Karl Marx: The Difference Between Capitalism and Socialism

This post is about Karl Marx’s ideas of capitalism and its certain tenets that seemed philosophically incorrect to him. I came across a blog post on “Why Libertarians should reach Marx?”, and it seemed to have quite a few useful useful pointers that highlight the differences between capitalism and socialism from a philosophical point-of-view.

Marx was admiring of capitalism in some respects. It has, he wrote, given “an immense development to commerce” and has “accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals.”

Marx appreciated capitalism for what it achieved, and in fact, a lot of his ideas were elaborations of Ricardian economics, like the labour theory of value, the division of income between classes, and the idea of a falling rate of profit (diminishing marginal returns).

However, it is his innate belief about labour that is central to his critique of capitalism.

For him, capitalism — understood not as a market economy but one in which capital hired labour — was not a “natural” phenomenon but rather something that came into the world “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” It was founded on theft and slavery — the denial of the rights and freedom which libertarians celebrate. This poses a challenge: insofar as today’s economy is founded upon past injustices, how can they be regarded as legitimate?

Another highlight is Marx’s attitude to freedom. His main gripe with capitalism wasn’t so much that it was unfair but it thwarted our freedom to develop our human potential. Work, instead of being a source of self-expression, is oppressive and alienating under capitalism.

Within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual labourer; all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labour process.

Bad work standards and ethics are the bane of so many corporations today. This brings to my mind two examples.

Uber’s mistreatment of its employees is for everyone to see. The taxi-hailing app is treating its drivers as “Victorian style” sweated labour, with some taking home less than the minimum wage.

The entire Chinese labour market is one giant example of labour being an appendage of a machine. There is no freedom of association to form trade unions and non-governmental labour organisations are closely monitored by the Government who carry out regular crackdowns. Multinational corporations and national factory owners take advantage of the anti-union climate, the workers’ lack of awareness of their own rights and the Chinese government’s unwillingness to address the abuse of migrant workers’ rights.