasing power is falling. And now we really are in a vicious circle. The knell has sounded for capitalist private property, Marx would say. We are rapidly approaching a revolutionary situation.”
“Yes, I see.”
“To make a long story short, in the end the proletariat rises and takes over the means of production.”
“And then what?”
“For a period, we get a new ‘class society’ in which the proletarians suppress the bourgeoisie by force. Marx called this the dictatorship of the proletariat. But after a transition period, the dictatorship of the proletariat is replaced by a ‘classless society,’ in which the means of production are owned ‘by all’—that is, by the people themselves. In this kind of society, the policy is ‘from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.’ Moreover, labor now belongs to the workers themselves and capitalism’s alienation ceases.”
“It all sounds wonderful, but what actually happened? Was there a revolution?”
“Yes and no. Today, economists can establish that Marx was mistaken on a number of vital issues, not least his analysis of the crises of capitalism. And he paid insufficient attention to the plundering of the natural environment—the serious consequences of which we are experiencing today. Nevertheless . . .”
“Nevertheless?”
“Marxism led to great upheavals. There is no doubt that socialism has largely succeeded in combating an inhumane society. In Europe, at any rate, we live in a society with more justice—and more solidarity—than Marx did. This is not least due to Marx himself and the entire socialist movement.”
“What happened?”
“After Marx, the socialist movement split into two main streams, Social Democracy and Leninism. Social Democracy, which has stood for a gradual and peaceful path in the direction of socialism, was Western Europe’s way. We might call this the slow revolution. Leninism, which retained Marx’s belief that revolution was the only way to combat the old class society, had great influence in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Each in their own way, both movements have fought against hardship and oppression.”
“But didn’t it create a new form of oppression? For example in Russia and Eastern Europe?”
“No doubt of that, and here again we see that everything man touches becomes a mixture of good and evil.
