The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others.
Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weaknesses, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects — his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity. Never believe in the honesty or disinterestedness of anyone who disagrees with you.
This basic hatred is the heart of Marxism. This is its animating force. You can throw away the dialectical materialism, the Hegelian framework, the technical jargon, the “scientific” analysis, and millions of pretentious words, and you still have the core: the implacable hatred and envy that are the raison d’être for all the rest.
Here also is the root of political correctness – the “Critical Theory” of the Frankfurt School.
(HT: Mises Ec0nomics Blog)
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In 2000 I took a course on Marxism and it’s history as a requirement for my Political Science degree. Though I’m not a Marxist (I did spend some time in the socialist camp) I have to say that this statement betrays one of the most fundamental misunderstandings of the Marxist ethos.
Yes, Marx wanted to abolish private property. But he only came to that conclusion (a misguided one) because of what the rich were doing, not because of who they were. Exploitation was real. People suffered. People suffered because they were denied wages that would have prevented alienation from their labor and themselves. They suffered because they were made to work in horrible and unsafe conditions in the name of profit.
But Marx also knew the golden rule, which is: he who has the gold makes the rules. It would be naive to think that the rich do nothing with their wealth but spend it or horde it. History has taught us that the wealthy use their wealth to exclude certain groups from the governmental process. Often to maintain the status quo. The exploitation of the working class (I’m thinking Industrial Revolution, Europe) deprived them not of money only, but of education, which is of much more importance in the democratic process.
Yes, there is a pathological demonization of the rich in some Marxist thought. But it is not the ideology of the lazy. Marx believed that work was an essential aspect of the whole person. It is easy for sloths to attach themselves like parasites to Marxist thought, using it to justify all sorts of class hatred. But many Capitalists earned the disdain of the people all on their own, without the green eye of jealousy or the inferiority complex of the simple.
I appreciate your insights, Mike. Thanks.