Introduction | Marxism 101 | Briefing #1

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A NOTE ABOUT BRIEFINGS

We designed briefings to explore topics in-depth, incorporating several books. Have you heard of the intelligence briefings that presidents and prime ministers receive? The ones that they use to understand complex ideas, and make major decisions about war and peace? These briefings inspired our format here. We will break down topics, highlight key words and takeaways. Our goal is to give you the most essential information up front.  You can get a quick summary from the Key Takeaways at the beginning or at the top of each paragraph, in bold.  If you’d rather read in-depth to understand it better, keep going! We’ll provide supporting information on each point.  Our lists of Keywords are searchable on this site and also link straight to Wikipedia if you click on them. The books we read for this briefing are also listed here. At the end, we will suggest podcasts, articles or videos from other creators that might be helpful.  The goal is to meet you where you are, and provide you what you need on your journey.  

The topic for our first Briefing series is “Marxism 101.”  We’re providing an overview of Marxist economics, down to the basics. We’ll build on that to talk about the ideas behind socialism and communism that you hear about in today’s news.  Do you believe in the capitalist system? Do you suspect it is deeply broken? Or are you convinced it was never a fair deal to begin with? Regardless, understanding Marxism is essential to understanding many events around us.

Yet reading up on Marxism means tackling some complex texts by two 19th century Germans. I’m talking about philosopher Karl Marx and his partner Friedrich Engels .  Reading all their major work is time consuming, and can be intimidating. We will guide you through the basics and help you if you want to learn more. Still, we couldn’t have done our job without guides of our own.  To that end, we read books by Marx and Engels along with introductory texts on Marxism and Capitalism. 

WHY ALL THIS TALK OF MARXISM RIGHT NOW?

Capitalism is in crisis, whether you admit it or not. This economic system claims to enable the free flow of goods and services. It values free competition, “free labor”, and consumer choice. For many people in the United States during its prime, it seemed to make good on some of those promises.  But those promises were never fulfilled for everyone. Since then, we’ve experienced decades of income stagnation and rising costs of living. Our working class suffered from the effects of outsourcing and increasing income inequality. Now, we are experiencing COVID-driven instability in our workforce and supply chains. Many question whether capitalism has lost its mojo or outlived its usefulness.

Capitalism is America, and America is questioning itself.  Many consider capitalism to be the core element behind American economic growth. They even believe that criticizing capitalism is the same thing as criticizing America.  Are they right? Yes, and No, and yes.  The forces driving capitalism include private property ownership and competition. These forces have always been part of American life. So have slavery, imperialism and exploitation, though. These horrors are also part of the legacy of capitalism.  People who resist these horrors, though, have been with us since the beginning as well. Their stories matter, too. To understand them, we must understand capitalism and its major critiques and alternatives.

Capitalism claims that it represents human nature. Supporters argue that capitalism’s focus on private property and competition, reflects human nature.  They argue that no other system can be as free, as efficient, or fairly assign winners and losers. For them, capitalism already won against socialism, for good, during the Cold War. Marxists believe this fight is not settled. They argue capitalists misunderstand human nature and history.

WHAT SHOULD WE KNOW BEFORE WE BEGIN?

Marxism is a critique of capitalism, and forms the basis for an alternative. Karl Marx was a German philosopher, revolutionary, writer and occasional half-drunk malcontent. He spent decades as a journalist, philosopher, and writer about capitalism. Marx built upon the ideas of classical economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo. He developed theories to explain how labor creates value in society. He investigated how people accumulate property and what drives the production of goods.  Marx lays out how capitalism operates and creates tremendous growth and wealth. He believed that capitalism also exploits labor, wastes resources, and distributes profits unfairly. Marx claimed that sooner or later, capitalism starts to overproduce goods. It does this while underpaying its workers (who can no longer afford to buy goods). When this happens, it leads to crisis. This process ends with capitalism sowing the seeds of its own destruction.  

Marx argued that socialism, leading to eventual communism, should be our goal.  With his partner Friedrich Engels, Marx developed a socialism he believed was scientific. To him, it held an accurate view of the flow of human history. This view centered on competing economic classes struggling to determine who gets what.  Marx argued for revolution to overthrow the capitalist class and the capitalist-dominated state. Marx & Engels published the The Communist Manifesto during the 1848 European revolutions. They argued workers could free themselves and build a transitional socialist system. Gradually, this system would become classless, money-less, and stateless. Workers would produce goods and services according to society’s needs, not for profit. This society would distribute the benefits of human ingenuity to all people.  Instead of scarcity, we would have plenty. This is the system he called communism.

When it comes to what socialism or communism would look like, Marx wasn’t exactly a “details man.”  While influenced and inspired by some Utopian socialist movements, Marx wasn’t a utopian. He thought their concrete blueprints for a socialist future were unrealistic. In fact, Marx didn’t specify too much about how a future communist government would take form. He suggested only some initial steps a “dictatorship of the proletariat” could pursue. That word “dictatorship” scares people reading Marx’s words today. The word had a different connotation back then, though. This is dictatorship in the classical Roman sense of a temporary, emergency government. It is not meant to suggest an entrenched, totalitarian one. Marx assumed each revolution would attempt socialism in their own way, in their own time. They would learn from their successes, their failures and the efforts of others.

Marx is a product of the Enlightenment, and wasn’t a straight-up critic of its values.  Marx had considerable respect for free association and free speech. He opposed slavery, serfdom, and gender inequality.  Still, he saw plenty of hypocrites among “liberals” inspired by Enlightenment values. Too often, he believed, they didn’t practice the values they preached or apply them to everyone. The ruling classes denied rights to the poor, women, and other ethnic groups and cultures. He believed in participating in parliaments and legislatures in some circumstances. Marx even admired the constitutional republics found in places like the United States. They were far from perfect, but were still a vast improvement on what he found in the old monarchies of Europe.  Marx hoped workers could use America’s constitutional system for good, despite its limits.

Marxism is many things, and there are many Marxisms.  It’s a way of looking at history.  It’s a way of understanding how economics works in general, and capitalism in particular.  It articulates a form of social ownership of the economy. This vision tries to root itself in fairness, democracy, and sustainability. Marxists contrast this with a capitalist system they think wasteful, destructive and exploitative.  Marxism is the core of several revolutionary currents throughout history. It influenced systems of government that attempted radical change in many different ways.  

Marxism intends to be scientific.  Marx believed Marxists would refine his ideas through experimentation, analysis, trial and error.  While some of Marx’s predictions seem prophetic, others didn’t pan out, or haven’t so far. We can learn from him and his work without treating him as infallible.  At their best, Marxists learn from their attempts to remake the world. They frankly contend with what efforts succeed or fail, and how to do better next time.  For them, learning how to build a better world should be more than following a rigid belief system.  

“BUT I’M NOT A MARXIST!”

Being a Marxist doesn’t mean being “authoritarian”. It is possible to be a Marxist and not a supporter of the regimes or philosophies of Stalin or Mao, for instance. Still, we will be taking a closer look at their views, policies, and actions in the future. We want to investigate their complicated and bloody legacies.  Some of what we find might surprise you, and it might surprise me.  Even if some of it reinforces our existing beliefs, we will at least root them in more knowledge than before.

You don’t have to agree with every word Marx ever wrote to find value in his work.  It is possible to believe in every aspect of core Marxist philosophy and ideology, or to only believe in some of it.  Many non-socialist scholars and businessmen find value in Marx and Engels’ diagnoses. They may not agree with the prescriptions he sketched out.  That’s okay, too.  Some of his ideas didn’t pan out.  For all his brilliance, Marx was also flawed. Sometimes he was hypocritical or exploitative of those in his own life. He was human, for better and worse. That doesn’t negate the value of his work, but it adds context to it.

Marx’s ideas, and relevance, aren’t going anywhere.  We aim to understand him for what he actually wrote and believed, not just what others say or assume about him. This will only help us better understand our own world and our own lives. 

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Cover Photo: By aquatarkus on Adobe Stock.

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