As the student will recall, they said that when men became aware that slavery was a satisfactory mode of production, they built a society designed to protect the rights of the slave owner. They further believed that if this state of affairs had never been challenged the mode of production by slavery would have become a permanent fixture and society likewise would have been fixed. But Marx and Engels found, as do all students of history, that the economic order passed from slavery to feudalism and then from feudalism to capitalism. What caused this? They decided it was class struggle. They decided the slaves overthrew their masters and created a new mode of production based on feudalism. A society was then developed to protect this mode of production until the serfs overthrew their lords and set up a mode of production characterized by free-enterprise capitalism. Modern society, they said, is to protect capitalism.
Critics declare that Marx and Engels apparently ignored some of the most obvious facts of history. For example, the decay and overthrow of ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Greece and Rome had nothing to do with slaves rising up against their masters:
"The slaves of those days were for the most part subservient, abject, and helpless creatures, whose occasional murmurings and rebellions were suppressed with horrible cruelty. Those were not class struggles of the imaginary Marxian type and did not bring the transition to feudalism. Engels himself says that toward the end of the Roman Empire slaves were scarce and dear; that the latifundia, which were great agricultural estates based on slave labor, were no longer profitable; that small-scale farming by colonists and tenants was relatively lucrative; and that, in short, 'slavery died because it did not pay any longer.' Then came the barbarian invasion, the downfall of Rome, and the establishment of feudalism as the result of the conquest of a higher civilization by a lower and not through the alleged driving force of a class struggle."12
Similar historical problems exist for Marx and Engels in connection with the transition of society from feudalism to capitalism.
Fallacy 10 -- Not only does Communism fail in its attempt to account for past progress on the basis of class struggle, but it also fails in its prediction that class antagonism would increase under capitalism in the future. One hundred years have failed to develop the two violently antagonistic classes which Marx and Engels said were inevitable.
Communist agitators have done everything in their power to fan the flame of artificial class-consciousness in the minds of the workers, but the basic struggle between labor and capital has not been to overthrow capitalism but to get the workers a more equitable share of the fruits of capitalism. For example, during the past twenty years labor has attained a higher status in the United States than ever before. The Communists tried to seize leadership in this reform trend, but the more the workers earned the more independent they became -- not only by asserting their rights in relation to their employers but also in discharging the Communist agitators from labor union leadership. Workers did not respond to the Communist call to overthrow capitalism, and Communist writers have admitted this with some bitterness.
At the same time, both governmental and industrial leaders generally developed the philosophy that strong buying power in labor is essential to keep the wheels of industry moving. Labor therefore came closer to assuming its proper role as an integral part of capitalism than ever before. This trend leaves Communism completely undone because such a development makes labor an indispensable part of capitalism rather than its class-conscious enemy.
Fallacy 11 -- Another Communist premise which has failed is the assumption that under capitalism all wealth would be gradually monopolized until a handful of men would own everything and the exploited, propertyless class would be the overwhelming majority of mankind. Instead of growing, however, the propertyless proletariats actually have been decreasing under capitalism. Marx wrote his massive tome on Capital while he was living in the most abject poverty. He looked upon the proletariat as those who were living under conditions similar to his own -- people who had absolutely no property and no capital interests.
Today, in the highly-developed capitalistic nation of the United States, the only people who could be classed as proletariat under Marx's definition would be those who own no land, have no savings deposits, no social security, no retirement benefits, no life insurance, no corporate securities and no government bonds, for all these represent the ownership of productive wealth or of money, funds over and beyond the immediate needs of consumption. Such a class of propertyless proletariat does exist in the United States just as there has been one in all nations and in all ages, but the significant thing is that the proletariat in the United States is such a small minority that Marx would scarcely want to claim it. Under American capitalism wealth has been more widely distributed among the people than in any large nation in secular history. This has reduced the property-less class which Marx had in mind to little more than a fringe of the population.
In contrast to this we find that the country which really does have the majority of its population in a class of property-less proletariat is the Motherland of Communism where the Dictatorship of the Proletariat has been in force for over thirty-five years!
Fallacy 12 -- Marx's theory on wages also collapsed with the passing of time. He assumed that technological developments would make machines more and more efficient and therefore throw so many men out of work that they would compete for jobs until wages would become more and more meager. Technological development has actually created more jobs than it has destroyed and, except during intervals of depression, the long-range trend in capitalism has been to get closer and closer to the economic dream of "full-employment."
Fallacy 13 -- Since Marx believed that wages would become smaller and smaller he assumed that the only possible way to attain an adequate living would be by owning property. That is why he said the possession of property was the one thing which distinguished the proletariat from the exploiting class. This conclusion was another major error. Today some individuals may readily receive $10,000 a year for the sale of their labor services while others live on incomes of $2,500 derived from the ownership of property. In such cases it would certainly seem ludicrous to call the first group proletariat and the second group exploiting bourgeoisie. Under capitalism the ownership of property is certainly not the only means of gaining adequate economic independence.
Fallacy 14 -- Marx and Engels also failed in trying to predict what would happen to the middle class under capitalism. They said the middle class would be forced to follow the dismal process of sinking back into the propertyless class so that ultimately there would be just two violently antagonistic classes -- the capitalists and the propertyless proletariat. The very opposite happened. Economists have made studies which show that the middle class (consisting of people who are neither extremely prosperous nor exceptionally poor) has been rapidly growing. As a group the members of the middle class have increased in number, in wealth and in proportion to the rest of the population.13
Fallacy 15 -- Another fallacy in Communism is the theory that class struggle leads to "necessary progress." In this theory Marx and Engels attempted to apply the dialectics of their philosophy which say that out of struggle between two opposing forces an inescapable new evolutionary advancement is made. This fails to explain the unprogressiveness which has characterized many nations for centuries -- nations such as India, China, Egypt, Arabia and the populations in East Asia.
It also fails to explain one of the most obvious facts of history, namely, the retrogression of civilizations. The whole pattern of human experience shows that nations rise to a summit of power and then pass through moral and intellectual decay to lose their cultural standing and economic predominance. This is vastly easier to demonstrate in history than the theory that class struggle has lifted man through an ever-ascending series of stages called "necessary progress."
Fallacy 16 -- Finally, the failure of class struggle to explain the past also failed Marx and Engels when they tried to predict what would ha
ppen in their own lifetime. They said that Communism would come first in those countries which were most highly capitalistic because the class struggle would become more sharply defined as capitalism increased. On this basis they thought Communism would come first in Germany.14 A few years later Marx shifted his prediction to England.15
It was ironical that Communism (at least the Dictatorship of the proletariat) should first come to Russia -- a nation which in economic matters was one of the least developed among all the countries in Europe. Furthermore, Communism came as a coup in Russia, not through any class struggle on the part of the workers. It came through the conspiratorial intrigue of V.I. Lenin, who was encouraged by the German High Command to go into Russia during the closing months of World War I and use a small, hard core of revolutionaries to seize the provisional government which had but recently forced the Tzar to abdicate and was at the moment representing the working class, as much as anyone else, in setting up a democratic constitution.
Communism therefore did not come to Russia as the natural outcome of class struggle but like any other dictatorship -- by the military might of a small minority. This brings us to the fallacy of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat."
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat
Fallacy 17 -- This proposed monopoly of political and economic power was designed to do many things for the good of humanity, but experience has proven them to be false dreams. For example, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was designed to spread the enjoyment of wealth among the people by abolishing private property and putting all means of production in the hands of the government. Why did they want to do this? They said it was to prevent all property and wealth from falling into the hands of private capitalists.
But what happened when the Communists attempted to do this in Russia? It destroyed what little division of wealth there was and sent the economy hurtling back in the direction of feudalism -- an economic system under which a few privileged persons dispense the necessities of life by arbitrary determination while at the same time dictating the way in which all important phases of life shall be lived by the citizens.
The folly of Marx and Engels was in failing to distinguish the difference between the right of private property and the abuse of private property. They were going to get rid of the abuse by abolishing the right. The problem of humanity has not been the right to own private property but how to provide an equitable distribution of property rights so that many people could enjoy them. Therefore, Communist theory does not solve the problem because of the simple fact that putting all property back under the supervision of the hirelings of a dictatorship launches a trend toward monopoly of property rather than toward a wider distribution of its enjoyment.
Fallacy 18 -- The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was also designed to compensate each man for work performed rather than for wages earned. But by abolishing wages in favor of labor certificates, Communist leaders were simply abandoning the prevailing medium of exchange. After the Communist revolution in Russia it was found that this idea forced that nation to resort to a primitive barter system. The whole idea was so disastrous that it had to be abandoned after a few months. The Communists learned that the problem of equalizing wages is not solved by abolishing wages per se.
Fallacy 19 -- The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was also intended to permit the creation of a huge "defense" army which would help "liberate" the proletariat in other nations until finally the Dictatorship would cover the entire earth.
This veiled attempt to obscure the imperialistic ambitions of Communist leaders for world conquest is still employed. Their armies are always described as being for "defense" and the victims of their aggression as being "liberated." Recent world history has provided a tragic commentary on the role of Communist liberation.
Fallacy 20 -- The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was further expected to give the Communist leaders time to demonstrate to the masses the effectiveness of their plan so as to insure a unity of support for "full communism" which was soon to follow. The Communist Dictatorship in Russia has had no such power to persuade. In fact, the violence which, was authorized for use against the capitalist class has had to be turned loose with equal fury on the proletariat or working class so that today the masses have been reduced to a state of numb and fearful acquiescence rather than a "unity of support" for the Communist cause.
The Stateless, Classless Society Under Full Communism
Fallacy 21 -- The Communist dream of a great new "one world" of the future is based on the belief that a regime of violence and coercion under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would permit the establishment of a society which would produce a new order of men who would acquire the habit of observing what Lenin called the "simple fundamental rules of every-day social life in common."
The fallacy of this hope lies in Communism's perverted interpretation of human behavior. It assumes, on the basis of Dialectical Materialism, that if you change things outside of a man this automatically compels a change on the inside of the man. The inter-relation between environment on the outside and the internal make-up of man is not to be disputed, but environment only conditions man, it does not change his very nature. For example, just as men will always laugh, eat, propagate, gravitate into groups and explore the unknown, so likewise they will always enjoy the pleasure of possessing things (which alone gives pleasure to sharing); they will always possess the desire for individual expression or self-determination, the ambition to improve their circumstances and the motive to excel above others. These qualities are inherent in each generation and cannot be legislated away nor ignored.
Therefore no amount of violence and coercion will ever develop permanent habits of observing the "simple fundamental rules of every-day social life in common" if that social life violates the very nature of man. No matter how man is suppressed he will harbor in his very nature a passionate instinct for freedom to express these desires which are his by inheritance rather than by acquisition. That is why these desires cannot be ignored, and that is why they will not be annihilated even under the ruthless suppressions of a militant Dictatorship of the Proletariat. They will surely rise to assert themselves the very moment the dictatorship shows signs of "withering away."
Sixty centuries of history have demonstrated that society succeeds only when it tempers man's natural instincts and inclinations, In fact, these same qualities of human nature which Communism would try to abolish are the very things which, under proper circumstances, men find to be the sources of satisfaction, strength and well-being which lead to progress for both the individual and for society as a whole.
Fallacy 22 -- Marx and Engels were so anxious to discredit capitalism that they spent most of their time on that particular theme and never got around to revealing the complete pattern for "full communism" which was to replace capitalism; nevertheless, we do have sufficient information to reveal its congenital weaknesses. One of these is the axiom that "Each will produce according to his ability; each will receive according to his need."
This perhaps sounds excellent when one is dealing with a handicapped person, because society is willing to make up to an obviously handicapped person that which he cannot do for himself. But what happens when this is applied to the whole society? Recently a teacher asked his students what they thought about this Communist slogan, and they all seemed to think it was fine. The teacher then said he would give them a little demonstration of what would happen in school if "each produced according to his capacity and each received according to his need." Said he:
"To get a passing grade in this class you must receive 75. Therefore, if any of you get 95 I will take off 20 points and give it to a student who only gets 55. If a student gets 90 I will take off 15 points and give it to a student who only makes 60. In this way everyone will get by."
Immediately there was a storm of protest from the brighter, hard-working students in the class, but the lazy or less studious pupils thought it was a fine idea. Finally the teacher explained:
In terms of Communism this need for "authority" would simply mean returning to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in order to force all workers to produce more of life's necessities. But the Dictatorship of the Proletariat fails, even with force, to make men produce according to their ability. As in the example cited by the school teacher, this is because Communism has deliberately destroyed the most ordinary work incentives. Let us list four of them:
1. Increased reward for increased production.
2. Increased reward for working harder to develop improved products.
The Naked Communist Page 9
