Karl Marx might be the most controversial thinker in history. He’s been dead for over a century, and to this day, people still intensely debate his ideas. On one side, he’s cast as an idiotic demon, who tricked the working class into satanic communism and killed a hundred trillion people. On the other side, you have people who treat him like a Messiah, leading the way to a utopia that’s always just around the corner.
My hope for this episode is to provide a balanced and in-depth exploration of his most interesting ideas. I hope it goes without saying that there is a lot to criticize about Marx. But as I’ve personally done in the past, it’s really easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You can disagree, even dislike someone, and still find something valuable in their thought process. And that is our goal today.
Hello my friend, welcome back to History for Thinkers. A show that brings history to life. All episodes are available on YouTube or you can listen to the audio on any podcast platform of your choice.
Dialectical Materialism
Dialectical materialism lies at the core of Marxism, providing a philosophical framework for Marx's analysis of society and history. This way of thinking is the foundation for everything Marx would write. It builds upon the ideas of Hegel, who proposed a three-part concept known as the dialectic which explains the nature of change. This dialectic starts with a thesis, representing the existing status quo, which is challenged by an antithesis. The interaction of these opposing forces then gives rise to a synthesis, bringing about an entirely new state of affairs. The Hegelian dialectic is a powerful tool that can be applied to almost anything.
Expanding on Hegel's framework, Marx added the crucial dimension of materialism. In Marx's context, materialism emphasizes the concrete and observable conditions of society and history, including the natural world, relationships, and the means of production. This was a deliberate departure from spirituality. For Marx, the only things that matter can be seen, observed, or falsified.
Dialectical materialism is just the fusion of the Hegelian dialectic and materialism. It serves as an influential approach to understanding how material conditions drive social change and shape historical development. It goes beyond mere criticism of capitalism; it represents an entire way to think about the world. Marxist thinkers often identify themselves as dialectical materialists, reflecting the profound influence of this concept on their thinking. For instance, the renowned Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky described himself in exile as a committed "proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist."
But let’s walk through an example of dialectical materialism in action: consider the Russian Revolution. The thesis begins with Russian society as it existed under the control of the czar. The antithesis manifested in the revolutionary forces trying to overthrow the government. Finally, the synthesis emerged as a brand-new government and a radically transformed society. That’s dialectical materialism in a nutshell.
So, now that we understand how Marx thinks about the world, we can begin with where he thinks everything went wrong - the very invention of modern society.
Primitive communism and the invention of government
The thing about Marx is that most of his ideas were not entirely original. He often built on foundations laid out by other thinkers. We already discussed Hegel, but another major influence on Marx’s worldview was Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
You see, Rousseau represented a shift in thinking. Most people at the time believed humanity was once backward and ignorant, but with the dawn of modern society, was slowly progressing toward a brighter future. Rousseau argued the complete opposite. He believed that in the state of nature, humanity was much better off. And this utopia of modern society that we’ve been building isn’t a utopia at all but actually, a nightmare designed to enslave everyone. As Rousseau put it, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Funny enough, Marx made a reference to this quote at the end of the communist manifesto when he wrote, “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”
I think it’s fair to say that Rousseau had a romanticized view of pre-modern life, but this narrative struck a chord with many. And luckily for Marx, there was a new field emerging called anthropology that would put research and evidence behind this idealistic narrative.
A pre-governmental society
The budding field of anthropology greatly contributed to Marx’s idea of primitive communism. Anthropologists observed societies that arguably hadn't yet adopted governmental structures and social stratification. Central to Marx and Friedrich Engels' inspiration was Lewis H. Morgan's ethnography of the Iroquois. Morgan detailed a unique system practiced by the Iroquois that he called "communism in living."
Marx adopted this perspective, imagining primitive communism as a society devoid of formal government, hierarchy, or monetary systems. In Marx's view, such societies were classless. They were characterized by a lack of private property and communal ownership of resources. Survival relied not on individual wealth accumulation but on collective efforts and shared benefits.
Interestingly, modern research has offered some validation for this view. Today, the term "gift economy" has largely replaced "primitive communism," but the underlying principle remains: societies where people contribute based on their ability and receive based on their needs.
Let's pause to recognize that while Marx's grand narrative rings true, his mid-1800s perspective had a few inaccuracies. For a comprehensive critique of Marxist thinking on primitive communism,, consider reading Francis Fukuyama's book, "The Origins of Political Order". He sets the record straight on the key details.
Nevertheless, whether you prefer talking about 'primitive communism' or 'the gift economy', you’re essentially talking about the same thing. It wasn’t until we invented things like modern society and the government which ruined this wonderful, natural way of life.
But it’s worth asking, why did these things arise in the first place? Marx actually has a pretty good answer for this one too. It starts with the creation of class.
Class Conflict
So, for the vast majority of the time that humans have existed, we lived as hunter-gatherers.
Then, the agricultural revolution happened, and we began domesticating plants and animals. Instead of hunting and gathering, we stayed in one place and grew our food locally. This provided a surplus of food that enabled the population to grow more than ever before. And as time went on, we got a lot more efficient at growing food. So efficient in fact that not everyone had to farm food all the time. Some people got to do something else.
This is where Marx would argue the idea of class was first introduced. Arbitrary ways to group people into distinct categories and sort them by status. Are you a peasant plowing the field or are you an elite living in luxury?
Conflict naturally emerges between these classes of people as their interests inevitably clash. This sets the stage for Marx's idea of class conflict, a phenomenon not unique to capitalist societies, but settled, agricultural ones. Class conflict has been around for a very long time. As Marx noted in the Communist Manifesto, "Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed." For Marx, capitalism just represented the latest iteration of this age-old dynamic.
Now, you might be wondering, how did people deal with this class conflict? After all, it isn’t like anyone left an instruction manual laying around. In order to deal with this new, very modern problem, people had to invent an entirely new way of doing things. We created something called the government.
The Invention of Government
Marx proposed that the institution of government was designed to control this inevitable conflict between classes.
His examination of history and society led him to conclude that the ruling class manipulates the government to serve its interests, using it as a weapon of control and suppression. Marx said it best himself: “Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another.” The power dynamics in society are primarily enforced and perpetuated by the government, serving the interests of those in control.
The role of government, according to Marx, goes beyond mere control and extends into the realm of manipulation and pacification. Under the influence of the ruling class, the government uses various mechanisms, such as law, education, and culture, to prevent the working class from recognizing their subjugation. It creates a state of 'false consciousness' among the working class, leading them to misunderstand the nature of their exploitation and thus preventing any challenges to the system.
Marx brought attention to a particular aspect of culture that’s been a bedrock of government control since the very beginning: religion.
Culture as a Weapon
Marx famously wrote that, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the masses.”
This wasn’t written as an attack or criticism, but as a diagnosis of the problem. Just as opium can relieve pain and create a sense of euphoria, religion provides comfort and consolation to those suffering under the oppressive systems of society. But it also obscures the root causes of their suffering, preventing the desire to change their conditions.
Notice how there’s always an emphasis on being a good, productive member of society and focusing on the afterlife instead of your day-to-day existence. An afterlife, I might add, that may very well not exist. But you know what definitely exists? That miserable job you drag yourself to day in and day out where you work really hard to make someone else rich and get paid just enough to survive.
The pain of subjugation is insidious because it’s not something that can be seen, but can definitely be felt. That feeling of being screwed over and taken advantage of.
Alienation and Social Murder
In his critique of capitalism, Marx introduced a concept that was as revolutionary as it was unsettling: the notion of alienation. He argued that workers are alienated in four specific ways: workers are alienated from the product of their labor, the labor process itself, their fellow workers, and even their own humanity – what he termed "species-being." Let’s break these down a bit more.
Firstly, workers are alienated from the product of their labor. They do not own what they create, and thus are separated from the full value that their labor generates. This detachment from the product, Marx argued, results in a deep dissatisfaction, as the worker is left with only wages, a paltry representation of the value they've produced.
Secondly, workers are alienated from the process of production. They have no say in how their work is done or how their workplaces are organized. In other words, they do not control their own labor; it is dictated by the owner class. To Marx, this powerlessness contributes to the worker's feelings of disenfranchisement and frustration. All day, every day, you’re at the mercy of an arbitrary overlord - your boss.
The third form of alienation is from other workers. The competitive nature of capitalism pits workers against each other, eroding social cohesion and fueling animosity, further isolating individuals within society.
Finally, alienation from our 'species-being' happens when people are denied the opportunity to fulfill their human potential. Instead of labor being a source of self-fulfillment and a means to develop one's abilities, it is reduced to a means of survival, an enforced necessity that cripples self-development and personal growth, leaving most people empty husks of human beings.
Friedrich Engels, Marx's lifelong collaborator, coined the term 'social murder' to describe the dire consequences of these forms of alienation. It encapsulates the idea that the conditions of the system can lead to premature death, whether it’s by occupational hazards, poverty-induced health issues, or the mental anguish caused by the harsh realities of the system.
Marx would argue that alienation has been part of society since the introduction of class. But he would also contend that alienation is most profound and detrimental within capitalist societies.
As if alienation wasn’t enough, Marx also exposed another dark aspect of capitalist society: the way we reduce human beings to assets.
Commodity fetishism
Marx wrote extensively about what he called commodity fetishism. This is a strange-sounding term but it makes sense once you get it. Marx argued that in capitalist societies, the producers and the consumers of goods and services perceive each other as the money and merchandise they exchange. We’ve replaced authentic human connection with market exchange. In a sense, we fetishize commodities. Not by having creepy sexual encounters with them, but by having deeper relationships with the stuff we buy instead of the human beings who made that stuff.
Commodity fetishism as an idea was best expanded by French philosopher Guy Debord in the Society of the Spectacle. I’ll release a video covering that in more detail in the future. I’d like to take a moment and point out that many of Marx’s ideas, especially the ones we’ve been covering in this episode, are not directed at capitalism exclusively. I think it's a prevalent misconception that Marx only wrote about capitalism, but his work expands further than that. Marx doesn’t just point out the flaws of the current system, but explains, with some accuracy, how those flaws came to be in the first place. But Marx's critique of capitalism goes beyond what we’ve covered so far.
Marx's Critique of Capitalism: The Demand for Infinite Growth
Marx challenges the fundamental structure of capitalism, with an emphasis on its insatiable drive for infinite growth.
Marx interpreted the capitalist system as being in an endless pursuit of profit. This relentless drive for expansion is propelled by capitalism's inherent competitiveness—businesses must constantly strive to expand or face being overtaken by rivals. Marx saw the need for infinite growth as unsustainable. He believed that the system would inevitably reach its limits, leading to recurring crises, be they in the form of stock market crashes, economic bubbles, or conventional recessions.
"As Marx put it in the context of agricultural practices, 'All progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility.'
While Marx was discussing agriculture, his critique can be extended to capitalism more broadly. The drive for infinite growth that he identifies in agriculture is a feature of the entire capitalist system, placing a heavy burden not just on the soil, but also on other natural resources, the environment, and workers' well-being. With the burgeoning environmental crises and escalating economic inequality of our era, Marx's critique echoes ominously from the halls of history, challenging us with critical questions about our current path.
Immiseration theory
So, Marx sees all these problems with capitalism, and only sees one way forward. Revolution. He predicted that revolution would be inevitable as business owners gradually chipped away at the workers quality of life. There’s just one problem. It didn’t happen. Thankfully, American academic James Davies pioneered groundbreaking research and has a pretty good explanation for why.
What tends to happen in capitalist societies is that there’s a period of rapid economic expansion. Income goes up along with GDP and quality of life. People get cars and smart phones. And if you live through one of these periods, everything seems to be getting better for everyone. The American dream comes true.
But like we’ve already established, the economy can’t grow infinitely. There is a limit. Davies argues that revolution doesnt’t come from workers being exploited. It comes from workers perceiving their quality of life as getting worse, shattering their expectations.
Businesses consolidate, competition gets fierce, and life for the average Joe gets pretty difficult. The data shows that this is when the revolution will come. Most people are actually fine with being employees making someone else rich. But not if their life is getting worse.
I would argue that this is where America is headed right now. We’ve had the biggest economic boom in human history. But unlike the boomers, life isn’t getting better for most of us. Jobs pay peanuts and everything is expensive.
There’s a mountain of evidence showing that life actually is worse for our generation than it was for our parents or grandparents. Couple this with the fact that young Americans are flocking towards Socialism in the millions, and it’s pretty hard to deny Davies and his idea.
So, in a weird way, it turns out that Marx may have been right all along. Revolution might be coming. But it’s not because workers are being exploited and alienated. It’s because the economy doesn’t have any growth left in it.
Final thoughts
Marx's ideas have sparked intense debates, attracted fierce criticism, and inspired revolutionary movements. Yet, whether you see him as a villain, a hero, or something in-between, the relevance of his thought in today's world is hard to deny. From growing economic disparities, the prevalence of alienation in modern work, to the unsustainable growth paradigm, Marx's ideas continue to offer critical insights into the struggles that shape our world.
While not all of Marx's predictions have come true, his analytical approach has equipped us with tools to critically examine societal organization and economic structures.
In the end, studying Marx should not mean blind acceptance of his views. Instead, it's about engaging with his ideas, questioning prevailing systems, and fostering an ongoing dialogue about how we can create a better society. After all, the goal of understanding history, as Marx himself said, is not just to interpret the world but to change it.
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