The Relevance Of Marxism Nowadays
Marxist theory is a socio-economical theory created in the xix century by a German philosopher Karl Marx. The theory is a criticism of Capitalism. It describes capitalism, its problems, and it gives us a solution called the communist theory. Nowadays there is the question of the relevance of Marxism appeared as the time passed and the way the society works changed. The world changed and nowadays basis is different from the basis of the xix century, but at the same time, the monopolization of the market, the globalization,crises and imperialist wars as a response to those lasting crises remain in our world and don't change in time. This is why the question of the relevance of Marxism remains and is a topic for great debates between different ideologies people with different historical and cultural backgrounds.
During the essay I will try to find out the theories for and against Marxist theory and I will try to prove that even nowadays Marxism is relevant.
Is Marxism Outdated?
Nowadays we have generally two points of view. The liberal position says that the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the whole socialist block in the xx century proves that Marxism is a utopian theory that in reality can't be realized. Another popular theory says that the fall of the Soviet Union can't prove that Marxism doesn't work; for example, a plane crash doesn't prove that air flights are impossible. The supporters of this theory state that Karl Marx and Vladimir Ilich Lenin are still relevant.
Is Marxism still relevant? Before answering this question we need to understand that Marxism, like a science subject, changes over time. Like in science, some basic ideas don't change and remain relevant and some parts are updated, changed, renewed, and there are theories that in general during the time are rejected. For example, let's take anthropology. During the xx century, human evolution was shown in a small scheme with only 6 stages of evolution. Nowadays as science developed that scheme is way more complicated and developed. For the renewed part, we can take the example of the rejected theory of the neanderthals. In the beginning, it was thought that they were a stage in our evolution, but this theory was rejected and it was proved that they were a parallel branch to us.
The strategic and the tactical part
The Marxist theory consists of 2 parts the “Strategic'' and the,” Tactical'' part. The strategic part consists of a group of common positions and ideas that are not attached to concrete time, dates or countries. The strategic part studies some basic phenomena of one or another socio-economical formation. An example of strategic work we can take Karl Marx's work,” The Capital'' or,” The State and The Revolution'' of Vladimir Ilich Lenin.
The tactical part consists of solutions given to an exact time or country. An example of this character can be,” The Requirements for The Communist Party'' of Marx and Engels 1848 or Joseph Stalin's,” The Economic Problems of Socialism in USSR'' 1952. The position of this group during time can lose its relevance because the situation in a particular country and around the world changes. One of those tactical works is Vladimir Ilich Lenin's,” Great Initiative'' 1919 where Lenin gives an exact description of the term,” Dictatorship of Proletarian'' based on conditions of 1919 time. His definition is considered even nowadays relevant by him,” Orthodoxal '' Marxists. In this book, Lenin states The dictatorship of the proletarian, if we would translate this Latin, scientifically. historical, philosophical expression into a simpler language means this: only a certain class, namely urban and industrial factory workers in general, are able to lead the whole mass of working and exploited people in the struggle to overthrow the yoke of capital, during the overthrow, in the struggle to maintain and strengthen victory, in creating a new socialist social system, in the whole struggle for the complete abolition of classes. '' What is the factory proletarian for example in Russia during the xix century?. It is about 15 million economically active people which as a percentage of the whole number of people is about 10%-15%. And if we would consider only the economically active part of the population it will compose even more. Besides this, in big industrial cities, these people are the majority. In comparison with the rural proletarian, the urban fabric proletarian wasn't spread on big land or forestry but works in a large, harmonious team. This fabric environment helps and makes propaganda easier and more effective. One revolutionary paper will easily pass through hundred of hands in comparison with the farmers that were going together only one day in a week.
Secondly, the fabric worker is used to work in a big collective group in comparison with a farmer and he is also more disciplined and is used to interact with a big group of people. Discipline is one of the things that is learned by a fabric worker. Thirdly the factory proletarian had a higher level of education and knowledge in comparison with a farmer. A fabric worker could write, read and had a basic knowledge of social science because this knowledge was needed in his work, at that time they are the forefront of the working class. His conclusions are indisputable for the xix Russia but what if we look at Russia today? First, let's talk about positive things. Entrepreneurs nowadays are less than 5% and this number is going down because of the economic crisis. Because of the crisis a lot of entrepreneurs break and are proletarianized. The proletarian population in contemporary Russia is around 95% compared to 10% during the Russian empire. Now about the bad things. In the context of deindustrialization, unfastening material production, the factory proletarian is insignificant in the context of all the workers. By the statistics of, Rosstat''(Russian General Governmental Organisation that Responds for Statistics) in Russia nowadays most people work as sellers and drivers, after came the teachers, medical personnel, economists, financiers, and we see that the factory proletarian is not even 1 percent.
The modern Proletarian
Yes, the number of proletarian populations raised but the structure changed, the workers all flowed from industry into the services sphere. Let's imagine that for example nowadays this 1 percent of industrial proletarians will say that he will start the revolution and the industrial proletariat will rule the new world, who will listen to them? Again we need to remember that the Russian empire factory workers were 15 percent, in nowadays Russia they are only 1 %. Also, this 15 percent of the workers were in the cities and as we know historically the cities ruled the smaller towns. Nowadays mostly all the people live in cities and in this case, the fabric workers cant have a majority. The proportion of people in cities engaged in physical labor is high; these are loaders, locksmiths, tire service workers, drivers, but they all do not fall under the definition of Lenin.
As proofs to this statement I can say that firstly the service workers, the drivers work in way more smaller collectives and so the political agitation and the work of the labor unions is slowed or in general nearly impossible, secondly the majority of modern service work doe-sent require steel discipline and the interaction with hundreds or thousands of people. Thirdly modern construction workers or the, in general, the workers don´t have a high level of education, they have a lower level of critical thinking, for example, IT specialists, engineers, and other height specialized workers. It is not a surprise that at the moment the IT specialists and engineers make the core of the modern communist movements. Also, the position of the intelligentsia changed, if in the past they were a small privileged group of people, nowadays it is a big part of the city proletarians. Big competition on the labor market, lower wages and the connection of the engineers, programmers or logistics directly into the process of production, puts them at the same level as the classical proletarian. If we would look back at the 'Rosstat '' scheme we would see that the intelligentsia is on the list of the most massive jobs, but, we can't say this about the factory proletarian. That's why the tactical works of Vladimir Ilich Lenin are not relevant at all nowadays. By using those strategies it is impossible to create a powerful movement so we can call them irrelevant which was proved by the history of Russia in the last 25 years.
What about the strategic part?
Private property and the market mechanism of economical function are the same actual as 100 years ago. The production crisis how it was, the same it remained, imperialist wars as a response to the protracted systemic crises of capitalism remained. In 2017 the Gini Index sated that 8 rich people on the earth had more resources than 3 billion. And this proves one thing: beneath the fact that in the last 100 years a lot of things changed one thing remained the same, the economic basis, which is based on the appropriation of the economic results of the labor to a small group of people. This is one of the bases on what the modern strategic points of Marxism stay,and changes in this situation can happen only in the case when the modern basis would be changed into another one, a socialist one and then on the communist one.
Conclusion
I started the essay with the purpose of finding arguments for the irrelevance of Marxism but, as we see Marxism remains relevant even nowadays. Capitalist overproduction, crises, and wars are still led in our world. Yes, the world changes fast but Marxism too changes, adapts and develops with the world at the same time. Some of its ideas adapt, change and go hand in hand with the modern world. As we see Marxism remains relevant but another question is its real abilities to be created. Beneath the fact that it is relevant still, there are many factors that can affect it. One of them is human nature. Even if we would take the Soviet Union we would see that even there was money, private property, and recompense for the people's work. We would not make people work for the sake of working, people will always want to get something from that. Again as an example can be the Soviet Union were people mostly worked for an idea, not for recompense but, firstly they were forced to do this and secondly when the government tightened the regime when the first possibility to leave socialism and go to capitalism appeared, and it was used by the people of the former union and the union broke down. Another problem is the denial of private property. Again the territorial instinct is a thing that developed in us for thousands of years and it is not so easy to disregard evolutionary developments we still want. Those mechanisms developed in us over many years and even if most of us will go with these ideas we will still have people that will go against and that their ideas could be more attractive.
As with the former Soviet Republics, we cant be sure that if people would have the possibility of having private property, they would not use it. Another problem with it can be the world system. As the world is capitalist it is nearly impossible to build socialism and communism in a single country. As the world would change and different ideas would come again by the example of the Soviet Union we see that it is nearly impossible. Only a large group of countries, ideally the majority of countries in the world will create the necessary conditions for Communism.
