Karl Marx and US - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: Karl Marx and US Karl Marx and US [Institute’s Karl Marx and US The political, social, and economic philosophy of Karl Marx begins with expressing his abhorrence and disgust for the capitalistic system and US ideals because Marx believes that it a system based on exploitation of the working class. Marx believes that capitalism benefits the few at the expense of the many and creates social dynamics in which the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. Nevertheless, it appears that Marx would be happy with the direction of the United States because of two important reasons. First, the periodic crises witnessed by the United States in the recent past, precisely the fluctuations of the business cycle, bringing out brief periods of growth, recession and depression, within the United States, are in line with the predictions of Karl Marx. Marx acknowledged the fact that capitalism had the potential to bring about aggressive and tremendous growth because it provides the capitalistic a serious incentive to invest in new technologies for revolutionizing the means of production. However, Marx believe that since the output of the labor represents the real source of profits and as the capitalist avoids investing in the same, capitalism would become more and more prone to periodic crises (Przebowski, 2009, 72). Second, the current Obama administration is quickly taking the United States away from the capitalistic, libertarian and centre right ideals of its founding fathers. The founding ideals of the United States include imperative emphasis on protection of personal liberty, equality, low taxes, limited government, and empowerment of individuals. However, the Obama administration, explicitly and implicitly, aims to reverse all of these through bigger government, greater taxes, and more scrutiny of private lives of citizens and creating a welfare state, which would spend immense resources on policing the country and policing the world. Furthermore, in the aftermath of recent recession, movements such as Occupy Wall Street have emerged which are being cited as the early forms of the violent and massive revolution as pointed by Marx (Desai, 2004, p. 85). Important here to note is the fact that despite allegations from the conservatives and the radical right, the United States is far from becoming a “socialistic state”. Socialism, according to its definition, refers to a state where the ownership of the means of production is collectively held. In a socialistic state, the government or central authority would assume the responsibility of taking care of the needs of its citizens. Furthermore, the value of the goods produced by the labor would not be judged through the amount of revenue or profit that the product or service is able to fetch but its value would be determined by the amount of time and energy consumed in preparing the product (Przebowski, 2009, 72). There are no doubts about the fact that Marx is amongst one of the most influential thinkers in the human history. His ideas inspired several thinkers and policymakers in the world and even the governments of Russia, China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Cuba and several other countries of the world. However, Marx’s ideas and thoughts about capitalism are fundamentally flawed and nothing less than an idealistic novel. Marx believes that capitalism is inherently contradictory and it would be replaced by socialism, which would subsequently be replaced by communism (Sherman, 1991, p. 209). According to Marx, the state of full or pure communism would represent a society without any class, social structure, state, or struggle. Communism aims to employ its resources at creating a desirable and equitable state, where people would not be able to distinguish each other in social classes and would not find any incentive in exploiting others for their good. Marx believes that such a society would become the most powerful manifestation of human freedom and it would empower the working class and put an end to the alienation of labor and their products (Sowell, 1985, p. 345). Nevertheless, there is nothing more contradictory, ironic and fundamentally flawed than the ideals held by Karl Marx for communism. Marx, knowingly and deliberately, focuses on the desired social structure of communism, but disregards the means and measures that would need to be taken to reach that state. More importantly, Marx refrains from discussing the practicality, ethicality, and morality of those actions. In order to reach to such a state, the state would first take away the means of production from the investors, upper and upper middle-income class people, which would infringe their right to liberty, something which communism intends to uphold in the future. There is both strong empirical and theoretical evidence that the public sector or joint ownership of resources cannot even come close to producing the same return on investment as the private sector (Desai, 2004, p. 85). Furthermore, Marx somehow is able to present his entire philosophy without addressing the most basic dynamics of human motivation. Humans are motivated by independence, ownership, and reward for their effort. People of this planet work every day because they believe that they would rewarded accordingly. However, if a state or a central authority divides incomes based on need rather than effort then the same would take away all the incentive to work (Sowell, 1985, p. 345). Therefore, in a purely socialistic or communistic system, when the government begins to divide the national output “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”, the total output would decrease as those working according to their abilities would not find the same incentive in producing the same level of output. Therefore, the level of output would continue to shrink to the point where the central authority would have to intervene and force the people to produce (Sherman, 1991, p. 209). This is one of the biggest inherent contradictions of the communist ideology because the system, which claims to liberalize the working class and the labor, would soon have to enslave them to feed the society. Nevertheless, it is important here to argue that Marx highlights the fact that the prerequisite to a communist society is the advancement of technology and means of production to such a level, where there emerges a surplus of goods for the people of this planet. However, the fact is that collective ownership and monopoly of the state can never ever bring about technological innovations, as the same is always the product of entrepreneurship, risk taking, motivating of adequate reward, competition and profit maximization; elements which are absent in socialistic and communistic societies (Przebowski, 2009, 72). Therefore, the road to socialism, and communism, in essence, represents the worst of fascism and totalitarianism. It allows a government to expand to unrealistic lengths, where it could easily infringe human rights and personal liberties. References Desai, M. 2004. Marx's revenge: the resurgence of capitalism and the death of statist socialism. Verso. Przebowski, D. 2009. The Rise and Fall of the United States: An Interpretation of History. Xlibris Corporation. Sherman, H. J. 1991. The Business Cycle: Growth and Crisis under Capitalism. Princeton University Press. Sowell, T. 1985. Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. Taylor & Francis. Read More