Trying to Understand 4: Communism

Summary: The Victorian Era, building on the ideals of the Enlightenment, had a lot going for it. Human virtue was publicly supported and encouraged. Human development in science, art, literature, and philosophy flourished. Industry and trade benefited from benevolent laws protecting their profit. Technology and transportation boomed thanks to industrial revolutions. European countries prospered and the ideal of civil societies definitely seemed to be realized - at least for some people. In 1848, Carl Marx and Frederick Engels joined other thinkers in criticizing the abuse of the working class, who were sacrificed for the sake of this prosperity. Their famous “Communist Manifesto” did more than criticize the abuses of the day; it called for a complete revolution that rejected the very ideals the Victorian Era was founded on. While the criticisms were largely justified, once again we see the pattern of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” Communism threw out all that was good about the Enlightenment in order to correct for its evils.

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The Victorian Age was the age of fulfillment for the Enlightenment. Enlightenment ideals fueled free trade and continuous progress. Enlightenment ideals and the search for profit also fueled expanding globalization. Globalization began to transform nationalistic one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness. It also had a civilizing effect on many nations, offering the promise of prosperity and progress to all. Great cities developed. Culture was cultivated. The Victorian era became a time of great literary and artistic growth. The Enlightened civilization seemed to be reality – at least for some.

The problem, pinpointed by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, was that all of this progress was accomplished through the exploitation of others, motivated by an insatiable lust for profits. To ensure a constant stream of profit, the Bourgeoisie created need and constantly sought new markets. To ensure a cheap production and high profit margins, they created a working class, the Proletariat, whom they kept poor and dependant on the small salary earned in the factories. Urbanization consolidated power into the hands of the few and made people dependant on the cities for survival instead of being self-sufficient. The working class worked hard to make money, only to spend it on Bourgeoisie products and services that the Proletariat needed for survival.

During the Middle Ages, the Bourgeoisie (the middle class merchants and skilled labor) had battled against the oppression of the monarchy and aristocracy to ascend to dominance. Once dominant, the Bourgeoisie became the oppressors by turning all of society into commodities to be exploited. They stripped “of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe.” Human labor was stripped of its dignity. Individuality, so prized by Enlightenment philosophy and still actively expressed in art, literature, and music, was destroyed for the poor workers who became just another “cog in the wheel” – replaceable and unsubstantial.

Progress created the crisis of overproduction. This crisis is solved by increasing demand and finding new markets. A short-time solution, expanding the markets only led to greater potential for overproduction and for crisis. This crisis only made matters worse for the Proletariat. Labor layoffs and factory closings were very hard on families who were barely scratching out a living the way it was.

In fact, Marx and Engels believed that the Proletariat could not take much more. They would inevitably revolt, at first against their local oppressors, but eventually as a united class against the entire Bourgeoisie – against the very system that kept them poor and dependant. This revolution would require the dismantling of all of the oppressive structures that kept them in chains. The system of free trade and monopolistic power needed to come down. The means of production should be shared by all. The power should be shared by all. Everyone has the right to benefit from their own labor – to not be exploited, used and discarded. To make capital public is to free it from class distinction, to use it to enrich the persons of all. “Capital is a collective product” and can only be “set in motion” by all members of a society.

When the revolution happened, the Communist Party would offer the needed support to organize the world-wide effort to change society. The Party would unite the Proletariat, representing their common interests. This party did not base its actions on ideals or principles, but on actual relations existing from a real class struggle. Herein lies the over-reaction that seems concomitant with every reaction against abuses.

The Communist Party put to death the belief in transcendent ideals. Complaints against unbridled greed, unilateral materialism and exploitation were justified and well-grounded. However, Communist philosophy fought these evils by eradicating all of Enlightenment philosophy and of what they considered “Bourgeois” principles. Since progress, globalization and urbanization were used for exploitive purposes, all of these things were considered evil despite the good that these trends can bring. Nationalism was also judged to be evil. Nationalism leads to conflict and competition. It should be replaced with a worldwide community of workers with no competition, since there would be no private goods to compete over. Next, families were reduced by greed and materialism to relationships of extortion. Proletariat families existed only to produce new workers. Bourgeois families were the only ones who were able to enjoy the civilizing benefits of family life, but their business-oriented relationships didn’t allow for true love. Therefore, Communism promotes the abolition of the family and the legalization of “communities of women” – shared sexual relationships without long-term, “controlling” commitments. Finally, Communism viewed all “eternal laws of nature and of reason” with suspicion, if not contempt. “The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.” Whenever ideas changed in history, according to Communism, it was the effect of change in concrete socioeconomic conditions. Religion, philosophy, natural law, morality, ideas of human nature, and ideas of virtue were all to be cast off.

Accompanying such a radical rejection of the past is a flat, black-and-white view of reality that Christians are often blamed for. Once the Enlightenment eliminated God, Nietzsche’s maxim became relevant: without love, the only thing left is power. For Marx and Engels, all of history was a history of class struggle. The struggle between the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat was a struggle between good and evil. Communism correctly identifies the evil aspects of Bourgeoisie society, but completely ignores the beneficial aspects of Enlightenment thought. It throws away faith and morality despite its goodness out of paranoia that it is the brainwashing tool of entrepreneurs.

Perhaps this simplistic tendency is the reason Communism rarely works as an actual governmental system. The revolution Marx and Engels never happened. It probably never will. The solution to poverty and exploitation is not to throw away everything that makes human life great out of philosophic paranoia. The solution is to embrace those ideals and to work toward making them a reality. Catholics understand that realizing those ideals completely is not possible in a fallen world. However, we also understand that realizing those ideals is possible to some degree, and the degree to which we can do so will make the world a better place. However, it was the failure to realize these ideals, especially during World War I and World War II that gave rise to the next step toward subjectivism: Modernism.