175 years ago, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published their seminal work, “The Manifesto of the Communist Party” (we generally call it simply the Communist Manifesto). Its purpose, in 1848, was simply to be an inflammatory pamphlet exhorting its readers (members of various proto-communist parties around Europe) to keep up the good fight, against all odds, to usher in the demise of capitalism. One of its primary tenets was that capitalism bore the seeds of its own destruction. This was intended more as encouragement to those disaffected early communists and socialist outcasts in Germany, France, England, and elsewhere than a statement of empirical fact.
As we know, those seeds of capitalism’s demise didn’t sprout very convincingly anywhere. So, will capitalism ever finally succumb? Of course, the world has changed drastically over the last 175 years. Perhaps the true meaning of Marx’s assertion isn’t the inevitability of capitalism’s decline at all, but the dynamics behind the Manifesto’s main principle; namely, the continuing struggle of workers against the ruling class. It may not look the same as it did in mid-19th century Europe (or America, although the authors had less first-hand knowledge of this country), but class distinctions are still very real, and the “ruling class” may not be a larger share of the population than it was when Marx and Engels wrote their diatribe. Yet, social revolution has been so slow as to be imperceptible to many doctrinaire Marxists – especially in the U.S. It’s as though the world has left them behind, due mainly to the amazing adaptability of capitalism.
Not to sound like a neoliberal apologist, but capitalism has not only proven to be exceedingly robust in the developed First World but seems to be on a roll in much of the Global South as well. Those cases where a governing elite has employed oppressive measures against their respective proletarians can usually be attributed to some internal cultural strife or stunning lack of legitimacy of that ruling clique. It’s not capitalism, per se, that is at stake – since the fundamental structural arrangements of these societies never change, even after “revolutions.” It’s been at least half a century since any noteworthy social movement has professed Marxist ideals as it’s driving force (save perhaps in certain Latin American countries). It’s fair to say that Marxism today is “out of fashion.”
Orthodox Marxists blame the failure and dissolution of many once-promising anti-capitalist crusades on the overwhelming power of capital itself! Over the last 175 years, the argument goes, the enormous weight of capital has been successfully martialed by various ruling classes to suppress, co-opt, or otherwise neutralize organized opposition from the Left. We’ve seen this argument being used by Bernie Sanders supporters during the 2016 and 2020 Democratic Primaries in the U.S. Whenever elections in democracies deal defeats to the farthest left alternative, the explanation is the same: the petite bourgeoisie has become so pervasive (in spirit if not actual material wealth) that none of these basically liberal cultures can nurture a true “social revolution.” I generally say Amen to these arguments. My conclusion is that liberal societies are essentially social democratic in nature – they exist in a market sphere, with capital at the helm, but with guardian governments that protect the interests, as much as possible, of the vast proletariat. By extension, I’m saying that the democratic “ruling class” is that same petite bourgeoisie, i.e., the empowered, enfranchised middle class, often the most politically engaged members of any society.
So, it’s not that Marx and Engels’ class struggle of 1848 has gone away. There has always been tension between the Haves and Have Nots, even in ancient times. And the conflict of the powerful vs. the powerless does sometimes boil over into violence (bad). But historical progress comes from the adaptation of the powerful to the needs of the powerless – mutual dependency and respect is the order in all human societies (good). Victory for the proletariat comes not in the destruction of an overlord capitalist system, but in influence over it for mutual benefit (best). Seen in this context, class struggle has persisted over the centuries, from ancient tribal rivalries through feudalism and enclosure, into mercantilism and proto capitalism (i.e., colonialism), then to industrial capitalism (Marx’s wheelhouse), and moving into the 21st century, a post-industrial knowledge-based economy. This is a mutual dependence model for civilization. It’s an evolutionary process.
Looking at how our post-industrial paradigm differs from the 19th century world of Marx and Engels, there are some concrete features of our world that were totally unknown, even unimaginable, to those great thinkers and the earlier socialists and anarchists from whom they drew their inspiration. Perhaps most important is growth in the possession of some capital by very large segments of the population in developed economies – notably via home ownership and the intellectual capital of educational credentials. This was a 20th century innovation in North America and Western Europe and is ongoing in the developing world today. It is unlikely that either Marx or Engels could have foreseen either of these becoming as widespread as they have – together, these two wealth factors have made the petite bourgeoisie a political force to be reckoned with more than ever imagined in the mid-19th century. It is true that there still exists, both in North America and Europe, a non-property-owning proletariat, although they are either dying off (earlier than those with greater education credentials or other capital) or, because accumulation of capital often takes time, younger, but less numerous (from declining fertility). Progress is slower in the Global South, but growing urbanization and some additional multipliers, like the Internet, due to the very nature of our global “knowledge economy,” show an unmistakable trend. Social classes have reconfigured themselves into knowledge producers and consumers, even as labor productivity is still measured by profits.
China Mieville, a British Marxist author, has observed in his latest book, A Spectre Haunting (the opening line of the Communist Manifesto), that Marx and Engels were writing an aspirational pamphlet at the time. Their assurance that the collapse of capitalism was “inevitable” has been misconstrued in our present era of Capitalist Triumphalism. It is not a reason to dismiss their work as clearly wrong, but an invitation to consider what really constitutes a better society – capitalist, socialist, modified versions of either, or something yet unnamed. Mieville is known mostly for his speculative fiction (fantasy) but remains a perceptive political thinker as well.
We need to think about the proletariat of the 21st century as those without property and without credentials – those whose labor is truly all they can sell to the ruling class. It may now be their labor plus their consumption. And, if the new working class are only good as consumers, then they are truly oppressed by the bourgeoisie just as much as the proletariat of Marx and Engels’ time. It is the distribution of property – of wealth – that differentiates our two ages. There have been both peaks and valleys in that measure over the last 175 years. And we’ve been in a valley for about the last 40!
— William Sundwick
Warp and Woof 