Marx: For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing
Not long after Adam Smith Published his “Wealth of Nations” did people begin to realize
the invisible hand was less than perfect. Over the coming centuries, many economist would
propose ideas on how the government could tame the free market in the areas in which it failed.
However, a 19th century German Philosopher had the most radical idea of them all; He believed
the free market was an untamable beast, that would inevitably lead itself to its own death.
Karl Marx was not interested in Economics until his mid-twenties. Before then, he was a
drinker who studied law and enjoyed debating art, philosophy and politics. The first area of
economics that interested Marx was property rights. At the time he was living in Paris, writing
for an alternative newspaper, “Deutsch-Franzoesische Jahrbüecher.” He was reporting on a story
from his hometown of Trier, Germany. The common people of Trier were in conflict with the
bourgeoisie. For centuries, The people of Trier had been collecting firewood, to heat their homes
and cook, however, as the industrial capitalist began to move their factories into Trier, they
needed to use large amounts of wood for raw material. The land owners of the forest that
surrounded Trier saw an opportunity and began charging people, Bourgeois and proletariat, for
taking wood from their land. This had little effect on the Bourgeoisie, as they had the money to
afford the wood, however, the common people were greatly affected by this change. This
common resource which was plentiful and free, was now scarce and expensive for the common
people of Trier. There was new constraints placed on the common people, which did not exist
before industrial capitalism. This incident strikes at the core of all of Marx’s ideas: freedom.
What liberates people and what constrains people is the heart of Marx’s philosophies, and from
this starting point, he derives ideas about power struggles, class conflict, social dynamics,
capitalism, communism, history and economics.
This Question: what makes people free? was explored by many great German
philosophers, such as ​Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Emmanuel Kant. Hegel explored this
question through the lens of psychology and described how ideas constrain and free people.
Hegel’s work was very influential on Marx. He describe his first experience with Hegel as
having a veil lifted from his eyes. He even joined a group of students at Bonne University called
the Young Hegelians. Hegel was a former professor at the University and the students were
admirers who tried to expand on his work. Marx asked similar questions as Hegel, however,
Marx asked these questions through the historical and material lens, rather than the psychological
lens of Hegel. Marx found different social classes throughout history had differing constraints
and freedoms, and more specifically, these social constructs were the result of the given societies
mode of production. This is Karl Marx’s theory of dialectical materialism.
Marx was interested in helping liberate the common people and stopping their
exploitation from the ruling class, however, his ideas were perverted into propaganda which was
used to give rise to some of the most brutal, exploitative, violent, totalitarian regimes the world
has ever seen. Ironically, many of the quotes used in the propaganda to rationalized these
regimes’ actions were actually sarcastic edits Marx would make to Engels’s rough drafts, jokes
between the two men that were never meant to be taken seriously. He would have never agreed
with Revolutions seen in Russia, Korea, or China. Marx believed a country must first develop
into a industrialized capitalist society before transitioning into socialism and then to communism.
In Marx’s view, Germany, a developed industrial economy, was a prime candidate for his
communist ideas to be implemented. Russia, however, had just started to become industrialized
and was mostly still an agrarian society, which had just seen a civil war. China, Korea, Vietnam,
were all agrarian societies when they began to make their transition into communism, therefore,
these countries were not ready to transition into communism from Marx’s view point.
Marx believed we are naturally very constrained and poorly equipped to survive in
nature. Before the development of society, we needed to work in groups in order to gather food,
hunt and ultimately survive. In this way, primitive humans societies were naturally constrained
because they need to spend their entire waking life in search of food. Marx referred to this
society as a primitive hunter gatherer society, or primitive communism. However, with the
domestication of animals and the basic agricultural development, this nomadic society was
phased out and feudal society came to being, and with it, came social classes. This feudal society
had now fix the problem of a reliable food source, however, the majority of the population, the
surf class, still needed to labour all day in order to produce the food for society. If a surf decided
to opt out of working, they could be legally punish by the landowning noble class. This was no
longer a natural constraint, but a social or societal constraint on people's freedom. The feudal
society existed for thousands of years until the first industrial revolution in the 18th century.
With this new of form society base in capitalism came new social class structures.
It is worth noting that the city of Trier, Marx’s home-city was formerly controlled by
France, and saw its share of the French revolution and had a taste of the ideas of John Locke and
freedom of expression, however, a century later during Marx’s time, Trier was under a more
authoritarian Prussian controlled Germany. As Marx put in a letter to a friend , titled ​For a
Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing, “In Germany I see no scope at all for free activity. In
Germany, everything is forcibly suppressed; a real anarchy of the mind, the reign of stupidity
itself, prevails there" Marx’s Father, Henrick, was a local statesmen and lawyer, who had his
personal disdain for the aristocratic Prussian government and admiration for the neighboring
democratic French government. Henrick, who was old enough to live under Napoleonic rule, was
able to practice law as well as Judaism under the French government, however, under Prussian
law, Henrick was forced to convert to Christianity in order to continue practicing law.
Marx had a reputation of being extremely charming, both in person and on paper. He had
an extraordinary gift with words in his native language, yet struggled with the english language.
The rough drafts of Marx were as if they were written by a man possessed, writing beautiful
epics about the plights of man in a stream of illusions and vignettes. It was often the job of
Engels to bring this astonishing writing back down to earth. His works, such as the communist
manifesto, were not only influential because of the revolutionary polarizing ideas presented, but
also how these ideas were presented with passion and charm.
References
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party
Karl Marx, Capital: Critique of the Political Economy.
E.K. Hunt , Mark Lautzenheiser, History of Economic Thought: A Critical Perspective
Robert L. Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic
Thinkers