Just some thoughts from reading The Communist Manifesto
Growing up in Belfast the idea of Marxism wasn’t considered the great pariah the way it is in the United States. Marxism as a critique of society wasn’t considered an equivalent to the U.S.S.R.. While I learned about Marxism in my undergraduate study of sociology and picked up additional pieces of thought in my sociological, philosophical, and theological reading, I had never sat down to read Marx for myself. Last week I read The Communist Manifesto, a fascinating and short read.
In Trotsky’s 1937 introduction to the Manifesto it’s clear why the Civil Rights movement got labelled “socialist.” He writes, “The movement of the coloured races against their imperialist oppressors is one of the most important and powerful movements against the existing order and therefore calls for the complete, unconditional, and unlimited support on the part of the proletariat of the white race.”
While I believe Marx and Engels were off base on a number of important topics, especially Christianity (although I’m biassed on this one). They also offer solid critiques utilising class divisions as the basis of their thinking.
The Manifesto reminds us that capitalism hasn’t always been the dominant ideology. Before capitalism was feudalism and they note that this new structure of capitalism, “has not done away with class antagonisms.” So Marx and Engels become advocates for the oppressed, working class (proletariat) because they are, “A class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity.” A commodity, a resource, human resource - last time I checked the Scriptures humanity wasn’t a commodity and Marx is right to call this out.
Marxism is often, and I believe rightly, criticised for the call to do away with all private property. However, as the Manifesto states, “You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its nonexistence in the hands of the nine-tenths.” That should cause us to pause for thought. Does our current system provide for everyone or is it designed for the few? As Marx and Engels state elsewhere in the Manifesto, “Does wage labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit.”
There is much to disagree with, but there is at least as much to challenge our thinking and perhaps find agreement with. In the Manifesto Marx and Engels promote a “progressive or graduated income tax.” They promote the idea of a centralised banking system. They suggest there should be universal and, “Free education for all children in public schools.”
The Manifesto argues that “their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” This is a tragic error on their part. That being said Marx and Engels were looking back at the revolutions in America and France as their examples.
When I read the Scriptures I find that Marx isn’t too far off. That’s why when Hélder Câmara said, “When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” I wonder if we eyes to properly critique our own systems?
