Page 222 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Western Political Thought

Notes In the Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx paid handsome tributes to the bourgeoisie, while
highlighting its negative side. There were three reasons that made capitalism attractive. First, it
brought remarkable economic progress by revolutionizing the means of production and developing
technology as never before. It built and encouraged the growth of commerce and factories on a
scale unknown before. It instituted cooperative social production. Writing about the role of the
bourgeoisie, Marx observed :
The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive
and more colossal productive force than have all preceding generations together.
Subjections of Nature’s force to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry
and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole
continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of
the ground— what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive
forces slumbered in the lap of social labour ?
It had accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts
and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former
exoduses of nations and crusades.
By the very range and extent of its activity, capitalism made its second contribution. It undermined
national barriers. In its search for markets and raw materials, capitalism and the bourgeoisie
crossed national boundaries and penetrated every corner of the world, drawing the most backward
nations into their fold. Capitalism was cosmopolitan and international.
Being worldwide, the third achievement of capitalism was within its territorial confines. It
eliminated the distinction between the town and country, and enabled the peasants to come out of
what Marx called “the idiocy of rural life”. In summation, capitalism revolutionized the techniques
of economic production, reduced international barriers and created an urban civilization. In spite
of these achievements, Marx contended that capitalism had outlived its use because of the sufferings
and hardships it caused. It would have to yield itself to a new socialist organization of production.
Marx examined the sufferings within capitalism, which were rooted in its origin: the eviction of
peasants from their land, the loss of their sources of income, their vagabondage, their assembling
in cities where they had become dependent on starvation wages, and, most significantly, the
creation of the proletariat.
The historical movement which changes the producers into wage-workers appears, on
the one hand, as their emancipation from serfdom and from the fetters of the guilds,
and this side alone exists for our bourgeois historians. But, on the other hand, these
new freemen became sellers of themselves only after they had been robbed of all their
own means of production, and of all the guarantees of existence afforded by the old
feudal arrangements. And the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the
annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire.
The suffering required for the creation of the free-wage labourer was the first cost of capitalism.
The exploitation of the proletariat could be measured with the help of surplus value—the difference
between the wages paid to the labourer, and the final price for which the product was sold. The
rate of profit indicated the degree of exploitation. The capitalist squeezed the working class like a
sponge to extract the last drop of profit. Exploitation, therefore, was the second disadvantage of
capitalism.
The third was the alienation of the worker. To Marx, labour had to be satisfying and fulfilling,
which was not possible under capitalism. The reason was the lack of control the worker had over
the productive process. The worker had no voice to decide when, how and where to work, but
merely obeyed the boss’ commands. Division of labour and specialization of skills had made the
worker a specialist, preventing the full development of all his talents, thereby stifling his potential.

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