I Bet You're Not a Marxist Even Though You Think You Are

Marxism is based on a view of ordinary people that I hope you do not hold

Let’s see if you really are a Marxist?

Are you opposed to capitalism? Great! But that does not make you a Marxist.

Do you believe that the fundamental conflict in the world is class conflict? Great! But that does not make you a Marxist.

Do you want a classless society based on “From each according to ability, to each according to need”? Great! But that does not make you a Marxist.

Do you think that workers of the world should unite in solidarity? Great! But that does not make you a Marxist.

Do you think that the point is not merely to understand the world but to change it? Great! But that does not make you a Marxist.

Do you think we need a revolution to abolish wage slavery? Great! But that does not make you a Marxist.

Do you think we need to abolish buying and selling and commodification of things? Great! But that does not make you a Marxist.

All of the above great ideas were around long before Karl Marx was even born. Read about this in detail here.

What DOES it mean to be a Marxist?

Being a Marxist means agreeing with Karl Marx’s theory about social/economic change and agreeing with Marx’s view of ordinary people that is the basis for this theory.

The Marxist view of ordinary people (including workers and peasants) is that they are motivated by self-interest, the same as capitalists. The self-interest of people is determined by their relation to the means of production. Workers’ self-interest (i.e., their class interest) is, for example, to have higher wages, whereas capitalists’ self-interest (i.e., class interest) is to have lower wages. There is thus class conflict: self-interest versus self-interest. Very importantly the Marxist notion of class conflict is NOT that it is a conflict over what values should shape society: equality versus inequality, mutual aid versus competition, etc.; it is a conflict over whose interests should prevail.

According to Marx, there are laws of social/economic change that operate as a result of people acting in their self-interest, and these laws result in changes in society that are not what people, of any class, subjectively (consciously) aim to make happen.

Marx gives a twist to Adam Smith’s famous “Invisible Hand” idea that said that although the baker only bakes bread to make a profit for himself and the candlestick maker only makes candlesticks to make a profit for himself, etc., etc., the result is something that nobody consciously aimed for, which is a prosperous society in which everybody had bread and candlesticks, etc., etc. Marx, in contrast to Adam Smith, said that the result (as spelled out in Marx’s Das Kapital: A Critique of Political Economy) was different: a falling rate of profit, a crisis of capitalism, then socialism (the proletariat in power and in ownership of the means of production) and eventually communism (a classless society in the ‘higher phase’ of which—but NOT before—there could be “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”) This all happens, according to Marx, despite the fact that none of it is the subjective (conscious) aim or desire of anybody.

The problem with Marxism is this:

Marxists believe, because the above changes are NOT the conscious aim of working class people, and because working class people have only the self-interest aim for things such as higher wages, that it is therefore important that ONLY Marxists (who have the conscious aim of a classless society) should have the real power in society. This is why all governments controlled by a Communist (Marxist) party are profoundly anti-democratic.

Further reading:

I invite you to read about what Marxist theory actually is here.

I invite you to read what the Marxist view of ordinary people leads to in practice nowadays here.

I invite you to read an online book (it is PDF article #9, titled We CAN Change the World, here) that discusses what ordinary people really do consciously want.

Read here how YOU can help build the egalitarian revolutionary movement to implement the great ideas that were around long before Karl Marx was born.