MARX AND ENGELS
We start our primary readings with Karl Marx (born 1818, Trier, Rhine province, Prussia – died 1883, London, England) and Friedrich Engels (born 1820, Barmen, Rhine province, Prussia – died 1895, London, England). We’ll read excerpts from The German Ideology (Marx and Engels 1846), Manifesto of the Communist Party (Marx and Engels 1848), and more. As with all our theorists, we should consider the particular social locations from which Marx and Engels theorized the world. Please be sure to read David McLellan’s short biography of Marx and Oscar Hammen’s even shorter biography of Engels. Note their political activity as well as the material circumstances shaping their lives.
HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
Marx. 1859. Preface from A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. (pp. 3-6)[1]
Marx and Engels. 1846. The German Ideology. (pp. 147-55)
At the root of all history is a simple fact for Marx and Engels: living people produce the means of their subsistence. However, people’s mode of production varies across different stages in the division of labor (e.g., an ancient division of labor, a feudal division of labor, and a capitalist division of labor). According to Marx and Engels, these different stages are just different forms of ownership (i.e., the property relations that situate individuals in reference to the materials, instruments, and products of labor). And, with different forms of ownership come different class antagonisms: owners and slaves, lords and serfs, and bourgeoise and proletariat. In each of these historical stages, the dominant class exploits the dominated class by appropriating the surplus of their labor. Except for communism (i.e., the end of class antagonisms), the relations of production will become “fetters” to the forces of production. This will always necessitate a social revolution that will transform the economic base and thus also consciousness and the superstructure. However, this will only occur if the old mode of production has exhausted its development and if the new forces of production have emerged within that expiring mode of production. Does this mean we are all just passive victims to the winds of material change? Maybe, but perhaps not totally. Marx and Engels say some interesting things about the relation between consciousness and revolution.
NATURAL AND VOLUNTARY DIVISIONS OF LABOR
Marx and Engels. 1846. The German Ideology. (pp. 155-75, 189-93)
Engels. 1884. The Origin of Family, Private Property, and State (pp. 738-40)
Marx and Engels claim that life produces consciousness, and they insist that “life” generally translates into “social being.” By producing the means of subsistence, people develop new needs and this necessitates more people (i.e., procreation) and therefore social relations. Such relations are organized by different divisions of labor, which can be further distinguished as either “natural” or “voluntary.” The natural division of labor is always a forced division of labor. It exists as a power alien to individuals. This fact seems to emerge during the initial separation of mental and manual activity, but it really takes explicit form in the genesis of monogamy. The natural division of labor still exists today, but it will eventually be replaced by a voluntary division of labor. Under a voluntary division of labor, we won’t be forced to specialize. Instead, we’ll be able to realize our rich and varied talents and abilities across an array of productive tasks of our choosing. The voluntary division of labor, however, can only emerge once exploitation is abolished. This will happen when capitalism, the final class antagonism, disappears and we enter communism. Marx and Engels tell us relatively little about communism, but we know that within it there will be no exploitation, no natural/forced division of labor, and no private property. How will we get there? Through a global proletarian revolution.
CAPITALISM
Marx. 1867. “Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist” (pp. 435-6)[2]
Marx. 1849. “Wage Labour and Capital.” (pp. 203-17)
Engels. 1880. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. (pp. 700-17)
We turn to a short chapter linking industrial capitalism to colonialism, slavery, and other forms of so-called primitive accumulation before digging into Marx and Engels’s analysis of capitalist production. They insist that wage labor presupposes capital and that capital presupposes wage labor. The proletariat must sell their labor power (i.e., their capacity to work) to the bourgeoisie in exchange for the means of subsistence. At the same time, the bourgeoisie must purchase labor power and appropriate workers’ surplus in order to accumulate capital. The bourgeoisie must also intensify this exploitation if they hope to survive in a capitalist market. In other words, they have to undercut their competitors and the primary way they do this is by increasing the rate of surplus they appropriate from workers. This rate increases as the natural division of labor advances and as machinery is further integrated into production. More division of labor and more machinery simplify jobs, increase the reserve army of labor, and reduce workers to mere appendages of machines. This drives down wages (at least relative to the growth of capital), but it’s also a recipe for disaster. A conflict at the economic base heats up as capitalism develops: the contradiction between socialized production and capitalist/individual appropriation. This contradiction between the forces and relations of production will increase class polarization, generate economic crises, and concentrate capital in the hands of superfluous capitalists. Meanwhile, class struggle intensifies and the proletariat begins to face an increasingly easy target: a smaller and smaller number of vulnerable capitalists.
CLASS STRUGGLE
Marx. 1847. “The Coming Upheaval.” (pp. 218-9)[3]
Marx and Engels. 1848. Manifesto of the Communist Party. (pp. 473-83)
Marx and Engels. 1846. The German Ideology. (pp. 197-200)
Marx. 1894. “On the Realm of Necessity and the Realm of Freedom.” (pp. 439-41)[4]
Marx and Engels. 1858/1882. “Europocentric World Revolution.” (pp. 676-7)[5]
How do we exit capitalism? According to Marx and Engels, the proletariat must shift from a class in itself to a class for itself. This transition happens as workers move from individual struggle (within workplaces), to collective struggle (across workplaces), and finally to political struggle (across nation/world). Ironically, the bourgeoisie furnish the conditions for the proletariat to become a class for itself. They continually immiserate wage labor and rip workers from tradition, religion, family, and so on. Thus, as capitalism advances, workers have less and less to lose. At the same time, the bourgeoisie advance the natural division of labor and this organizes workers like soldiers in the factory. The capitalists don’t realize it, but they’re playing with fire. They pour gasoline on this fire as they develop communication infrastructure. The bourgeoisie do this to spread capitalism across the globe, but they’re inadvertently making it easier for workers to communicate with one another. Capitalists also pull workers into the political arena in an effort to defeat old political enemies. As Marx and Engels put it, the bourgeoisie create their own gravediggers. What comes after the burial of capitalists? A shrinking realm of necessity and an expanding realm of freedom. Still, upon close reading, none of this actually seems very easy or automatic for Marx and Engels. Their notes on colonialism and the globalization of capital help illustrate this point.
BONUS VIDEO!
The Communist Manifesto illustrated with cartoons.
[1] Page numbers are for The Marx-Engels Reader (1978), which includes all the assigned readings for Marx and Engels. The header for the first reading is “Marx on the History of His Opinions,” but that is not what Marx titled the piece.
[2] Chapter XXXI from the first volume of Marx’s Capital (1867).
[3] Excerpt from Marx’s The Poverty of Philosophy (1847).
[4] Excerpt from the third volume of Marx’s Capital, which was published after Marx’s death (and edited by Engels).
[5] Marx and Engels did not title this. This section includes two letters, one from Marx to Engels in 1858 and one from Engels to Karl Kautsky in 1882.