Criticisms of communism: Encyclopedia II - Criticisms of communism - Marxist theory

Criticisms of communism - Marxist theory

The following sections of this article deal with criticisms that are specifically raised against Marxist theory, the ideological foundation of most communist thought.

Criticisms of communism - Historical materialism

Historical materialism is normally considered one of the intellectual foundations of Marxism. It looks for the causes of developments and changes in human history in economic, technological, and more broadly, material factors, as well as the clashes of material interests among tribes, social classes and nations.

Marx argued that "the mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life." In other words, the dominant social and political institutions of society, along with the dominant ideas prevalent among members of society, are determined by material conditions. Critics have disputed this. For example, Max Weber has argued that political ideas and religious beliefs are not determined by the material conditions of society, but may in fact play a role in creating those conditions (e.g. protestantism, in Weber's view, influenced the development of capitalism).

Some, such as Karl Popper and others, have also argued that Historical materialism is a pseudoscience because it is not falsifiable.^[56] Marxists respond that social sciences in general are largely not falsifiable, since it is often difficult or outright impossible to test them via experiments (in the way hard science can be tested). This is especially true when many people and a long time is involved. Popper agreed on this, but instead used it as an argument against central planning and all ideologies that claim to be able to make predictions about the future.

Historical materialism is based on class analysis and identifies a number of stages of history, each of whom is characterized by a certain economic system and a certain class-based structure of society. The historian Robert Conquest argues that a detailed analysis of many historical periods fails to find support for the stages postulated by Marxists. Marx himself admitted that his theory was restricted to the stages present in European history.^[57]

The philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, particularly his view on dialectics, was one of the intellectual roots of Historical materialism. Max Stirner, a critic of Marxism, has argued that Hegel's philosophy leads to nihilism and not to Historical materialism. In reply to Stirner's assertions, Karl Marx wrote one of his most important works, The German Ideology.

Based on historical materialism, Marx made numerous predictions. For example, he argued that the workers would become poorer and poorer as the capitalists exploited them more and more; that differences between the members within each class would become smaller and smaller and the classes would thus become more homogeneous; that the skilled workers would be replaced by unskilled workers doing assembly line work; that relations between the working class and the capitalists would get worse and worse; that the capitalists would become fewer and fewer due to an increasing number of monopolies; and that the proletarian revolution would occur first in the most industrialized nations.^[58][59] Marx's predictions regarding working class poverty had some similarity with predictions made by other economists before him, such as the conclusions David Ricardo derived from his iron law of wages.

Many of these predictions either did not come true, or came true only in part. This is often cited by critics as evidence that historical materialism is a flawed theory. Communists reply with two arguments: The first is that there were a number of major events and trends over the past century and a half which Marx could not have predicted: imperialism, World War I, the rise of social democracy and Keynesian economics in the West (that introduced the concept of redistribution of wealth, thereby narrowing the gap between rich and poor), World War II and finally the Cold War. In response, critics maintain that if so many unpredictable events have happened in the past, then an equal number could happen in the future, and therefore historical materialism is not a reliable method of making predictions.

The second communist argument is a specifically Leninist one. Lenin, in his book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, argued that capitalism must be viewed as a global phenomenon, and different capitalist countries must not be treated as if they are fully independent entities. Instead, one must look at capitalism worldwide. From this point of view, Lenin goes on to argue that rich, developed capitalist countries "export" their poverty to poorer countries, by turning those countries into colonies (hence 'imperialism') and exploiting them as sources of cheap unskilled labor and resources. Part of the spoils from this exploitation are then shared with the workers from the developed countries, in order to keep their standard of living high and thus avoid revolution at home. From this, Lenin concluded that Marx was wrong to expect the first proletarian revolutions to happen in the most advanced industrial nations. Lenin argued that the revolution would begin in the countries whose populations were most exploited, namely the underdeveloped agrarian societies like Russia.

The European colonial empires of Lenin's time all dissolved between 1947 and 1998 in the decolonization of the world. Communists maintain that economic exploitation of poor countries continues even in the absence of direct political control^[60] (see neocolonialism, globalization and anti-globalization).

Criticisms of communism - Labor theory of value

Fundamental to Marxist theory is the labor theory of value. It claims that the value (or, to be more exact, use-value) of an item is determined by the socially necessary labour time required to produce it. In other words, the greater the amount of work necessary to produce an object, the greater the value of that object. This implies that value is objective, and that it may not be reflected by the price of the object in question (since price is determined by supply and demand, and is not linked to the amount of necessary work that must be expended to produce the object). The labor theory of value was fully stated by David Ricardo, from suggestions by Adam Smith, and later adopted by Karl Marx.

Jevons and the classical capitalist economists later abandoned the labor theory for the subjective theory of value, which implies that the only value of an object on which different observers can agree is its price on the market (which is based on the subjective utilities of the participants).

Jacques Barzun, Robert Nozick, and other critics hold that the qualifier "socially necessary" in the labor theory of value is not well-defined, and conceals a subjective judgment of necessity.^[61] Barzun also claims that the unit of the labor theory is itself ill-defined; that the problem of measuring the increased return of the skilled laborer (or of the laborer with advanced equipment) in manual man-hours was never solved.

Bertrand Russell holds that the labor theory, while a reasonable approximation to an agrarian society, is neither accurate nor normative for an advanced industrialism, whatever its economic arrangements. According to Russell, the labor theory provides a useful polemic as an ethic against a "predatory" group, like moneylenders or capitalists; but it does not indicate any fair proportion between the earnings of two workers at different stands on the same assembly line.

Marxists have replied to these criticisms by refining the labor theory of value in various ways, for example by measuring the increased return of the skilled laborer according to the amount of labor that was necessary to teach that laborer his new skills. The qualifier "socially necessary" usually refers to the amount of labor that is strictly necessary to produce a given result; thus, if labor is wasted (the production process utilizes more labor than necessary), the end product does not gain any additional value.

Some of the aforementioned refinements of the labor theory of value have led to a Marxist model of economics that is substantially more complex, and requires far more advanced mathematics, than Marx's original propositions. For instance, the premise that increases in value come from labor has been interpreted to imply that labour intensive industries ought to have a higher rate of profit than those using less labor, which is not the case. Marx explained this by arguing that in real economic life prices vary in a systematic way from values. This is known as the transformation problem, and it was not fully resolved by Marx during his lifetime. Modern Marxists have provided a solution to it, which employs higher mathematics. Critics argue that this makes the once intuitively appealing theory very complicated and that there is still no justification for stating that only labor and not for example corn can increase value.^[62]

Criticisms of communism - Relevance of the Communist states for Marxist theory

Communist states claimed to represent the implementation of Marxism-Leninism (a prominent branch of Marxism) into practice. Whether this is true or false is a question of significant historical and political importance. There are at least four major views on the subject:

1. Communist states did implement Marxism-Leninism into practice. This view is held by communists who support the Communist states, as well as by the majority of anti-communists.
2. Communist states did not implement Marxism-Leninism into practice. They only paid lip service to it for propaganda purposes, and their policies represented a perversion or betrayal of Marxism-Leninism. This view is held by the majority of communists who oppose the Communist states.
3. Communist states did implement Marxism-Leninism into practice, but Marxism-Leninism itself is a flawed or inadequate form of Marxism; other kinds of Marxism lead to different results. This view is held by Marxists who are not Leninists (e.g. democratic socialists).
4. Communist states implemented some aspects of Marxism-Leninism into practice, but not others. Their legacy is complex and includes both positive and negative aspects.

Within those different views, there is a wide array of different conclusions that various authors draw from the historical experience of Communist states and their eventual defeat in the Cold War. Anti-communists believe that Communist states caused great suffering and their collapse proves that their social, political and economic models were unworkable. Communists who support the Communist states believe that those states brought many benefits to their populations and the world at large, and their fall was a great tragedy caused by external pressure from the capitalist West. Communists who oppose the Communist states believe that those states stifled the development of true communism at home and did much to discredit the communist cause abroad, and they eventually collapsed under the weight of internal contradictions.

A "Communist state" is an impossibility according to Marxist theory. The communist society is a social system that has abolished private property, social classes, and the state itself. No country or government ever called itself a "Communist state" or claimed to have attained communism; however, various single-party states gave the Communist Party a special status in their constitution and officially proclaimed adherence to Marxism-Leninism.^[63] All of them planned to achieve communism in the not unreasonably distant future; Khrushchev, for example, forecast that communism would be reached in the Soviet Union by 1980, some quarter century later. The term "Communist state" has been coined and used in the West to refer to such states. The Communsit states which no longer exist never did reach the communist society, and none of the remaining ones seem likely to do so soon.

However, Marx and Engel's theory also includes a transitory state phase known as the dictatorship of the proletariat.^[64] Later, the state will "whither away" and the dictatorship of the proletariat will be replaced by the communist society. The Communist states claimed to be this dictatorship of the proletariat. If they did follow Marxist theory, then the theory be criticized for the claimed failures of the Communist states and for them not "withering away" and producing the predicted communist society when the theory was tested in the real world. Albert Szymanski analyzed the Soviet state and concluded that it was an authentic dictatorship of the proletariat. "Is the Red Flag Flying? The Political Economy of the Soviet Union Today" (London: Zed Press, 1979)

Trotskyites and other Leninists respond that all Communist states after Lenin's death did not actually adhere to Marxism but rather were perversions heavily influenced by Stalinism.^[65] However, it has been argued that it was Lenin who created the repressive institutions that Stalin later used. Lenin had analyzed the Paris Commune and had concluded that it failed due to "excessive generosity-it should have exterminated its enemies".^[66] His regime summarily executed hundreds of thousands of "class enemies", created the Cheka, created the system that later become the Gulags, and was responsible for a policy of food requisitioning during the Russian Civil War that was partially responsible for a famine causing 3-10 million deaths.^{[67][68][69][70]} Emma Goldman has criticized Leon Trotsky for his role in the Kronstadt rebellion and for ordering the large scale incarcerations in concentration camps and executions of political opponents such as anarchists.^[71]

Some Marxist supporters instead argue that no Communist state was Marxist since no Communist state was democratic. However, Marx and Engels gave few hints regarding how the dictatorship of the proletariat or the later communist society should be implemented. They rejected the concept of liberal democracy, arguing that it could not represent the interest of the proletariat. It is often argued that Marx and Engels supported the claimed direct democracy of the Paris Commune as a model.^[72] However, this is disputed^[73] and there were human rights violations even during the few months the Commune existed.^[74]

Lenin quoted these^[75] and other^[76] statements by Marx and Engels as support for using the authoritarian principles of vanguard party and democratic centralism during the dictatorship of the proletariat in Communist states. This excluded democracy even in theory outside the ruling Communist party. Lenin's regime also banned fractions within the party. This made the democratic procedures within the party an empty formality.^[77] When the Marxists only gained a minority vote in the democratic Russian Constituent Assembly election, 1917, Lenin dissolved the Constituent Assembly after its first session and overturned the election.^[78] All the later Communist states became and remained totalitarian as long as the Communists remained in power, justifying this by referring to Lenin's interpretation of Marxism, Marxism-Leninism.^[79]

On the other hand, some democratic states have been ruled by parties calling themselves Communist without becoming totalitarian. One example is Moldova. Whether these parties and similar parties without power are Marxist is disputed, because, while they aim for a socialist society, they reject Marxist cornerstones such as proletarian revolution and at least for now accept a market economy.(see Eurocommunism and Definition of a Communist state)

Another argument is that true communism can only develop as a response to the contradictions of bourgeois capitalism; therefore, the failure of those experiments in communism to date can be attributed to the fact they did not emerge in this manner. The Soviet Union is a case in point - Tsarist Russia was quasi-feudal, not capitalist. So it is argued that the failure of Soviet socialism to sustain itself is actually an affirmation of Marxist theory. The historian Orlando Figes has criticized this by pointing out that many different forms of Marxism have been tried in many different societies with varying degree of development.^[80] Examples include Lenin's War communism and New Economic Policy, Stalinism and post-Stalinism in the industrialized Central Eastern European nations and the Soviet Union, profit-sharing and decentralized workers' councils under Tito, extreme self-reliance under Juche, and reforms under Perestroika and Glasnost. Maoism is a broad concept that includes episodes such as self-sufficient communes during the Great Leap Forward, anti-intellectualism during the Cultural Revolution, and the almost primitivist Red Khmers.

Criticisms of communism - Other views of Marx and Marxists

Eric Hoffer has communism as one of the chief examples of the mass movement which offers The True Believer a glorious, if imaginary, future to compensate for the frustrations of his present. Such movements need people to be willing to sacrifice all for that future, including themselves and others. To do that, they need to devalue the past and present. This is not a criticism of Communist tenets specifically; Hoffer's other chief examples are Fascists, Nationalists, and the founding stages of religions.

Arthur Koestler describes Marxism as a closed system, like Catholicism or orthodox Freudianism. This has three peculiarities: It claims to represent a universal truth, which explains everything, and can cure every ill. It can automatically process and reinterpret all potentially damaging data by methods of casuistry, emotionally appealing and beyond common logic. It invalidates criticism by deducing what the subjective motivation of the critic must be, and by arguing about that.

Marxists respond to such allegations by arguing that they are straw men (deliberate misrepresentations of Marxist theory) or ad hominem attacks. For example, they may hold that Marxism does not, in fact, claim to "explain everything and cure every ill"; that it merely recommends certain political and social policies, just as all other ideologies do. On the issue of the True Believer, Marxists may concede the point that some "True Believers" exist in their midst, but argue that not all of them are "True Believers", and that, in any case, the behaviour of individual Marxists says nothing about the validity of Marxism itself.

Marxism views human nature as completely determined by the environment, a Tabula rasa. The historian Richard Pipes describes how this led to a belief in a coming new man without vices, in essence a new superior species (although one caused by the environment, not genetics). Trotsky thought that this new man would be able to control all unconscious processes, including those controlling bodily functions like digestion, and have the intellect of Aristotle. In order to reach this stage it was necessary and right to completely destroy the existing institutions that had formed the current wretched humans. This will make it possible to dispense with the state. This also explains (or perhaps serves as a justification for) the little value the Communists placed on the lives and rights of the current humans.^[81] In reality self-interest could not be destroyed and the new ruling class, the nomenklatura, quickly replaced the old aristocracy. Periodic attempts to destroy it, such as the Cultural Revolution during Mao's regime, failed.^[82]

Bryan Caplan has criticized Marx's rejection of human rights. Marx:

Instead the utopian communist society will lead to "the positive transcendence of private property, or human self-estrangement, and therefore the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man... the complete return of man to himself as a social being..." Caplan argues that this rejection of human rights leads to tyranny and oppression of dissidents.^[83]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Marxist theory", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki