Meccapmutechture

This is a blog in which I can discuss political thought and theory, but with a distinct focus on Marxism and Neo-Marxism, and how they can be applied to modern American politics and economics, as well as to the world as a whole. It is intended to be both ideological as well as informative, so I won't just be speaking from my soap box, I will also be writing about Marxism as a theory in an attempt to educate my readers about an political theory that many know very little about.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

My Thumos is All Ablaze!

For those of you who don't know what one's "thumos" is, it is an ancient Greek concept that was believed to be the seat of what can best be described as righteous indignation. So a way to read the title of this post in common parlance would be, "I am filled with righteous indignation!"

My wife and I recently watched a film titles "In Time." It was a decent film for what it was, but it was nothing special. For those of you who don't know the film takes place some time in the future, in which all human beings are genetically engineered to die at the age of twenty-five. How does the world deal with this fact? By converting the world's currency to "time." You are paid in "time," you buy food with "time," and when you run out of "time" you simply drop dead on the spot, but so long as you have time you can live forever. The main character lives in the slums and is given about one-hundred years of time by a man and is then pursued as he is suspected of theft. I'll try not to spoil the ending, but because this post involves many of the things in the film I may fail.

First, it must be said that I cannot recall the last time that I have seen such bald-faced anti-capitalist rhetoric in a film produced in the "mainstream." The analogy is incredibly poignant, and it was very obvious to me, but I would imagine that many people just didn't catch it. But anyway, onto some of the things in the film that set my thumos ablaze.

First there is the fact that time is both money and one's life. The lower class if forced to work simply to get by, and never have any money to spare. Does this sound familiar to you? It should. Were it not for the American Welfare State many members of the lower class would simply die. They are constantly fighting to stay above water, and a simply breeze can knock them off, and they would end up on the streets or dead were it not for welfare.

Second, the cost of living. In the film the cost of living rises with a fair amount of regularity, and it is later revealed that this is done to both keep the market from crashing due to there being too much "time" in circulation, but those in charge of these markets make it very clear that they also do this to keep the members of the various classes in their place. "Oh, you folks just saved enough money to move up in society, well the price of food just went up, so too bad." Now i have to admit that the manipulation of the cost of living in this film is an extremely exaggerated form of what we see today, but the fact remains that the capitalist power structure must do these kinds of things to prevent a complete collapse of the system.

This idea also feeds into the unemployment levels that are fundamentally build into the system so as to keep the working class in competition: when there is a lack of work people will work for less and take any job they can get. In addition this keeps the working class from rallying as they are constantly in competition with each other for work. I recall reading an article a while back about how, despite the fact that people were finally starting to go back to work, many of them were taking jobs that paid them less than they had before the global economy nearly collapsed. The disparity in the distribution of wealth expands and the working class gets left to rot.

Lastly, and this will probably spoil the ending, but by this point I doubt you care, is the fact that this film actually got me on board with a Marxist revolution. At the end of the film the main character and his companion bring down the system by flooding the market with millions, if not billions or trillions of years worth of time, and by the end of the film my thumos was roaring hotter than it had in a great while. (Sorry, I just love that phrase, it has been hailed as "The greatest thing I have ever said," by many of my Greek classmates.) The parallels to America were so clear that I couldn't help but want to actually go out and do something about it, which is a first for me.

The reason why this is such a significant turn for me, though it must be said that I am by no means entirely sold on the idea of violent revolutions bringing about communist states, is because previous to this I was wholly committed to my idea that communist states could develop slowly, over time, through democratic change in an industrialized, capitalist state. (If you want more information of this read the last portion of my senior thesis, which I have posted on this blog.) Revolutionary Marxist is something that Lenin and Mao participated in, and if you have read my thesis you know that I find the majority of their work detestable as it throws out many of the foundations of Marxism to make way for a Vanguard Party. They're doing it wrong. However, after watching this film I took some time to think and I finally came to the conclusion that a Marxist revolution was entirely feasible in the United States: the basic conditions are more than met, meaning that I would still be following a hard-line Marxist position. This is quite a big occurrence for me.

Anyway, I'll wrap up by saying that "In Time" was not a terrible film, but more importantly it caused a rather tumultuous change in my position on Marxist revolutions. It's 9PM, and I don't want to drag this on, besides, I'm sure if you are reading this you already go the point of this post, so I don't need to drag it out in a conclusion.

As a final note, I discovered that I am only one class short, my thesis course, of a philosophy degree. However, my paperwork for graduation in May had already been submitted, so I am starting work on another thesis, grounded in Classical Greek, over the summer, that I will use to complete my thesis class as independent study in the fall, after which I will receive a second degree, all of which required me to re-apply to school. I will, of course, post that paper here. Expect it to be a comparison Aristotle's and Marx's views on human nature, filled with lost of Greek that you won't be able to read, as well as plenty of Feuerbach and Hegel. Political Theory/Philosophy, it's the best.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Freindly Fascism

I took a Political Philosophy class, which is basically a political theory course taught by the philosophy department, making it much better, this past semester in which we read a book titled Friendly Fascism by Bertram Gross. In his book Gross spends about three hundred and fifty pages arguing that America, if it is not already a fascist nation, is very quickly becoming one. The most haunting thing about the work is that it was published in 1980, and apart from a grievous misstep regarding the spread of Communism, many of his prediction regarding what a fascist America would look like have come true.

To make a long story short, Gross believes that America has been overtaken by what he calls friendly fascism, which is a form of ideological fascism that has learned from the mistakes of Nazi Germany and other fascist movements from the first half of the Twentieth Century and has taken steps to implement and maintain fascist power through subversion and manipulation rather than force and fear. If you want the whole case then I encourage you to read the book yourself as it is utterly fascinating albeit a bit depressing. However, the real reason I bring this up is that I want to give my own case for it and at the same time try to clear the air of some of this "socialism" that people accuse the American Left of trying to implement.

First, let's define fascism. Fascism, at it's base, is an economy ideology: all of the fear, cruelty, warmongering, and other things that people associate with fascism are either secondary principles or accidental to what people think of as fascism, namely Nazi Germany and Italy under the rule of Mussolini. The driving principle behind fascism is the alignment of the interests of the state with those of certain corporate interests. Thus the difference between the modern definition of socialism and fascism is that in a fascist state the government's primary concern is the promotion and well being of Big Car Company Inc. and in a socialist state the government owns and operates Big Car Company Inc. That said, why don't you take a minute and think about a fairly recent and prominent occurrence that was distinctly fascist. If you can't think of one after a minute or two I'm going to spoil it for you in the next paragraph.

The answer I am looking for the is bailouts. With the real definition of fascism at the ready it becomes clear that the bailouts of banks, mortgage firms, and the U.S. auto industry were nothing but acts of pure fascism. The state doesn't own Ford or Citibank, it simply through billions upon billions of dollars at them: the state socialized the losses and privatized the gains. That is fascism. Plain and simple. Now, according to Gross, this friendly fascist movement is done behind closed doors so the public can't catch wind of what's going on, but that isn't even necessary. This nation has become so politically polarized and ignorant that the fascists don't even have to hide anymore because they can either count on or sway the media to convince the ignorant masses that they are doing something other than what they really are; on the case of the bailouts everyone was convinced that it socialism despite the fact that it was clearly fascism. Oh America, you've fallen a long way.

But I do have one last thing to say before I close this post: fascism is the final, unadulterated form of capitalism. Fascism arises when capitalism is allowed to run rampant. Businesses amass incredible wealth and sink their teeth into government, and once they are in they have more than enough economic power to push and pull legislation any way they please, generally in a direction that favors them. If you don't believe me let me ask you one question:

1. Who has the real power in federal government?

The answer that most people will give is big business, and most people will say that because it's the truth. Between campaign contributions and lobbyists the true power of the American government rests in the hands of big business, and all because those businesses were allowed to thrive, expand, and thus sink their claws into the state itself.

So now that you know what the alternative is does socialism and Marxism really seem that awful? Truthfully, unless you have read Gross you can't fully understand what a fascist America would and does look like, but I can try to give you an idea.

You no longer control your government, Big Business Inc. does. Democracy is now dead.
You are reduced to nothing more than a piece in a machine, and your sole duty is to perpetuate Big Business Inc.
You are only paid enough to keep you from revolting or dying because without workers to exploit capitalism and fascism cannot exist.

That is just a very small taste of what you have to look forward to, and I would say, are already living. Doesn't sound pleasant, does it? Didn't think so. Now let's all go out fight fascism with the sword of democracy and the shield of true socialism.

Sorry, I couldn't help but wax a bit metaphorical there. It had to be done.

Friday, December 2, 2011

My Senior Thesis. Yep, it's finally done.

This is the entirety of my senior thesis, abstract to bibliography. It's not completely polished, and by no means ready for publication, but it's more than enough for the head of the Political Science department, who is notoriously easy-going when it comes to grades. Have a ball.

Marxism and the Development of a Communist State in Modern America

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 signaled to the average American citizen the end of communism as a viable political ideology and proved, definitively, that Marxist thought was nothing more than a broken-backed philosophy that was no longer practically relevant – Capitalism had won. While it is indeed the case that Marx, who presented his idea as a science, as something inevitable and true not only in a theoretical, but also a practical sense, was proved wrong in regards to the more specific points regarding the evolution of human society beyond capitalism, this does not disallow some of the more base assumptions made by Marx to still hold true. Armed with those base assumptions regarding human nature, the nature and decay of economic systems, and the vast reservoirs of knowledge regarding capitalism generally it is indeed possible to show that Marxism is still a very live philosophy in the modern world, and, in keeping true to Marxist thought, the march towards communism inevitably continues today. To begin there must be some specification as to what Marxist thought will be applied to: namely a world in which the economy is governed by corporations with office buildings rather than industrialists with steel mills. From there the concept of alienation of labor must be applied to this modern economic perspective, from which the subject expands to a wide array of topics: the consolidation of wealth and the destruction of the middle class, the nature of wages and the relationship between the worker and the owner, the path to its own destruction that capitalism will take in this modern economic environment, the way in which socialism will and has been emerging today, all while holding true to the base assumptions and conclusions made by Marx regarding the fall of capitalism, the rise of socialism, and the inevitable end in the form of communism. After the argument is established it then becomes necessary to preemptively fend off counterpoints and opposition, beginning with the most simple and obvious objections and progressing on to ones that are much more elaborate and philosophically taxing. The use of Soviet Russia and Red China as practical examples of the impracticability of Marxist thought, the insistence to not adapting Marx's theory to modern circumstances as both a means to show its flaws as well as an attempt to keep Marx's thought as a very strict science, and disagreements with Marx's concept of human nature will all be discussed with charity and defended against. With the argument compete and the most prevalent objections dealt with the conclusion that Marxist thought can indeed be applied to a modern, corporate America will be shown not only to be a viable position, but one that must be adopted due to the very nature of Marx's philosophic, political, and economic commitments.

Paper by

Benjamin Selby Jones

Student of Political Science and Philosophy

Southern Utah University

Cedar City, Utah

Ender89148@yahoo.com

However, this is utterly disingenuous, the reasoning behind the rejection of Marx as an ideology might be reasonable to some, but this work will show that the relevance of Marx continues to this day, Soviet power or not. While it is indeed the case that Marx, who presented his idea as a science, as something inevitable and true not only in a theoretical, but also a practical sense, was proved wrong in regards to the more specific points regarding the evolution of human society beyond capitalism, this does not disallow some of the more base assumptions made by Marx to still hold true. Armed with those base assumptions regarding human nature, the nature and decay of economic systems, and the vast reservoirs of knowledge regarding capitalism generally it is indeed possible to show that Marxism is still a very live philosophy in the modern world, and, in keeping true to Marxist thought, the march towards communism inevitably continues today.

The Foundations of Marxist Thought

Though it could be argued that nearly all of Marxist thought is still relevant to modern American politics and economics that is a case to be made in a much larger work than this. As such, there will be a very deliberate focus, in this work, on those basic ideas that are critical to an understanding of Marxist thought, and without which any attempts at developing a working theory regarding the application of Marxist thought to modern America and the development of a communist state would fail. The areas of Marxist thought that stand out as necessary both generally and in respect to the current political-economic state of The United States are four-fold: the concept of alienation of labor, the nature of the relationship between the owner or employer and the worker, the consolidation of wealth and the destruction of the middle class, and the development of socialism strictly according to Marx. Each of these will be discussed in some detail with the intention of laying a ground work for a contemporary analysis of Marxist thought.

The concept of the alienation of labor is, perhaps, the most central element of Marx's thought in a political sense as it informs nearly all of the rest of the ideology. Put simply this idea is that under capitalism in particular, workers become alienated from their labor: it is no longer theirs. First, it must be said that the labor power of a person does indeed belong to that person. The worker is, in theory, in control of its direction and the ways that it can be put to use (Manuscripts, 74). Whether or not one chooses to use one's labor to, for instance, plant a garden or write a book is, under normal circumstances, completely up to the person in question.[1] To say that labor, as an abstract concept, is not -- at the base level, having not been put to any use -- under the command, and to speak in plain language, owned, by the worker would be an utter falsity of the nature of labor and could in no way be said by any right minded individual. Indeed, Marx holds that man, at his core, is a creature of production and labor, claiming that, “[Men] themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence... (German Ideology).” For Marx, the power of production and the access to the abstract concept of labor to fuel that production are central to the nature of mankind as a species.

The alienation of labor is thus when the labor of the worker is not put towards something self-affirming, in the sense that it aids one in developing as a human being, or when his labor is used by someone else for their own gain despite compensation (Manuscripts, 74). An excellent example of the alienation of labor is that of two men who both make tables. One man works on a factory assembly line, inspecting pieces of tables or ensuring that the legs are securely bound to the tabletop, the other crafts tables in his shop and sells them himself. Both men create tables, but one is alienated from his labor and the other is not. The man in the factory does work that is neither self-affirming nor does he directly see the fruits of his labor. He is paid a wage in exchange for his labor but he is alienated from it for the results of his labor are not his as they belong to the man who owns the factory. The second man is not alienated from his labor for not only does he create art with his labor, he also is able to experience and control the fruits of his labor when he has completed it: the tables he creates are his and he can do with them what he will, the first man has no such liberty.

The second portion of Marxist thought that must be discussed is that of the nature between the worker and the owner, which relies very heavily on the concept of alienation of labor. This relationship is one of utter exploitation and there can be no other conclusion regarding the subject. With the end of Feudalism and the development of industry the prevalence of agrarian economy began to fade and the landowners became the industrialists (Manuscripts, 62). As farming became more efficient industry also became more efficient, these two things happening in concurrence forced those who had once worked on farms to move into the industrial complex and begin work in factories, however, the relationship between the worker and the owner remained the same. Under feudalism the tenant farmer was utterly dependent on the landowner because if they could not work the land then they could not survive. Under capitalism and industry the worker becomes completely dependent on their employer. They do not have nearly enough wealth to not work, nor do they have enough capital to begin their own factory, thus the only way that they can subsist is to sell their labor.

With this knowledge the capitalist is able to take complete control over the worker as the worker has nowhere else to go other than another factory that could be even worse. Not only is a worker then estranged from his labor he also becomes more of a commodity to the owner the more he creates (Manuscripts, 71). Because the worker is estranged from his labor and is compensated in the form of a wage the more he produces the more he suffers. A worker who produces fifty percent more trinkets than another in a set amount of time produces fifty percent more wealth for the owner than the other worker, thus increasing the amount of labor that he is estranged from while generating wealth for the owner that he will never see, but he needn't see it because it is not as if he can go elsewhere: he must continue selling his labor.

The consolidation of wealth and the destruction of the middle class is perhaps the easiest to both understand as well as accept, especially in the world today. First it must be said that Marx labeled what is now known as the middle class as the petty bourgeoisie. The defining characteristic of this class of people is that they do not control the means of production and business, yet their occupation is not so demanding or ultimately low-paying that they cannot own property (Lenin, To the Rural Poor). This class can also be said to include what would now be called ‘small business owners.’ However, this class is neither independently wealthy nor do they own the means of production, thus if for whatever reason they were to lose their job or the value of their work diminished they would be forced into the lower, working class. This must be a constant concern for many people of this class due to the volatile nature of markets under capitalism, and because at any time their work may become obsolete due to the rate of innovation under capitalism and thus the value of their labor would drop very sharply, forcing them into the working class (Manuscripts, 43).

According to Marx there are two reasons why this middle class will eventually disappear in a capitalist society, they, “...sink gradually into the proletariat partly because their diminutive capital... is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their skill is rendered worthless by new means of production (Manuscripts, 217).” The meaning of this is clear: eventually, given what could be called a 'perfect' situation, the petty bourgeoisie would all but disappear. Some would be forced into the proletariat because their small business would be unable to compete with the vast capital and productive capacity of the industrial complex, and the rest would eventually find their work rendered useless and would either lose their position or their wage would drop due to the diminished value of their labor. Again, in a perfect situation, eventually the entirety of production would become so efficient the entire petty bourgeoisie would disappear, leaving nothing but the bourgeoisie and the proletariat behind. It would be at this point in which Capitalism would begin to crumble.

The last point that must be discussed is the collapse of capitalism and the evolution to socialism within a capitalist state. Marx held that the “the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class;” as such the development of socialism had to stem from that lower class. It would rise from that class for one simple reason: exploitation. With every passing day the proletariat would see itself growing, more and more people reduced to their level of poverty and dependence on the industrialists who own the means of production. All the while those same industrialists were reaping the fruits of their labor, gaining wealth, while their wages fell relative to living costs. And as the market booms and busts, driving the lower class into the dirt and the petty bourgeoisie into their ranks, the industrialists remain in relative comfort. Eventually the proletariat would become so large and their indignation so complete that their situation would become too much to bear and the revolution would finally come, and there would be nothing to stop them as the land owners and industrialists would still be in conflict (Critique).[2]

During this revolution of the proletariat the state itself will be seized by the proletariat, leading to what Marx called the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is simply a period in which the proletariat holds all political power within the state and acts according only to the will of the proletariat. The aim of this dictatorship is the abolition of all class and the formation of a classless society, better known as communism. However, during this period of dictatorship there arises what Marx labeled as a young or rudimentary form of communism. Before a true classless society can be created there must be a consolidation of the means of production under the state, which is under the control of the proletariat. It is during this period that all of the means of production are controlled by the state and all necessities are distributed to the population by the state. It is necessary for this to take place as without it the development of a communist society would be utterly chaotic and would, in all likelihood, fail. From this early communist state under the rule of the dictatorship of the proletariat a communist state rises when the dictatorship relinquishes power, dissolves the state proper, and places the means of production and the distribution of necessities into the hands of the people. This is a communist society.

In Defense of Marxist Thought

It seems to be the common opinion of the general population in the United States that Communism, Marxism, Socialism, or whatever they happen to call it, is dead – a failed ideology. However, when pressed on the subject as to why they believe it to be a failure the most common response is something along the lines of, “Well it didn't work is Russia or China, so it obviously doesn't work.” Because this is such a common point made by those who oppose Marxist thought it is only sensible to devote some time into the refutation of this argument.

The primary fault with the above argument against Marx is that it is utterly fallacious. The argument is an incredibly clear cut case of a Straw Man fallacy, but only when one truly understand some of the more basic points of Marxist thought, namely its scientific nature, does this become entirely clear. Marx presented his ideas as a science: it was a practical inquiry that Marx held to be as close to a science as is possible to achieve within what is known as a social science. Marx held that, based on his observations of past nations and political and economic systems, humanity's march towards socialism and communism was not only inevitable, but the path on which it would take could not be fundamentally changed. This means that the transition from capitalism to socialism and from socialism to communism must come to be, but due to the scientific nature of Marx's inquiry it must proceed in that order because this is human social evolution, not a political system that Marx thought would come about in a certain way. It is from this portion of Marxist thought that the fallacious nature of the above argument rises.

The reason why the argument if fallacious is simple: there has never, to this day, been a communist revolution in which Marx's plan has been even remotely followed. The two most prominent examples of this, and the two examples that people tend to cite most often, are Soviet Russia and Red China, with China being the worse of the two offenders. The most important problem with both of those examples is that both of them skipped capitalism. According to Marx states evolved from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to socialism, and that this progression was necessary. Both the Chinese and Russian economies at the times of their respective revolutions were almost entirely feudal: the means of production, namely agrarian, were held in the hands of lords who provided the land to peasants to work in exchange of a portion of their crop.

In the case of Russia the skipping of capitalism was due to the political thought of Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks. According to Lenin the formation of a Vanguard Party, which Marx eluded to slightly in The Communist Manifesto (Manuscripts, 222), could take the reins and lead a nation on a proletarian socialist revolution even if the proletariat had not fully formed. Marx defined the proletariat as the class of people that have no other means of subsistence other than the selling of their labor in a capitalist society, thus if there is no capitalist society then there can truly be no proletariat, thus rendering the possibility of socialist revolution impossible. Lenin saw no such distinction, including the feudal serfs in his conception of a proletariat and working class. This allowed him to justify forming a vanguard party, in his case the Bolshevik Party, and spearheading a socialist revolution in a state that was by no means capitalist, and thus devoid of any real proletarian class. While it cannot be denied that the revolution was a success, it also cannot be denied that the Soviet system failed, and while there may be a great many reasons for that, it can all be easily traced back to the fact that when Lenin lead his vanguard party to revolution in 1917 Russia was by no means prepared for a socialist state; economically or socially.

Mao and China faced a similar problem in that Mao lead a revolution against the Chinese Nationalist Party that was in control of the democratic government in place prior to the revolution in 1949. Mao fell into the same trap that Lenin had, holding to the idea that a class other than the proletariat, or at least a class that Mao called the proletariat, could be led by a communist party to revolution and the creation of a socialist state. While at the time China was a bit more industrial and capitalistic than Russia had been during its revolution, the farmers were the focus of Mao's revolution, hoping to better their lives and free them from their feudal chains via a revolution (Mao, The Chinese Revolution). Indeed, Mao specified that his movement was anti-feudal in nature, dooming the socialist society he sought to create even before it had even been able to form.

The fallacious nature of using the Chinese and Russian socialist revolutions should be completely clear at this point: they employ a straw man because they call upon evidence that is deliberately, but more importantly, inaccurately weak. To be more clear, the Russian and Chinese revolutions are clearly cases of Marxist thought being employed in ways not even remotely in keeping with Marxist thought. In fact, they ignore the portion of Marx's work that is the most profound, specifically his work on the nature of capitalism. Because of this omission claiming that these revolutions and the states which sprang from them prove that Marxist thought and communism are ludicrous and no longer relevant is nothing short of fallacious: they use weak and flawed examples to support a position. Indeed, such arguments are the political equivalent of skipping a step in a chemistry experiment, and when the result of the experiment is not what the creator of the experiment said it ought to have been, blaming the creator, and calling both him and his theory and experiment utterly false. Such arguments cannot be allowed here, nor in any reasonable discussion of any kind, thus rendering the most common arguments against communism completely inert.

It must also be mentioned that, with their go-to arguments ruined, the only real lines of attack left are those against Marx's conception of human nature and some kind of moralistic plea that claims that communism destroys liberty or something of that sort. The ladder is just as fallacious as those previously mentioned, and for reasons similar to those arguments already rejected, though it also begs the question, but the former is actually quite a fertile ground for argument. However, the focus of this work is the political, rather than the philosophical, aspects of Marxist thought, and arguments regarding human nature fall squarely into the philosophic arena. As such, those arguments and their refutations will not be discussed here for both the sake of continuity as well as brevity and clarity.

Marxist Thought Applied to Contemporary America and Corporate Capitalism

But what does all of this mean for those of us living today and how is it still applicable when the world has changed so thoroughly from when Marx wrote? The answers are simple enough as the majority of the modern, industrialized world lives under some form of capitalism or another. As such, none of the basic concepts that are essential to understand Marxist thought need to be changed in order to make the applicable to modern society, they simply need to be shown to be so, which will be done now, dealing primarily with the three ideas explained previously, with the fourth comprising its own section, being the primary focus of this work.

The first of these concepts to be discussed in a modern context is the alienation of labor. The continuation of this is still the norm, and it could be argued that it has become even worse in this modern age. The most obvious occurrence of the alienation of labor today is in industry, and this is due to the fact that it is a mere continuation of the primary form of alienation of labor that Marx saw during his time. Indeed, there is little to no difference between the nature of industry one hundred and fifty years ago than what can be seen in industry today. When one manufactures an automobile on an assembly line the alienation of their labor is no different than the man who produced tables in a factory one-hundred and fifty years ago. Both workers are removed from the products of their labor and their labor is no longer a self-affirming action. It must also be said that labor unions have done very little to prevent the alienation of labor despite their progress against other problems that come with a capitalist society.

However, it is not just in industry that alienation of labor occurs as it is just as prevalent in corporate offices and cubicles; in fact it could be said to be even worse due to the nature of the work that goes on in such environments. Take, for example, a man who works for Big Business Inc. in a cubicle and does almost nothing but monitor and log information regarding what other employees in the building are doing on the internet. His labor is put to use in this way and he receives a wage for it but he is incredibly alienated from his labor because, even though this may be life-affirming work to some, his labor produces something that he is not a part of, nor is he compensated for his labor based on the amount of money that his labor produces from the company. But there is something even worse about the product of this man's labor: it is utterly incorporeal. It could be said that what the man is producing is security for the company because the company now has a better understanding of what their employees are doing on their computers, or even that he is producing the logs or the files that contain the logs he produces, but in reality he is producing nothing that he can look at the end of the day and say, “I made that,” not will he ever have such a privilege.[3] Similar things can be said for a large variety of congruent positions throughout any given corporate body.

The nature of the relationship between owner and worker, or more specifically today, boss and employee, according to Marx is still very alive today as well and the applications of it should be quite clear. In the case of manufacturing this example is in far more dire straits than that of corporate environments. Without a doubt the nature of manufacturing has hardly changed since Marx wrote and exploitation is still rampant and is, as is to be expected, directly tied to the alienation of labor. Today employees of industry are still exploited and their labor is still removed from them by their employers. In the United States this has been alleviated, to some degree, by the introduction of unions. However industry has found ways to circumvent this, which has only made the problem of exploitation in industry much worse. The North American Free Trade Agreement, negotiations for which began in 1986, the dismantling of tariffs, and the general promotion of what has become known as outsourcing were the economic hallmarks of the 1980's and early 1990's that have allowed for two things to take place: first, it allowed industry to get around the power of unions by giving industry the power to simply move production to a nation in which the workers are far less protected than the United States. Second, it worsened the problem of exploitation on a global scale because those nations that industry moved into have far fewer protections for their workers that the United States, indeed, this is why industry moved to those nations. According to Marx this is only natural as capitalism has an unending desire, and in fact need, to expand itself and exploit as many markets as thoroughly possible in order to perpetuate itself. And while attempts to force the worker to remain in his position as worker is less pronounced in American industry, mostly due to the influence of unions, a man working in an automotive factory for twenty-five years has no other skills and if he were to lose his job he would be forced to take a job that is much lower on the overall pay grade.

In terms of corporate environments the exploitation is a bit more subtle, but in some ways even more sinister than that of industry. The exploitation of workers within big businesses comes from two places, the first being the general lack of unions within such situations. Due to the nature of work in a typical office or some other corporate environment the labor comes cheap and is by no means 'skilled labor,' as anyone can punch in numbers in a database. There are no unions in these situations to help prevent exploitation but the general idea among such employees is that they are getting a fair deal and have a decent job and thus have no need for unions anyway. This allows employers to keep employees 'in line' because they know that they have no real protection against being let go and thus must not only work nights and weekends in an attempt to show their worth, but it also forces them to accept what they are paid and not make a fuss about it because they can be replaced, without ceremony, very quickly. The second source of exploitation is benefits. This is, without a doubt, the most subtle form of exploitation in the American system. It starts with insurance, healthcare, dental, and the like. Because these insurances are not provided by the federal government in the United States workers must find a way to attain them. The cheapest way of going about this, for most people, is to find a job that provides such benefits, but this ties that employee very closely to their employer because were they to find another job or lose their job they would suddenly be without something that is, in today's society, all but necessary. The second form of this is less prevalent but still very relevant and that is the idea of 'stock options.' The giving of stock to employees does one thing, and it does it very well: it makes them feel as though they are not truly alienated from their labor because they now have an interest, or so they believe, in the business’s success. While this is the case, the effect is much smaller than it appears because one man's labor is, in all likelihood, not going to make or break a company’s stock price, nor do their newly gained stocks by any means provide a worker with appropriate compensation for their labor.

Lastly, when it comes to the elimination of the middle class, the occurrence of this in the United States should be the most evident of anything discussed here, and the evidence for this is remarkably simple: the growing divide between the rich and poor, or to speak more empirically, the distribution of wealth within the United States. The evidence universally supports the fact that the gap between the rich and poor is steadily widening and thus the middle class is shrinking. This can be shown both through the use of Marxist doctrine as well as the use of simple economic principles. Marx stated that the pretty-bourgeoisie, what Americans would consider the middle class, was constantly in danger of slipping into the proletariat through a variety of means, so the decline of the middle class should be no surprise to anyone at all. However, the fact that the middle class is declining is unavoidable when the evidence is combined with basic reasoning.

First, let us rightly assume that as the amount of wealth within a society increases, given perfectly equal circumstances, the wealth of the people within that society would all see equal increases in personal wealth. If the wealth of a nation increases by twenty percent in ten years then given equal distribution, then each person within that state would see a twenty percent increase in wealth; this is a very basic concept. However, the data shows that this is not the case as the wealthiest in the United States have seen, by far, the greatest percentage increase in wealth (United States). This has a very direct bearing on the elimination of the middle class because there is only so much wealth in play at a certain time, and as both reasoning and the data indicate, wealth begets wealth. While the wealth in a society precipitates upward there is only one outcome: the wealth is sapped from the lower classes, yet the wealth does not trickle back down again, at least not nearly at the rates at which it is sapped. This natural occurrence within a capitalist system is the major contributing factor to the forcing of the petty-bourgeoisie into the proletariat. The incomes of the middle class cannot be sustained and their jobs are eliminated, or their pay reduced, or a variety of other things can happen because of the precipitation of wealth, that slowly forces those in the middle class into the lower class more quickly than the market can replenish them due to the natural gravitation of wealth to the bourgeoisie, and thus the middle class shrinks and dies.

The Modern Progression to a Communist State

Now we reach the crux of this work, and indeed the most important subject. However, first the reason why Marx must be interpreted in a slightly different way must be discussed. All major commitments will be held to and applied to the modern condition, but there were two things that Marx did not foresee when he was writing: the success of the welfare state and the power those who reinterpreted his work would have in the world. From there it will be shown that a thorough-going reading of Marx, applied to the modern world, allows for the development of a communist state to be not only a very live option, but, as Marx intended, an inevitability.

While the concept of poor relief and the welfare state had been around for centuries prior to Marx, it had neither had very profound effects, nor was it very well or thoroughly executed, and thus Marx did not foresee the problems that it would cause in his theory. Marx believed that economic inequality and the inhospitable conditions the workers were forced into would, eventually, bring about the revolution of the proletariat and eventually a communist state, but he did not take into account the tremendous success the welfare state would have. From a layman’s perspective the idea behind a welfare state is the aid of the poor and preventing them from starving. This is simple human decency for most people. However, the reality is that the welfare state amounts to little more than a very well formed and well-disguised attempt to keep the lower classes content and mitigate any kind of revolutionary ideas by elevating their position slightly from deplorable to unsatisfactory. This attempt by capitalist elements has been wildly successful with welfare states to varying degrees in nearly every industrialized state on the planet. Though it must be noted that the recent economic turmoil throughout the world has shown that these welfare states can only do so much in their current forms, but this will be discussed in more depth later.

The other thing that Marx did not anticipate was the fact that his work would be so radically reinterpreted into ideologies such as Maoism and Leninism. Admittedly, this does not do much to discredit Marx to those who understand how profoundly misguided these reinterpretations were, but they did a very thorough job of turning the world, particularly the American public, against the idea of socialism and Marxist thought in general. The fact that the Soviet Union, Red China, Red Cuba, and other such states have left such a sour taste in the mouths of so many Americans has proved itself to be quite the hindrance to the development of a communist state because those who wrongly assume that such states represent Marxist thought have fought tooth and nail against the expansion of the welfare state within the United States as well as any kind of general push for Marxist thought in American government; direct opposition from the people who would benefit from a movement is by no means a boon to said movement.

Now America's progression to a communist state can, at last, be discussed, starting with the American Gilded Age, or true industrial revolution. Following the American Civil War industry became the king in the United States and capitalism in its full form finally began to truly take off in the New World. As is to be expected in any industrial capitalist society people began moving to cities to work in the factories and the shift from agriculture to industry solidified just as Marx had discussed (Manuscripts, 66). As the era progressed capitalism, and its negative effects on a society, developed remarkably quickly due to the vast natural resources available in North America and trusts, monopolies, and conglomerates accumulated vast amount of political and economic power in a very short amount of time. This lead to the Trust-Busting era which, while did not do much to establish any kind of welfare state in America, it did a quite efficient job of staving off the consolidation of wealth within the hands of a few industrialists. Then came the Great Depression.

In October of 1929 the American economy was stricken by a massive economic crash that ushered in the Great Depression. Millions were left without work, banks closed and life savings were lost, and the American welfare state finally saw a true birth. President Franklin Roosevelt did the only thing that could be done given the circumstances and enacting sweeping reforms to American economics while also beginning poor relief programs as well as putting millions of Americans to work on public works projects. These changes coupled with the fact that a wartime economy took hold of the nation when World War Two came to the American doorstep allowed America to recover and continue on.

After the war America was given a time of unprecedented prosperity. Mitigated by the reforms of the first half of the century, capitalism reared its head once again, commercial industry and production returned to the United States, commodities were plentiful, unions were powerful, and the economy boomed. As the century continued on the booms and busts starting creeping up again, the welfare state in America was expanded to accommodate the ever-increasing demand capitalism was placing on the economy, and the middle class continued to thrive. Then came the Reagan administration which, as previously discussed, did a very thorough job of beginning the true demise of the middle class. Promoting outsourcing, neutering unions, and deregulating the economy in the name of 'trickle down economics' spelled the beginning of the end of the middle class and capitalism, and just as is to be expected, this allowed the upper class to hasten their accumulation of wealth. This leads us to today, with the middle class dying, millions out of work, the economy in shambles, and communism on the horizon. This is also where Marx's thought must be deviated from, but only slightly.

While the development of welfare state during the Great Depression did put a stick in the proverbial spokes of Marxist thought, the inevitability of a communist state uses this to its advantage. The welfare state sets a precedent of government intervention that, as the economy becomes more and more volatile as time presses on, must become more and more extensive. This is, in fact, where Maoist thought has some worth. Mao held that socialism was a middle ground between capitalism and communism that would exist for a time after capitalism eventually giving way to communism. This is a very live option for the United States. The welfare state is still expanding, and as the economy's booms and busts continue to get all the more pronounced so will the intervention. This will lead to the eventual socializing of vast sectors of the economy in an attempt to keep the economy from reeling out of control. From there it will only be a matter of time before communism is actualized as the people and the state realize the utter failure of capitalism and that it need not even exist any longer. Once this is understood the state proper will be dissolved and the essential means of production will be distributed to the state which will consist only of the people. Communism will have been actualized, and the welfare state will have done nothing but slowed the process and made the transition peaceful.

The second option is that the American government turns over a new leaf and ends the expansion of the welfare state and economic intervention. If this were to happen then Marx's predictions will come true. There will be a revolution, a run on the White House, and all of Marx's thought will be validated as a communist state rises from the ashes of Washington and Wall Street. Once again, in this situation, the welfare state did nothing but slow the process, putting off the actualization of Marxist thought a while. The most intriguing part of this progression is that America is making a choice which route to take as we speak. The Occupy Wall Street movement is the beginnings of the revolution of the proletariat. While the revolution may not happen for a few years hence the foundation has been laid with the Occupy movement and Washington is left with a choice. From here the inevitable end can come about in one of two ways: the welfare state and federal intervention into the economy is expanded yet again, wealth is redistributed, and the economy is more generally socialized. If successful this will placate that masses and prevent a revolution. If nothing is done, and the welfare state is not expanded any more, the revolution will come. In short, the evolution of a communist state in America can, from this point in history, come about in two ways, slow and peaceful, or fast and violent. The end is set, but the route that will be taken is in the hands of the politicians and the people.

As for which route will end up being taken, history seems to suggest that the slow and peaceful route will be chosen, and for two reasons: precedent and fear. The American government has an eighty year history of stepping in when the economy takes a nose dive, and the people have begun to expect it. Indeed, the fact that so little has been done so far in the current economic downturn is quite shocking and the only thing that makes the violent route a live option at this juncture. The other reason to believe the slow route will be chosen is fear. No politician on Capitol Hill will admit that they believe a communist state is an inevitability, and thus their actions regarding the economy are not guided by such thought. As such, they will fall back on their primary motive for doing anything: reelection. If the people are not happy then the chances of one getting reelected are quite poor simply due a lack of confidence in the ability of the elected official to accomplish anything worth doing. If this motivation alone does not spur Capitol Hill into action then the revolution will continue to boil and eventually become overpowering. No longer will the politicians be enacting policy that expands the welfare state and federal intervention in an attempt to get reelected, they will then be enacting policy to prevent the revolution from making a run on the elite and burning Capitol Hill and Wall Street to the ground. If such a thing were to happen not only would politicians be out of a job, but the chances of them making it out of the revolution alive seem quite slim. And, once again, a communist state rises from the ashes.

The end is clear, and the conclusion undeniable. The history of class struggle is still being written, and the progression cannot be stopped, and this work has shown that despite what the masses would like to believe, Marxist thought is still a living breathing ideology that is not only alive but is also the only end. The welfare state and revolutionary Marxism were only potholes along the road that forced a deviation, but the end result is the same. It may not come about in this life time, but the march toward communism cannot be stopped by any means of man.

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[1] It could be said that labor power is more easily explained by simply using the term 'time,' in that one could use their time to do one thing or another. This term is misleading about the nature of labor as labor is an abstract concept until it is put to some use, unlike time which humanity has a concept of even when one is not watching a clock.

[2] It should be noted that Marx is ambiguous on the nature of the revolution, never definitively claiming whether it would be violent or peaceful, international or localized. Though in The Critique of the Gotha Programme Marx does appear to express disdain for the idea of change through the state rather than revolution; this will become relevant later.

[3] This is in stark contrast to the type of security an officer of the law produces when he walks the streets on patrol because, at the very least, when he catches someone breaking the law he can look at their arrest report and look at them in their cell and see the direct fruits of his labor.