Communism, Exploitation, and Revolutions
For my digital footprint, it would be wise to preface this. No, I'm not a communist.
Communism is a lot more than just pigeons in a parliament nodding in unison, yelling "yes, comrade!" In fact, the Manifesto is perhaps one of the most profound accounts of sociopolitical theories but it's often alienated under the misguided judgement that reading communism makes one a communist. No, it doesn't.
"A spectre haunts Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance in order to lay this spectre: pope and tsar; Metternich and Guizot; French radicals and German police."
— Karl Marx. Chapter 1, the Communist Manifesto.
Humanity has always been one large class struggle. That's all we really are: victims of the sentient ego. Our unimportance has us building systems to differentiate ourselves on some vaguely unimportant features. Ancient Rome was maybe our most primitive effort at keeping the poor, poor, and the rich, rich. The patricians and the plebians, a historical first. Of course, feudalism followed and was largely just a knockoff, besides its glorified decentralization. Slavery — well, obviously we know how that goes. Soon came capitalism with the bourgeois and the proletarians, a modern second. Through all of this and everything else, however, oppression has always looked the same — it's all just the rich trying to be rich, dividing us into the cans and the cannots, the able and the unable. And we always end in revolution, except it never ends. We build problems and then throw solutions at them, only to find that our solutions bring more problems than we had to begin with.
And back in the day, oppressors at least pretended to have more noble, ominously virtuous reasons for all the — excuse the profanity — crap they pulled. Divine mandate, the greater good, social contract, whatever. But in Marx's time, the struggle was not between those who could convince and those who could get convinced. The class struggle was between those with capital and those without: the bourgeois and the proletariat. There was no "divine purpose". It's money. What're you going to do about it? Either you're in or you're out, either you can exploit or you're exploited. This was the capitalist's creatively rousing and honest defense.
It's worth noting that the communist agenda, at its core, isn't natural. It's not the general inclination of human behavior to achieve a communist state — no, the impetus for communism comes from the failures of capitalism. It's to say "Hey, this doesn't work. It has some insanely awful consequences. Try this instead". But what exactly is the problem with capitalism anyway? Why should you care?
As a species, we aren't getting anywhere. There is no greater goal. We're a machine that serves no purpose. Occasionally a riot breaks out; sometimes a union forms, real problems hit the Wednesday afternoon news headline, and people talk about things. But nothing is really changing. Think of the grandest of things humanity can achieve. Think of space revolutions, ambient-pressure superconductivity, solving housing crises, and fixing poverty. Think of harmonizing a species. None of that will be achieved under a capitalist state — the sole purpose of capitalism is not to make the human experience better, but rather to throw money at it. The aggregate suffering of humanity has only increased with time and the turn of the industrial revolution stands a testament to that.
This problem, albeit on a more microeconomic scale, was largely recognized by Marx and the likes of him. The Manifesto proposes a solution through the abolition of private property.
Communism isn't as scary to understand as we think it is. The theory of the communists may be summed up in a single sentence: abolition of private property. Now, the modern man would obviously contend that he worked hard for his property and that his fathers and forefathers struggled. Why should anyone take it away? Who is anybody to say what can be owned and what cannot? But the modern man fails to recognize that the idea of private property has been destroyed.
Does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour.
— The Manifesto, Chapter 3
Here's the crazy thing that often goes unnoticed. Nine-tenths (a severe euphemism) of the population have already had their private property abolished. No one has anything, except the tenth that has everything; the communists only hope to equalize those conditions. The 85 richest in the world have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest, giving them the freedom to disregard the human condition.
"But Marx, why is communism such a violent experience?" There is no greater state that protects the proletariats. There's no reason to be a part of some social allegiance beyond one that unites their cause. And so, they turn to political revolution, to take back capital. It is only owning the means of production that affords one the privilege of disregarding others. Marx recognized this.
Communism doesn't inherently have a problem with capital. There's no conflict here. The only conflict is the oppression that arises as a result of capital. So yes, revolutions and radical changes will be draconian. And yes, they have to be. There is no other way. You cannot fix the capitalist system. You must replace it entirely. The Manifesto predicted that proletariats would one day rise up in a revolution and its materialization is often seen as one of communism's largest failures. But there is no way we can do it peacefully because we have been lulled into complacency for so long. We find ourselves comfortable in mediocrity. A sleeping species.
As always, thank you for reading!