Having read the Communist Manifesto and most of Das Kapital, it is apparent where Marx goes wrong right off the bat. All of his thought is littered with bad logic, but most of all, it is built on the improper understanding of what it means to be human. Today, we’ll look at where he goes wrong in his thinking and what this bad logic leads to.
“Men’s ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.”
–Karl Marx
Marx’s premise is off to begin with. He begins from a materialist assumption. He praises science while denying many of the major tenets that allow for the modern scientific process. In his denial of the immaterial part of the human being, he denies the possibility of beauty, truth, and love – each of which is a product of a mind that emanates from a person with a soul.
He then goes on to poorly apply this premise with other German philosophers’ work to create a new way of studying history that is built on the assumption that all of history is on a track toward “progress.” Thus, we ought to understand all of history as a journey toward some end constantly progressing towards progress (though this is never really clarified). Because that is the course of history, it is our duty to comply with or propel progress, just as we wouldn’t try to fight the effects of gravity as it pulls a piano from the 5th story toward our head as we walk below. This allows for the conclusion that complies with this theory to be accepted, no matter how faulty the logic that precedes it.
A few major flaws in the economic theory:
- Labor Theory of Value
- Value of goods when exchanged
- Theory of Money and Capital
Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto:
- Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
- A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
- Abolition of all right of inheritance.
- Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
- Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
- Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
- Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
- Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
- Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
- Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c., &c.
