Marxism: Transition from Capitalism to Communism
Is the transition from a bourgeois society to a communist society the result of historical changes in economic conditions? What are the conditions for this transition?
In the second half of the 19th century, capitalism and its contradictions were already visible: labor exploitation, anarchy in production, economic crises, and miserable conditions of the working class. In this context, Marx’s philosophy is distinguished by its social commitment, by its intent to incite awareness and revolution of the workers and oppressed class against the bourgeoisie.
Influences on Marx
One of the deepest influences is found in Hegel, who argues that history focuses on the universal ideas of dialectical clash led by the Spirit and is the gradual unfolding of the consciousness of freedom that is at its best performance in the State, since the individual outside the State, without its support and protection, is nothing.
Compared to the study of ideas and alleged historical importance, Marx aims to study the material reality of man and the world in which they live. Therefore, the dialectical confrontation will be between social classes. Dialectics is the story itself in the inevitable process step by step leading to a final revolution, where the state will control the economy; this is the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Another influence is Feuerbach, from whom Marx takes the concept of alienation. But according to Marx, that materialism is purely theoretical; it reinterprets reality but is resigned not to transform it. “Until now philosophers have only interpreted the world differently: but now it is transforming.” Man can only solve their problems through conscious, educated, and supportive action.
A fourth influence is French socialism, from which Marx takes the idea of class struggle and some of its socialist and revolutionary claims.
For Marx, both violent revolution and the stage of the dictatorship of the proletariat are essential.
Finally, he draws on studies of English economists.
Marx’s Materialist Conception of History
The starting point is the human being in the world around him and his activity to meet his needs. He interacts with nature and gives rise to the productive forces and their relationships with men to the social relations of production.
- Among the former are tools, raw materials, labor force, and all that is involved in the production of goods.
- Among the latter are the relationships established between people to get those products, such as job sharing, and especially property relations.
In some historical moments, productive forces and relations of production can fit together. However, as the production process is continuous, productive forces are transformed. Natural sources are discovered, and above all, new instruments and methods of production are invented, demanding changes in the relations of production. These relations can resist, creating tensions and revolutions, and ultimately yield, moving the whole society towards a new stage of social organization.
Together, social productive forces and production relations constitute what is called economic infrastructure, while the value system of beliefs and norms that exists in society will be its superstructure.
The decisive element of history is the economic structure of society, and the superstructure (legal, political, moral, religious, philosophical, scientific, artistic) is its reflection.
The whole social structure (infrastructure and superstructure) is the mode of production.
The ruling ideas of each age are the idealized expression of the dominant material relationships. Therefore, ideas and theories cannot be eliminated with theoretical critique but through the demolition of the material relations on which they are based.
Thus, the motor of history is revolutionary praxis.
However, although the factor that determines history is the production of material life, the superstructure can determine how the historical process unfolds.
If history is determined by the specific forms of production, consumption, and property, one can distinguish in the history of progress between different modes of production: the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the bourgeois.
How does one change from a bourgeois society to a communist one, and what are its features?
The capitalist system is a system of conflict, full of contradictions: the unequal division of social classes, the anarchy of production, the progress of machinery that affects dismissal, crises, and the pauperization of the proletariat.
Society assumes a reduced capital of capitalists (the bourgeoisie) and a much larger layer of employees (the proletariat). The bourgeoisie owns the means of production, and the proletariat owns only its ability to work.
All that the worker produces beyond what is needed is surplus value, the source of profit.
The proletariat can only achieve a dominant position if it deletes the existing property type in a revolutionary way. However, for the historic final ascent of the proletariat, it is necessary for the proletariat to become aware of its situation and possibilities.
How does the ruling class prevent the proletariat from becoming aware of its state and revolutionary force?
On one hand, it tries to prevent the dominated classes from leaving their state of ignorance and illiteracy. It mainly uses ideology. Revolutionary philosophy must unmask ideological claims, whereas they can only be eliminated with the elimination of the production relations that produce them.
How can the proletariat become aware of its situation if the ruling class controls ideology and the cultural level?
According to Marx, there are other contradictions of capitalism and circumstances that can promote this awareness.
The capitalist system is competitive and leads to the centralization and concentration of capital in an increasingly narrow set of industries and companies, but also to bankruptcy, which increases layoffs, lowers wages, and increases the impoverishment of the proletariat.
Moreover, the division of labor and property alienates the worker from the outcome of their work, from himself, his full and creative activity, other men, and nature, to which he has to submit to satisfy the owner of their livelihoods.
And since the infrastructure is reflected in the superstructure, economic inequalities and alienation within the production process are reflected in inequalities and alienation at political and intellectual levels.
Thus, economic inequality, social crises, the pauperization of the proletariat, and alienation may be stronger than ideological control and force the proletariat to become aware of its situation and revolutionary possibilities. In capitalism, tension between forces of production and relations of production will further limit the social leap.
At one pole of the dialectical tension is the enormous productive power of capitalism, never known before, with its ability to meet the needs of all mankind and develop their capabilities.
In addition, the division of property and labor typical of the capitalist system ruins these possibilities and condemns the majority of the population, crisis after crisis, to a minimum wage, relative poverty, or, in the case of the unemployed, a miserable life.
However, the human being, through the historical process, can be freed from economic forces and overcome them. Future emancipation must be stated as necessary by means of scientific analysis of social dynamics. He can eliminate disposal through revolutionary praxis. True liberation is achieved through the alliance between those who share an alienated situation and understand it, understand their position as victims, and their ability to fight.
Labor organizations begin locally, in factories, where workers are united against the employer, then in industrial sites against the bourgeois capitalist, and lead to national units.
Industrial development fosters the growth of the proletariat and its concentration in major industrial areas. Its crises increase the proletarian mass; therefore, meetings, communication, propaganda, and coalitions disseminate revolutionary ideas and actions faster. Members of dominant classes that are ruined or deny their class and become part of the proletariat shed intellectuals.
Even workers who are weapons used by the bourgeoisie to fight for their interests can backfire.
Socialism and Communism
The combination of these circumstances allows the arrival of a socialist society. Because economic alienation (alienated labor) is the basis of other forms of alienation, what is needed is a complete reorganization that eliminates alienated labor and the relationship between private property and wage labor.
Socialism, which is the first objective of the revolution, must begin with the seizure of political power through violent revolution and the use of force for its own interests. The main goal is communism, but it can only be reached after a period of transition: the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Therefore, in the socialist phase, property is owned collectively, and wages are distributed according to a fixed principle. Communism eliminates the use of property to exploit the work of others.
But this organization continues to regard work as an exchange value and expands it to all men; alienation has not yet been overcome.
Since political power and control are possible, the centralization of production and distribution that tended to capitalism is completed. The proletariat will centralize all instruments of production owned by the state and thus increase as quickly as possible the capacity of the productive forces. This will allow the elimination of alienated labor and the final release, mainly thanks to the technological expansion used for the greater collective wealth and the elimination of mechanical work.
The commune council will consist of states chosen by universal suffrage; other officials will also be “elective, responsible, and revocable at all times.” This leads to the disappearance of the class character of the state, which in turn allows the disappearance of the state itself at the conclusion of this phase.
Communism is the realm of freedom; men work freely to be themselves and achieve wholeness.
It is not possible to describe the communist condition in more detail because we do not know it, nor do we know how exactly the new man will emerge then.
All we know, says Marx, is that history necessarily progresses toward that goal.
But if the essence of familiar history is the class struggle, and it disappears, history itself will disappear. The family, women as private property, prostitution, and the nation will also disappear, but this does not harm anyone because the communists have no nation.
Conclusion
The influence of Marx’s thought extends to a range of social and political movements. However, his revolutionary predictions were wrong. In the Soviet revolution, the first stage of the supposed dictatorship of the proletariat was extended indefinitely, transformed into one of the most brutal tyrannies and absolute systems in recent history.