Chapter IX. Karl Marx and Nationalisation

In conclusion it need only be added that when Marx and Engels published the 1872 preface to the German edition of the Manifesto, they wrote :–

“ . . . the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today.”

How little Engels shared modern views that nationalisation is Socialism can be seen in his Socialism : Utopian and Scientific (Allen and Unwin, 1892 ; pp. 71-2) where he pointed out that “The modern State, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the State of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers – proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head.”

He held the view that the formation of trusts would force the State ultimately “to undertake the direction of production” (p. 9), but he was careful to add that such measures as railway nationalisation by Bismarck, for military and political reasons, or by the Belgian State for ordinary political and financial reasons, were not instances of State intervention considered economically inevitable because the means of production and distribution had actually outgrown the form of management by joint-stock companies.

Were Engels alive to-day he would see that the capitalists and the State are trying to solve the problem which he foresaw, by the formation of public utility corporations or private monopolies, both under more or less close regulation by the State. As Engels also foresaw, such measures are by their nature only temporary ones, they cannot solve the problem to the satisfaction of the majority of the population. They serve to bring the problem to a head, and give us hope that the acceptance of the only solution, Socialism, by the working class, is not far distant..

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