MARXISM IS DEAD

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19010, 29 July 1933, Page 11 (Supplement)

MARXISM IS DEAD

(By Clifford Sharp In John o’ London’s Weekly.)

NO ONE, I suppose, would deny that from a practical point of view, at any rate, the two most Important books that have ever been written about the “ science ” of political economy are “ The Wealth of Nations,” by Adam Smith, and “ Das Kapltal,” by Karl Marx. The first was written largely In France and Switzerland, by an extraordinarily able Scottish Professor of Moral Philosophy; the second —published nearly a century later—was written, mainly in the Library of the British Museum, by an equally studious and philosophic, if not quite equally able, German Jew. Unquestionably the eighteenth-century apostle of Free Trade and economio individualism was the spiritual progenitor of the nineteenth-century apostle of revolutionary Socialism. Smith begat Bentham and Malthus and Ricardo, the so-called “classical economists" of the English school, whose theories Marx substantially accepted. Marx in turn begat—Lenin. John Ruskin denounced Adam Smith as “ that half-bred and half-witted Scotchman who taught the deliberate blasphemy: ‘Thou shalt hate the Lord thy God, damn his laws, and oovet thy neighbour’s goods.’ ” How often have not Karl Marx and the greatest of his modern exponents, Lenin, been denounced in even more violent language, but upon almost exactly the same grounds .—namely, their essentially materialistic outlook upon The Economio Activities of Mankind. The doctrines of Adam Smith and Karl Marx alike are, of course, largely discredited amongst modern students of economies, for the simple reason that those doctrines left out the human faotor. Both men were metaphysicians before they were economists—they came, after all, from the two great homes of metaphysical thought, Germany and Scotland—and though both had great knowledge of the then available economio facts (“Das Kapltal” contains what is still, perhaps, the best concise account of the industrial ohanges brought about In England by the Invention of the steam engine), both had also a natural inclination to argue from theory to fact rather than from fact to theory. In other words, they were deductive rather than Inductive thinkers, philosophers rather than scientists. Adam Smith, for example, was obliged for the purposes of all his main reasoning to assume the existence of what afterwards oame to be called “ the economic man.” That Is to say, a man who intelligently and indefatigably pursued his own perfectly selfish economic interests, always buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market, and so on. It was that assumption that annoyed Ruskin so much. Ruskin rejected it because it was not compatible with his Ideas of Human Morality. Modern economists reject it because it not In accordance with the facts we see around us. Comparatively few producers, whether they be farmers or manufacturers, succeed in discovering how to sell their goods in the dearest market, and few consumers know where to buy most cheaply. Moreover —and this is where “the human factor” comes in—most men, whether buying or selling, are Inclined to deal with people whom they know and trust, and with whom, perhaps, their fathers dealt; and are affected by “world prices" only to a minor extent. If Smith has always sold to Jones and bought from Robinson, he will not very easily he Induced to deal with Brown and White instead, merely because the one offers him a little more and the other charges him a little less. Adam Smith, of course, admitted that there were exceptions to his “laws,” hut he seems never to have realised that In practice the exceptions were a good deal more important than the laws. To take an up-to-date example, there is nothing in Adam Smith’s theory of currency’that will help to explain why, two years ago, when England abandoned the gold standard, the value of the paper pound sterling was able to hold its own so firmly against gold all ever the world, nor why the paper dollar during the past few weeks should have come to occupy its present anomalous value intermediate between that of the English paper pound and the French gold franc. The world-wide “credit" attached to a £5 note issued by the Bank of England was a “human" factor, which no purely theoretic "science” of political economy could either explain or predict. Marx's work was essentially as theoretic as Adam Smith’s. Marx reoognlsed the Inherent capacity of “Capital" to grow and to become the monopoly of fewer and fewer people. lie also foresaw, or thought he foresaw, the consequently "increasing misery" of the wage-earning classes who would be driven more and more surely and helplessly down to “The Level of Bare Subsistence.” Upon the basis of the facts then available his conclusions were logically sound, and his further conclusion that the intolerable 'social conditions thus to be created must lead to “social revolution” seemed unavoidable. But Marx failed to foresee three very Important factors In the development of "capitalist" society: (1) the invention of the “Joint Stock Company,” by which the ownership of “capital" was widely distributed amongst all but the very poorest classes; (2) the political power of “organised labour," which has led, especially in England, to the steadily Increasing comfort and security instead of the “increasing misery” of the wage-earning class; and (3) the development, especially In America, of a very large measure of equal economic opportunity for all classes. These are the main reasons why Marxian Socialism (or Communism) never took serious root in England or in America. English Socialism, indeed, did not derive from Marx at all. Its real founder was Robert Owen, a philanthropic “capitalist," and the tradition he left was carried on and developed during the middle of the last century by the Christian Socialist movement of Maurice and Kingsley, long before Marx had been heard of. When he was heard of, an English Marxian movement arose under the leadership of Mr H. M. Hyndman, but it never amounted to much, either In numbers or In intellectual Influence. The Main Stream of English Socialism. pursued Its own definitely non-Marxian course, through tho Fabian Society and the Independent Labour Party, from the eighteen-eighties until the nineteen-twenties, when Mr Sidney Webb (Lord Passfleld), speaking from the Government benches in the House of Commons, as a member of the first Labour-Socialist administration, formulated the fundamentally anti-Marxian doctrine of the “inevitability of gradualness.”

In France the Marxian ■class-war doctrine was moro widely accepted, and In Germany, where the Social Democratic party in pre-War times was very easily tho most powerful, ns well as the most "bourgeois,” Socialist party In the world, the whole Marxian doctrine was nominally

WHAT ADAM SMITH & KARL MARX OVERLOOKED.

accepted. Actually, however, It was only In Russia that. Marxian Ideas could take real root, because it was onl> there that suitable soil existed for their propagation and growth. The Marxian Idea is simple enough. Stripped of its cumbrous economic elaborations it consists of two parts: the doctrine of “Surplus Value” and the doctrine of the historic necessity of the "Class War." The essential truth of the doctrine of Surplus Value is now almost universally admitted by economists of all schools. Briefly it may be stated thus: The price of labour, whether mental or manual, is normally determined by the “bare cost of subsistence; that is ,to say, by the minimum wage or salary which the average member of the propertyless ( or “proletariat ) classes will accept as an alternative preferable to destitution—or to “the dole" 1 On the other hand, the profits derived from the ownership of land or capital are determined by the fluctuating, but on the whole steadily increasing, productivity of labour. It is capital, therefore, Instead of labour, which reaps all or most of the advantages derived from the increasing efficiency of productive methods. The invention, for example, of the steam engine and of the power-driven machine is morally The Inheritance of the Whole World. but actually, since the labourer's wage depends solely upon the cost of living, It is only the capitalist who can reap the benefits derived from cheaper production. The crudities of this doctrine —which Ignores, for example, the benefits of cheaper “luxuries” —are obvious, but the ’Hhith behind it is equally obvious- “A" is a skilled cotton operative, "B” is an unskilled possessor of capital. “X” Invents a new machine which doubles the productivity of “A." But “A," having no money, cannot buy the newmachine, and must still accept what wages he can get, whereas “B,” however Idle or .stupid ho may be, can buy the maohlne and reap the bulk of the “profit" derivable from “X’s” invention,- although that Invention no more belongs to him than it does to “A." That is the Marxian doctrine of Surplus Value in its simplest form, and it Is simple enough for every labourer to understand. But the same idea is common, of course, to all forms of Socialism, Marxian and non-Marxian alike. What gave Marxism its peculiar form, and Its peculiar ■strength among the uneducated, w>as Marx’s second main doctrine of the historic inevitability of the “Class War." Marx Was a Prophet rather than a preacher or a propagandist. 'He did not ask the workers to understand his economio doctrines; he did not even invite them very urgently to arise and throw off their economio bonds. He offered them a vision rather than a task. In effect, what he said to them was not “You must work to create a social revolution," but “A social revolution must come and is coming, and you had better be ready for it.” He always foresaw the revolution as a catastrophic event, that Is to say, as something which, when the time was ripe, would happen as it were In a single night; and as regards Russia, be has proved a true prophet. ' He wanted the proletariat to organise itself not in order to seize power by political methods (a “Marxian” political party has always been something of a contradiction In terms), but in order to he able through its leaders to exercise power when power fell, miraculously as it were, yet of historic necessity, into its hands. Lenin, perhaps, was not merely The Greatest of Marx’s Disciples, but probably the only true disciple Marx ever had or ever will have. No one hut he was ready to assume full power and responsibility on behalf of the proletariat amidst the chaos which arose In Russia In 1917, when power suddenly passed from the Tsar to the rank and file of a defeated proletarian army. But Lenin was a really remarkable man. He had been preparing himself all his life—mostly in exile —for just that moment. What he did In 1917 he did largely against the advice even of his Bolshevist friends and colleagues, who recognised only after the event that Lenin alone fully understood, and knew how to apply, the true Marxian teaching. As Dictator of Soviet Russia, Lenin • —though he was morally responsible, of course, for ail the stupid brutalities of the Terror —made, almost no serious economic mistakes; but -when he died there was no genuine Marxian able enough to fill his shoes. Thus came Stalin and the Ridiculous Fiasco of the “Five Years Plan," of which neither Marx nor Lenin could conceivably have approved. Both would have rejected as silly, if only on historical grounds, the idea that a nation of illiterate peasants could he changed in five years—or even perhaps in fifty years—into a nation of competent fitters and mechanics able to compete on level terms with the great industrial nations of the world. What, then, are we to say of Marx as economist, historian and revolutionary leader? Certainly he was no crusader ■ It would be truer to say that he was a Hegelian philosopher, who, having examined English economic history in the light of English economic theory, assumed that from the past he could predict the future. Ilis immense influence was due primarily" to that assumption of the prophetic role—under the cover, as it were, of an indisputably wide and profound knowledge of economic facts. It Is safe to say that not more than a very small percenttage of Marxian Communists have ever read “Das Kapital,” ■or any others of their master’s voluminous - writings. They prefer to 'take them on trust, content to understand that “capital" as such absorbs an unearned share of the profits derived from the Increasing productivity of labour, and that in the long run power must fall Into the hands of those who provide the foundations of the pillars upon w'hich the whole elaborate structure of modern economic civilisation rests. Therein lies the -whole secret of the power of the Marxian doctrine. Its acceptance requires Faith Rather Than Understanding. Simple belief Is all that Is necessary for salvation. The social millennium' must come, but the prolStariat must he awake to perceive Its coming. Just as real power has passed from kings and nobles Into the hands of the rich manufacturing bourgeoisie, so must it pass again from the bourgeoisie to the infinitely more numerous proletariat. Only thus can solid social stability be achieved. Marx was -wrong in 'almost all his prophecies as to the development of capitalism among the great Industrialist democracies of the West. Cut substantially he was right about Russia, the only country of which his basic assumptions were comparatively true. Ilis doctrines Vvould have been almost dead by now hut for that one marvellously successful prophecy and the equally marvellous appearance at just the right moment of his greatest apostle—the only one of his disciples who really understood him.