Marx’s View of Man
The principles of the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain and of its Companion Parties abroad are based on the main theories of Karl Marx, social revolutionary writer of the mid-nineteenth century. One of the criticisms often levelled against Marx is that ‘he puts too much emphasis on the material aspect of man and not enough on the spiritual and moral side’.
Materialism is the doctrine that says that nothing exists but matter and its movements and modification. To enlarge on this, we may say for example that the human brain is a highly developed form of matter and that the mind is the sum total of its activities. Through his brain and his senses man perceives certain conditions in the world around him; conditions that make up the environment in which he lives. He then interprets these conditions. His ideas are, therefore, not created in a vacuum. His concepts such as Freedom, Truth, Good and Evil, are not absolute but are subject to change; not separate entities but qualified by conditions.
This particular criticism of Marx’s works arises because he maintained that the determining factor in history was the way in which man produced his means of living. In this production man forms certain social relations which are of paramount importance because they form the basis of the system of society in which he lives. Marx found that at a certain stage these social relations took the form of opposing class interests, and so he said that all written history is the history of class struggles. The system of capitalism existed in the time of Marx although of course not as highly developed as it is today. Marx defined the class system of capitalism as consisting of a capitalist (ruling) class and a working (subject) class. The capitalist class owns and controls the means of production and distribution of wealth like food, oil, copper and coal. The working class own virtually nothing but their ability to work. Therefore, in order to live they have to sell their labour power to the owning class to gain access to the means of production and to produce wealth. The workers are paid wages in return for their labour power, but the amount of money they receive is not the full value they create. Wages usually hover around the accepted subsistence level. The balance of the value of their labour (over and above their wages) forms profit and this keeps the owning class in luxury. The system of capitalism consists of a contradiction between socially produced wealth and the private or sectional ownership of the means of wealth production.
Included in the means of production and distribution are those for producing and distributing ideas. These means are the educational and advertising media: schools, colleges, universities, press, television, radio. They are owned by the capitalist class just as much as the land, factories, airways or mines. Having control of these media, the ruling class is able to spread and give an appearance of validity to ideas which are actually invalid because they have no bearing whatsoever on real human interests. To explain and justify a social system which works only in their own interests, they spread ideas of nationalism, patriotism, leadership, hero-worship, prejudice and religion. Economists, politicians, sociologists, historians, churchmen, lawyers—all play their part in this presentation of a good image for capitalism. The drawbacks of the system are either ‘explained’ as necessary evils in the best of all possible worlds, or else it is said that they are capable of cure within the status quo by ‘practical reform’ or belief in God. It is tacitly assumed that capitalism is natural and absolute.
Ruling class ideas of morality—in line with their other ideas—suit their particular interests. This is strikingly shown by the fact that in peacetime it is ‘wrong’ to kill because the taking of human life is most often connected with crimes against private property—for instance, bank and mail robberies. On the other hand in wartime it is ‘right’ to kill, for national capitalist interests need to be defended (by workers) when their masters’ quarrels (over markets, sources of raw materials and strategic positions, basically) can no longer be resolved without the use of force.
Because of its control of the means of communication, the ideas of the ruling class become the accepted ideas in society—often termed orthodox ideas.
Explaining the idea from the conditions and not the conditions from the idea is characteristic of Marx and is the materialist method that Socialists use. Far from being indifferent to what is termed our ‘spiritual’ or ‘moral’ welfare, Marx stressed the really human qualities of Man. He refers both to money and to the idea of god as examples of human alienation because they involve a transference of man’s own powers to an outside force—to the detriment of man himself.
We have only to look at some of the worst aspects of human behaviour under capitalism to see that drug-peddling, alcoholism, prostitution, blackmail, are reactions to a private property form of society, a society of buying and selling, profit and exploitation. If we define human beings as predominantly good or bad, we are being idealist and getting nowhere. Human behaviour varies from society to society.
When the working class channels its intelligence towards its own liberation it will by political action take the means of production and distribution out of the hands of the capitalists and place them at the disposal of the whole of humanity. This act will be its last act as a class for in so doing it will have established the first classless society in written history—Socialism. When wealth is no longer produced to make a profit by its sale but to satisfy the wants and needs of all, those ideas which belong to capitalism will have disintegrated and come down like Alice’s Pack of Cards. In Socialism, the criterion for all things will be human reason; the preservation and betterment of human life, untainted by human alienation, will have top priority.
J. MCL