Friday, November 25, 2011

The Fallacy of Karl Marx


Around the world, adolescents have taken up picket signs in order to protest against corporate greed and inequality. These individuals feel disregarded by a system that does not take into consideration their basic needs and intrinsic human dignity. This of course is in reference to the Occupy Movement.  For many misinformed denizens the world over, the Occupy movement has become the new vehicle with which the clamour the downfall of capitalism. It has been rather difficult to criticize the Occupy Movement as a whole because of the ambiguous agenda of all its individual constituents, however many Occupy protestors have cited Karl Marx, among others, as their main political influence. Considering the left-leaning inclinations of many of the demonstrators, it is easy to see how his philosophy could have inspired the swollen aggregate of human flesh that is the Occupy movement. As influential as he may have been throughout the years, many disregard the fact that Marx was a racist, degenerate, anti-Semitic, envious piece of trash and that his ideas represented the epitome of human evil.

Karl Marx, a racist? Indeed, from observing his private correspondence with friends and family members, one could conclude that Marx was an ardent racist and anti-Semite (although Marx himself was an ethnic Jew). Marx’s racist views have been brilliantly summarized in Nathaniel Weyl’s 1979 book Karl Marx, Racist. Concerning the adherents of the Jewish faith, Marx had once said “What is the object of the Jew's worship in this world? Usury. What is his worldly god? Money”. In regard to one of his contemporaries, Marx wrote "it is now completely clear to me that he, as is proved by his cranial formation and his hair, descends from the Negroes from Egypt, assuming that his mother or grandmother had not interbred with a nigger”. Although by no means does this ad hominem attack discredit his philosophy, Marx’s bigotry paints him in a different light than the ardent lover of the people as he is so often portrayed.

His diverse opinions on human nature set aside; his philosophy itself is the greatest testament to Marx’s lunacy. Essentially, he conjectured that one day in the unspecified future, the proletariat would be fed up with the unequal wealth distribution and topple the establishment of the evil bourgeoisie. From this point forward, the proletariat would be free to recreate a presumably more wholesome means of existence, free of their greedy brethren. Marx’s ideal state would function on the principle that everyone would work according to their ability and the wealth would be pooled and then distributed according to everyone’s needs. However, Marx’s idea of from each according to his ability to each according to his need contains some of the most destructive undertones to human development. It is fundamentally irrational to reward individuals on a basis of need instead of what they contribute. Nobody would be willing to put forth their maximum ability into their work if they did not expect to be adequately compensated for that effort. A society which would be allowed to persist on such a principle would end up with a disproportionately high amount of people with needs versus those with abilities and would eventually become unsustainable. Karl Marx was envious of those who possessed genuine talents, and this twisted political philosophy was a manifestation of his hatred of successful men.



It is somewhat ironic that the term capitalism was defined by Marx and Engels—the very people who sought to destroy it. Capitalism never ceases to be misrepresented by those eager to point out all its glaring flaws and supposed moral bankruptcies. Socialists (like those of the Occupy Movement) revel in the romanticised notion of fat corporate tycoons sitting around the board room, conniving and elaborating new plots to undermine the core of human innocence. This is not an honest representation of capitalism. Capitalism has nothing to do with keeping down the proletariat, slavery, repression, or waging class warfare. The subsidies and bailouts given by the government to prolong the inevitable disintegration of big banks do not represent the ideals of capitalism either. Private ownership of means of production and a free market with minimal regulations are the two aspects that make Capitalism the most ethical and successful social-economic policy ever implemented in human society. Private institutions owning the means of production (for example, factories or textile mills) are forced to compete with each other for consumers and are thus forced to accommodate the interests of the public, increasing the standards of living for all. Those institutions that become successful do so by discovering new technologies, finding more efficient ways to do things, and providing cutting-edge medical developments. A socialist “utopia” like the one that Marx’s philosophy alludes to provides the public none of these things and would likely lead to gross technological stagnation if ever implemented.

 Capitalism has produced higher standards of living across the board ever since its inception. During the industrial revolution, those individuals previously destined to lives of peasantry and destitute were given menial jobs in the industrial sector. Those already enjoying middle-class employment were provided with luxuries and amenities for which no prior generation could have ever dreamt. Sure, some kids died in some coal mines, but that stuff happened in communist countries too. Any man is better off working at the assembly line in an auto factory than he would have been dragging his knuckles across the forest floor in search of berries and kindling.



On a final thought, a government has no obligation whatsoever to supply its citizens with employment. It is an expectation of many Occupy protestors that the government ought to magically ensure the employment status of all its citizens. However, it is the personal responsibility of the individual to develop the skills that are in demand by the job market and will thus result in a sufficient living. Those who choose to attend college in order to study obscure topics and pursue useless degrees are ultimately the ones who ought to stand accountable for their own lack of employability in the end. It is not viable to give somebody a job if they have no skills or abilities worth paying them for (women’s studies is not a skill). The individual must develop the respective skill-sets appropriate for the line of work to which they aspire to pursue. It is thrust upon the individual to achieve his/her maximum potential through their own respective efforts and values. A job is not a right. Instead of adhering to Marx’s idea that it is society’s responsibility to accommodate people’s needs, the individual must accept that only he ought to provide for his own needs. This is just common sense.

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