| | Recap:
In part nine above, I showed that the reason that capitalism felled feudalism wasn't because of the saltatory progress which comes from "creative destruction," but instead it was because there was a decisive lack of all such creative destruction (a lack of progress in general) under feudalism. This lack stemmed from a deficiency in the system of feudalism: a deficiency of individual rights. Not respecting the rights of potential entrepreneurs, feudalism was going nowhere fast. For who would want to create new wealth if it is only to be stolen by feudal lords?
Capitalism didn't really kill feudalism then, as feudalism was already a "dead" system. Capitalism was the simple offer of a living and breathing substitute for the rotting economic corpse of feudalism. An idea who's time had already come, rather than an idea that had to fight vying alternatives (under the false assumption that feudalism was a viable alternative). In the final part of my review (below), I will show how the Labor Theory of Value (or Exploitation Theory) -- as put forth by Marx and Engels -- is dead wrong, too.
Part Ten (final part):
Link: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
CM says:
In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.
Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc.
Let's take this section in parts:
In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital.
Marx and Engels are saying that capitalism created a situation where there's a "class" of folks who suddenly have to find work in order to live (who have to produce in order to survive). The insinuation is that capitalism is bad for this "class" of people -- that it has made life worse for them. But is that an accurate picture of reality? Did capitalism create this aspect of reality, or merely inherit it?
Sober analysis of the history of man reveals that he has always had to work in order to survive. Capitalism did not bring forth a new dependency or vulnerability (as Marx and Engels imply), it diminished an old one. Under capitalism, the amount of human labor required to sustain human life has diminished considerably (see below) -- it has not increased. Marx and Engels were dead wrong on that. And, being dead wrong on that, their vilification of capitalism is without merit.
These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.
Here Marx and Engels equate workers with (traded) objects. This is an (unjust) equivocation. There is an element of trade even in finding work, but workers are not "like every other article of commerce." What's different about workers is that they exercise their will or choice -- they, themselves, can invent new sources of income, or merely switch employers, in order to better their position on this planet. You will not ever notice a barrel of oil or a bushel of wheat doing that.
What's more is that it is capitalism itself which multiplied these choices for man. In the very early days, man's choices were simpler and much more grim:
Hunt and gather (or farm) -- or starve and die.
It is ironic that the very underpinning of the thinking errors of Marx and Engels stems from a child-like lack of historical perspective -- Marx and Engels considering themselves such great historians (indeed, justifying their system based on nothing other than how history itself unfolds!). Also, this notion that capitalism exposes workers to "vicissitudes" (of competition) is, at some level, a dishonest idea. The wrong-headed insinuation is that man's life was more free of vicissitudes before capitalism took hold in a few parts of the world, and that capitalism increases the net amount of vicissitude in man's life. Take catastrophies.
In his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg shows (on page 85) how the annual death rate from catastrophies decreased by over 80%, from over 25 per 100,000 people in the early 1900s to under 5 per 100,000 people in the late 1900s. That's less than one-fifth as many people who die in "natural" vicissitudes than before. What's more is that, while data is sparse, logical extrapolation of the death rate (from catastrophe) in times or regions that are largely pre-industrial results in even higher rates of death by natural disasters:
--millions dead (1/3 of the world population) in the bubonic plague of the mid-1300s
--millions dead in a drought (famine) in India in the late 1700s
--millions dead in a drought (famine) in China in the late 1800s
--100s of thousands dead in a 1920 earthquake in China
--100s of thousands dead in a 1970 cyclone in East Pakistan
--100s of thousands dead in a 1976 earthquake in China
--100s of thousands dead in the 2004 tsunami of Indonesia and Thailand
Clearly, capitalism -- that thing that each of the above examples lacks -- is not a net source of, but a solution to, vicissitude in human life.
But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc.
This is the Marxian theory of exploitation -- i.e., that both divided labor and machines work to denigrate human employment down to the most menial (or most repulsive) of tasks, and that this results, in the end, in permanent wage reductions for workers, who end up working longer and harder for less. But is that an accurate picture of reality?
An alternative view of reality is exactly the opposite -- that divided labor and machines have worked to progress human employment beyond the most menial (or most repulsive) of tasks, and that this has resulted, in the end, in permanent wage increases for workers, who end up working less for more. Evidence for this second view -- which directly contradicts the Marxian view -- abounds. On page 79 of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg mentions the contrast of home heating as it used to be (before machines and divided labor) and home heating as it is, now:
Today, we have stopped heating our homes with coal, and instead use gas- or oil-fired central heating or district heating. We no longer have to clean the coal dust in our carpets, furniture, curtains and bedclothes, or have to shovel six tons of coal into the furnace each heating season -- work which we spent on average six hours performing each week.
That is a counter-example to the Marxian view. Here, when we used more machines and divided labor (to heat homes with gas or fuel oil), we worked less to get more -- by an extra six hours a week (plus lost time due to cleaning coal dust). The divided labor and new machines (gas or oil systems) resulted in us working less to get a better result. Another example is the washing machine. Lomborg continues:
The historical economist, Stanley Lebergott wrote only semi-jokingly: "From 1620 to 1920 the American washing machine was a housewife." In 1900 a housewife spent seven hours a week laundering, carrying 200 gallons of water into the house and using a scrub board. In 1985 she and her husband together spent less than three hours doing the laundry.
That's another four hours a week in freed-up time for humans, time which could be spent on entrepreneurial endeavors or job-hunting, or even on things that don't make us more materially rich (if we prefer). And examples of this same dynamic are endless. One wonders if humans would even have to work 15 hours a week to live like kings -- if capitalism were allowed to proceed unfettered by Marxism or the progress-hampering collectivism that it entails. One of the most damning examples for the Marxian view (that workers' wages barely support subsistence) relates to this quote:
He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race.
But, in actuality, the maintenance of subsistence has gotten many times easier. A summary of notes (from The Skeptical Environmentalist, p 79-80) proves this:
--food prices (at least partly due to the machines of commercial farming) have dropped two-thirds since 1957
--in 1900 Americans spent 36% of their income on food and necessities; but in 1997 they only spent 11% on those same things
--we all have running water now, but only a fourth of us did in 1900
--the living space available per person has more than doubled
In conclusion, new divisions of labor and/or new machines have consistently freed up humans to take part in either entrepreneurial activities or more satisfying tasks in general. The capitalist notion of the division of labor and the innovation of inventing productive machines are actually the solution to the historical toil of poverty, not the cause of it.
Marx and Engels essentially just looked at this 'anti-dote' (machines and divided labor) for much of our pains, just flat-out, by fiat, called it 'poison' (withing evidential reasoning), and offered more of their own brand of poison as the anti-dote. They claimed a good thing was bad in order to make viable, by unjust comparison, their mere gut feelings about the world. It is one of the worst cases of intellectual dishonesty or evasion in the whole history of literature.
The End
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/04, 6:10pm)
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