Domalaon, Sharenyl M.

AB-Philosophy 2

Communism: Karl Marx Political Doctrine

A Critique paper

History of Western Philosophy

Imagine a society where everyone have the right to everything, a place where the lands, raw
materials and etc. are owned by the people. A society that is not divided by the classes, the in
existence of rich and poor, indeed an ideal place to live in. This idea is derived from the Political
theory of Karl Marx in his several books namely: Des Kapital and Communist Manifesto known as
‘Marxism’. This paper aim to discussed and critique as well, Marx Communist ideology.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher, economist and sociologist, as well as a
political revolutionary. The Manifesto begins by addressing the issue of class antagonism. Marx
writes, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Throughout
history we see the oppressor and oppressed in constant opposition to each other. This fight is
sometimes hidden and sometimes open. Marx stated that class struggle is bound with particular
historic phase, he distinguished such phases, dividing history into five separate epochs namely: 1.
Primitive Communal, 2. Slave, 3. Feudal, 4. Capitalists, and 5. The socialists and communists
phase. He considered the commodity and value products of economics as the result of conflict
between this social classes. History shows that social and economic orders are in process of change,
change means the emergence of new structure and social forms. The causes of these changes is
simply the alteration in the quantity of things which lead to something qualitatively new. For
example, I can make a large pane of glass vibrate, the range of vibration increasing as the quantity
of force applied to it is increased, however further addition of force no longer add to quantity of
vibration but would cause a qualitative change the shattering of glass.

Marx thought that the history displays this kind of change, by which certain qualitative
elements in the economic order force a qualitative change in the arrangements of society, and this is
the process that moved history from primitive communal to the slave and in then to the feudal and
capitalists epochs. He predicted that the capitalist order would fall based upon this notion that the
changed in the quantitative factors in capitalism would inevitably destroy it. He describe
development of these epochs with low-key expression of someone who was describing how water
will turn into steam as the heat increase, whereas as the capitalist society progress, there’s also a
corresponding increase in the mass of poverty, enslavement, degeneration and exploitation. On this
context, capitalism would eventually fall and would be transformed by the wave of the future,
giving away to the qualitatively different social order of socialism and communism. For Marx
history will end with the emergence of socialism and finally, communism. Through inner conflicts,
over production and exploitation of the workers, the proletarians or laborers would lead a
revolution through formation of trade unions and would eventually abolish the power of the
bourgeois society. Communism main goal is "formation of the proletariat into a class, [the]
overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, [and the] conquest of political power by the proletariat."
Therefore, there will be no acquisition of private property, everything will be under communal
property, thus shared by the people, this would mean existence of classes between people will be
gone.

The property, controlled by the bourgeoisie, represents a social not a personal power. Changing
it into common property does not abolish property as a right, but merely changes its social character,
by eliminating its class character. In a Communist society, then, labor will exist for the sake of the
laborer, not for the sake of producing bourgeois-controlled property. The proletariat will use its
political power to seize all capital from the bourgeoisie and to centralize all instruments of production
under the auspices of the State. This goal of communism challenges bourgeois freedom, and this is
why the bourgeois condemn the Communist philosophy. Marx writes, "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." Despite what the bourgeois claim, Communism
doesn't keep people from appropriating the products of labor. Rather, it keeps them from subjugating
others in the process of this appropriation. Thus, self interest wouldn’t prevail and every laborer will
receive the fruit of their own labor unlike in the capitalist economy, few hands benefit from the work
of the laborer which are the bourgeois solely.

Truly, Marx ideal of Communists society is music to the ears of the many especially to the
laboring class that had been fighting for equality within society, and there had been number of
country in the history that aimed to achieve his ideal but failed to do so. Marx aims to eliminate social
class in the society and who doesn’t want that? In this Communist society, I commend it in some
point that it gives importance to the workers or laborer whom I think are the real owner of production
because without their labor there wouldn’t be bourgeois in the first place, they are the one who are
making the rich, richer. And I think this is just for them taking into a account that throughout history
as well as our generation, laborers are exploited for example some capitalists don’t regularize their
employee to save them money thus deprived them of their incentive.

However, there’s some point that I find problematic with the idea of Communism, it’s main goal
is to abolish private property means, everything will be under the order of the government, therefore
the allocation or the prices of the products and goods will be set by the government which usually it
depends on the law of demand and supply, this would mean that planners lose the valuable feedback
these prices provide about what the people want, they can't get up-to-date information about
consumers' needs, and this will result to surplus of one thing and shortages of others. Under
Communism, output is distributed according to the need of the people but there’s no guarantee that
the people need will be equally address and provided by the state, there are some numerous countries
who aimed for a communists society that led to poverty and famine for example what happened
under the regime of Mao Zedong in China, a man-made famine in which as many as 45 million
people perished – the single biggest episode of mass murder in all of world history. In the Soviet
Union, Joseph Stalin’s collectivization – which served as a model for similar efforts in China and
elsewhere – took some 6 to 10 million lives. Mass famines occurred in many other communist
regimes, ranging from North Korea to Ethiopia. Moreover, Communists regime also engaged in
forms of mass murder, millions died in slave labor camps and others were killed in more
conventional mass executions, such as those of Stalin’s Great Purge, and the Killing Fields” of
Cambodia. But it is not limited to mass murder alone, even those fortunate enough to survive still
were subjected to severe repression, including violations of freedom, of speech, freedom of religion,
loss of property rights, and the criminalization of ordinary economic activity. Nevertheless, these
countries wasn’t able to attain pure Marxism and just transitioning from Socialism, and were all
under dictatorship, hence the failure of their leadership. One of the risks of Communists society is
that there’s no assurance that everyone is subject to equality and the interests of everyone willl be
addressed not by the leaders solely.
References:

Somin, I. Lessons from a Century of Communism. The Washington Post. November 7,

2017Accessed: Novermber 11, 2019. Retrieved from:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/11/07/lessons-from-a-century-
of-communism/

Marx. K, Engels, F. trans. The Communists Manifesto trans. Moore, S Accessed: Novermber
11, 2019. Retrieved from:
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/karl-marx_friedrich-engels/the-communist-manifesto/samuel-m
oore

Stumpf S.E., Fieser. J. Socrates to Sartre and Beyond.: A History of Philosophy. Seventh
Edition. 2005. pg. 367-373