Marx & Engels Reconsidered Through Hirschman and Putnam

Introduction

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels believed strongly in the impact of thoughts and ideas on the development of society. Their work on materialism emphasized the importance of societal structures — rather than purely economic or political theory — for a society's political and economic development. These ideas are still widely discussed today. However, as societies have changed and evolved over the years, many of the ideas set forth in The Communist Manifesto have become outdated and widely criticized.

It stands to reason that if Marx and Engels were alive in today's society, their thinking would look quite different. Given their philosophical natures, they would likely be influenced by many contemporary thought leaders, such as Albert Hirschman, author of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, and Robert Putnam, author of Democracies in Flux. This paper provides a background on the ideas of The Communist Manifesto and offers insight into what Marx and Engels might have changed had they read these two contemporary works.

About the Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto begins by comparing communism to a "spectre," arguing that Europeans feared communism because they did not understand it. Marx and Engels sought to increase awareness of communism through the manifesto. The first section, titled "Bourgeois and Proletarians," describes Marx's historical materialism:

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."

The authors argue that the class struggle under capitalism is between the bourgeoisie (the rulers of society) and the proletariat (the workers). They contend that, in the course of its development, capitalism produced "its own gravediggers" — the working class — with the power to overthrow the system and establish a new society no longer divided between rulers and ruled. As they wrote:

"The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable."

In the second part of the manifesto, the authors describe the relationship of Communists to the working class, arguing that Communists resemble the working class in all ways but two: "1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole."

Marx and Engels also defend communism against various criticisms. They stress that Communists are not promoting "free love" and reject the idea that people will refuse to work in a communist society for lack of incentive. They criticize capitalists for making such charges, arguing that capitalism itself demonstrates the very negative elements that capitalists accuse communism of promoting.

Marx and Engels put forth a series of short-term demands in their manifesto, including the abolition of land ownership and the right to inheritance, a progressive income tax, universal education, centralization of the means of communication and transportation, and the expansion of state-owned means of production. If these demands were met, the authors believed a stateless and classless society could be achieved.

The final section of the manifesto, "Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties," addresses the communist position on struggles in specific countries. Marx and Engels call for forceful reform, declaring:

"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!"

Putnam's Notion of Social Capital

According to Putnam, social capital consists of "social networks and the norms of reciprocity associated with them." In Democracies in Flux, Robert Putnam examines the decline of social capital around the world, observing that citizens are joining fewer clubs, mingling with neighbors less frequently, meeting less often with friends, and even socializing less with family members.

Putnam notes that these forms of social capital are especially important for empowering less educated and less affluent groups. He finds more social engagement among the affluent than among the working classes, and he also identifies a younger generation that is uninterested in politics, distrustful of both politicians and fellow citizens, disillusioned about public affairs, and less inclined to participate in social organizations.

For Putnam, "social capital" describes a society's capacity to generate the kind of voluntary associations that encourage individuals to cooperate with one another, promoting democratic pluralism. He views social capital as critical both for the growth and development of communities and for individuals' physical and psychological well-being.

Marx and Engels also believed that social capital was important to society — in any society, vast numbers of people interact to produce wealth. However, they did not see this as a system of conscious, planned, harmonious cooperation. On the contrary, they viewed it as a system in which some people exploit others and no one controls the whole. As a result, they felt that people are alienated — not only from one another but from the products of their own labor.

Many analysts of Marxian theory maintain that there is no possibility of a moral critique of capitalism in Marx's work, since for him all moral principles are immanent in the material situation. To the extent that capitalism follows bourgeois moral and legal rules, Marx could not condemn private property as simply unjust or immoral. These analysts have therefore located the essence of Marx's opposition to private ownership in various economic or historical factors.

Marx and Engels wanted to abolish private property — not on the moral principle of justice, but on the moral principle of freedom. Human relations in capitalist societies negate the value of freedom as Marx understood it. They believed that individuals could only be truly free when exempt from private property and able to participate in the governance of their own affairs. Private ownership, by dividing society into the haves and the have-nots, denies the lower classes direction over their own lives, stands in opposition to a harmonious and developing society, and places all power in the market's invisible hand.

Marx would likely have respected Putnam's concept of social capital and perhaps incorporated these ideas into the manifesto — arguing that freedom can only be achieved in and through community, by engaging and cooperating with others. However, it is doubtful he would have abandoned his views on private property. He might have argued that private property increases individuals' tendency to protect their holdings by excluding others.

Perhaps Marx and Engels would also have been inspired, on reading Putnam, by some of the benefits of capitalism. Democracy seems to build a sense of community, as people have the freedom to use their resources as they see fit, and many donate money to help their neighbors and communities. With this knowledge in hand, Marx and Engels might have chosen to revise the manifesto to incorporate certain democratic elements.

Conclusion

In all societies, the oppressed dream of a future world of equality and justice where their oppression no longer exists. Marx and Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto in an attempt to show the oppressed how they could rise above their rulers and build a better state. They produced valuable ideas about how groups of people behave, how capitalism operates, and how technology can have negative effects on workers.

As Putnam's work illustrates, economic conditions gradually improved for most workers in capitalist societies — something Marx and Engels believed would never happen. The authors also failed to foresee that the working classes would be more interested in improving their wages and working conditions than in joining a revolution to overthrow the government. In those areas that did experience revolutions, communism proved to be a failure: these states used violence and starvation to eliminate private ownership of agricultural land, resulting in the deaths of millions of workers, while the Communist Party itself became a privileged ruling class that relied on force to maintain control.

Had Marx and Engels lived to witness recent history, their vision of a new, just society built on economic abundance shared by all would certainly have changed. They believed that individuals would achieve true freedom in such a society; history proved them wrong. For this reason, it seems clear that the authors would have revised their manifesto in light of the works of both Putnam and Hirschman.

Bibliography

Hirschman, Albert. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1969. Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume One. Moscow: Progress Publishers, pp. 98–137.

Putnam, Robert D., editor. 2002. Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society. New York: Oxford University Press.