One of my favorite parts of
reading Karl Marx is when he ditches the stilted doctrinaire language filled
with the converter’s zeal and the off-putting language of the self-identified visionary
and discusses the negative influence of Capitalism on the family, the
community, the society.
“The
bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal,
patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley
feudal ties that bound man to his 'natural superiors,' and has left remaining
no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, callous 'cash
payment.' It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of
chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of
egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value,
and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that
single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation,
veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless,
direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.”
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.”
From The COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
In particular, the last paragraph
which is the end result of the capitalist society – how people relate to each
other. I grew up in America and I’ve
seen brothers sue each other for a share of the family business, parents steal
from children and vice versa. The last
couple years I lived in the US, I owned a condominium in Southern
California. From time to time, we would
receive rudely written letters announcing mandatory meetings of the ownership association (The word mandatory
in black lettering all caps). These
meetings were to vote on various rules to do with guest parking, fees etc. The meetings themselves were silly as the owners
who rented out their properties always had enough votes to narrowly push
through whatever they wanted to. They
would communicate their votes ahead of time through proxies (not bothering to show
up for the “mandatory” meetings like us peons).
These meetings quickly devolved into personal attacks, like rats
fighting over their own tiny stinky rotten pieces of cheese. “Buy a fucking house” one person would say to
the other as an argument against doing something in the complex....A new level
of ownership or slavery.
The love of money, the love
of material possessions, and those who worship these things are disgusting. They put commerce above all else and this is a
sickness. It also alienates one from his
humanity and bonding with other people.
By reducing people to monetary
units, we cheapen humanity. We lose all sense
of morality. Everything becomes a
transaction and well become whores to some degree.
At the heart of Marxist theory is this understanding and how it undermines all other relationships and
in doing so undermines the idea of a just and fair society.
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