The "flaws" of Marx's theory...

[Hexen]

I have recently came across this yahoo answer site...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060916182449AAmzPn8

Especially this as the "best answer"


The flaw with Marx's theory is that he did not understand human nature. He envisioned the lower classes rising up and over throwing their rich and then settling down to live in this utopian society in which there would be not religion, no government, and no private ownership of anything. The problem with this vision is that it goes contrary to human nature. Despite what Marx thought about it, the need for some kind of religion seems to be hardwired into our psyches. The various communist governments of the world have actively tried to stamp out religion in their countries, sometimes ruthlessly so. However they have all failed. People, by and large, just won't give it up. Without some level of central control (government) there is too much disorder for a society's resources to be efficiently allocated. So, you get too much of some things one place and not enough of others elsewhere. (This can also happen if there is too much central control as the USSR found out.)

Finally, when no one owns anything and cannot see any personal benefit to working harder, they usually won't. This point needs a bit more attention. So, let me give you an example. Let's say that I am a laze bum who does not want to work. If there are know private possessions, then I am free to just go and take whatever I need with out doing anything to earn it. On the other hand we have Karl who is working hard to contribute to society. However, he sees me not doing any work but still the reward of Karl's hard work. So, Karl begins to think, "Why should I put in so much effort if Glenn isn't? He's not contributing anything, but is still getting all of the reward. Why should I work so hard to support him?" The end result is that people don't work as hard if they don't see any personal profit from the work. So, the economy stagnates.

So, what are the flaws of Karl Marx's theory of communism? The whole theory. It looks good on paper. However, it fails to take into account human nature. Therefore, it always fails in practice. The theories very foundations are flawed.

*************
pelister56,

You can complain about the inequalities of capitalism all you want, but it is capitalism that has provided you with the ability to easily get on here to whine. The fact of the matter is that every single attempt to implement communism has made most people equal...in poverty. (I say most people because those that rule in such countries have rarely shared the poverty of their subjects.) The subjects in such countries are the true slaves. It does not matter how hard they work, they have no hope of improving their lot in life.

On the other hand, capitalism gives people the opportunity to improve their lives according to the amount of effort they are willing to put in to their lives. I am a middle class American. The only debt that I have at the moment is my car. That I shall have paid off some time this fall. It is not capitalism that keeps people in debt. It is their own choices about how they spend their money.

Is there anyway to respond to this?

[PoliticalNightmare]

If human nature is so flawed, then why give individuals economic/political power over others? Surely it would be better for everyone to have equal economic/political power so that they cannot coerce one another? Also, most of us don't believe in getting rid of religion by force - we deny its validity, sure, but we want people to make their own minds up. Also the USSR doesn't equate to the theory or practice of communism. Also, property is in ownership - by the community (and managed/run by the community). What's more is that human nature is largely influenced by its environment: if we live in an environment that accepts and rewards greed and competition then how does one expect the condition of man to improve? We want co-operation to be rewarded.

Article = flawed, but then it was only a yahoo answer.

[Desperado]

The flaw with Marx's theory is that he did not understand human nature.Human nature, as in what we do, is massively decided by the structure of the society we are in. Human nature, as in what our genes tell us to do, is little understood. Oppressors will always claim that their system is the "natural" order of things, be the order stemming from God (feudalism) or some pseudo-Darwinism (Nazism).


He envisioned the lower classes rising up and over throwing their rich and then settling down to live in this utopian society in which there would be not religion, no government, and no private ownership of anythingThis is anarchism, not Marxism. Marx has a transition period.


Without some level of central control (government) there is too much disorder for a society's resources to be efficiently allocated.You can have "central control" in this context without government. And society's resources are never efficiently allocated by government - unless "efficiency" is giving them to the rich and keeping them from the poor.


Finally, when no one owns anything and cannot see any personal benefit to working harder, they usually won't.In capitalism, most people own nothing. Private property in the Marxist sense is property used to make profit. This is owned by a minority, who don't work. In communism, the worker owns the mode of production, so working harder gives him more personal benefit, rather than just making his boss fatter.


If there are know private possessions, then I am free to just go and take whatever I need with out doing anything to earn it.This is non-managed property, not communal property. In a free for all, anyone can take what they want, true. But in communal property, anyone can take what the community decides they should take.


"Why should I put in so much effort if Glenn isn't? He's not contributing anything, but is still getting all of the reward. Why should I work so hard to support him?"This is called capitalism, and why we oppose it. Glenn is the capitalist.

[L.A.P.]

This idea of human nature has been refuted and proven false. Also, in the times of feudalsim I'm sure there were many feudalists who thought capitalists were silly because they imagined a utopia society in changing the economic relations for the class below the monarchs and nobles but hey it happened and it worked. Why should we think that history stops here and that there won't and shouldn't be a major change in the economic structure? In the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the economic relations were changed in a way where the bourgosie class overthrew and abolished the monarchs and nobles and things greatly improved. So why not think that history will progress into a time where the proletariat change the economic relations in a way that overthrows and abolishes the bourgosie?

[syndicat]

Humans have a nature. Consider the Human Genome Project. is it charting nothing? moreover, part of human nature is the capacity and need for the development of one's human potential and to control one's own work activities. These are things that are suppressed by capitalism. So we can argue capitalism is "contrary to human nature." It's just that human nature is flexible. It also includes the capacity to be greedy, selfish and domineering...as well as the capacity for cooperation, solidarity, self-management. Which of these comes to the fore depends on the social context, that is, the dominant system of social relations.

You don't need to claim there is no human nature to refute idiotic right-wing propaganda of this sort.

Just to mention one thing: This piece assumes that the income people receive within capitalism is in relation to how "hard" they work. That's bullshit. Income depends on the power they have in the economy. And owning the means of production is the strongest entrenchment of position in the economy, so the owning class have the highest incomes. Even tho one is entitled to the income from ownership even if one does no work at all.

[mikelepore]

Is there anyway to respond to this?

The writer didn't back up any of the references to Marx. One could ask the writer: What book and page did Marx say that government should "stamp out religion"? What book and page did Marx say there should be no personal "benefit to working harder"? What books and page did Marx say there should be "no private possessions"? What book and page did Marx say that people must go "without some level of central control (government)"? Marx never said any of these things, and the person who wrote the article is either, best case, thoroughly brainwashed or, worst case, a pathological liar.

As for whatever atrocities people have committed in the name of Marx or communism, that is irrelevant. For ALL noble principles, including truth, reason, science, progress, democracy, freedom and peace, there have been various tyrants and dictators who have committed atrocities in their name.

As for whether Marx's idea "looks good on paper" but "always fails in practice", the writer doesn't exhibit the degree of understanding to discern whether people have genuinely tested Marx's idea and saw it fail, or whether people didn't seriously test Marx's idea. Doesn't the writer know that people can claim to implement an idea when they aren't really doing so? I'm sure the writer has heard of societies that said they had "democracy" while not granting voting rights, societies that said they had "liberty" while practicing slavery, etc. But, apparently, the writer assumes that, the instant anyone says they are implementing "communism", we should automatically conclude that they have given "communism" a fair test. Someone who has such as a habit of compartmentalized thinking is not competent to answer the question.

[Struggle]

Oh how I love destroying people who cry 'human nature!'.

In a word, human nature is mythology.
If human nature existed, one would still be living in caves or raping people willy nilly, as opposed to going to McDonalds.

Why do does one not live in a cave or rape people like its Christmas Eve nowadays? - Because the institutions in society have socialised the people in a way where one sees raping people as wrong, and eating Chicken Nuggets as 'alright!'.

[cb9's_unity]

This article would be a lot better if it actually addressed Marxist theory. None of what is in the article responds to what Marx actually wrote, it instead attacks capitalist strawman arguments that charade as Marxism.


The flaw with Marx's theory is that he did not understand human nature. He envisioned the lower classes rising up and over throwing their rich and then settling down to live in this utopian society in which there would be not religion, no government, and no private ownership of anything. The problem with this vision is that it goes contrary to human nature.

First off, this is a gross simplification of Marx's theory. Marx has a stunningly large volume of work that covers many different topics in great detail. To condense Marx's major theory's, or all of Marx's theory's, into a paragraph is simply impossible.

Second, I would like to think what the author thought Marx's theory of human nature was. Marx recognized that humans could be greedy and self centered, in fact its central to his economic theory. Marx knew that humans constantly struggled for their own needs, and often people were forced to struggle against each other. The only reason the proletariat will rise is because it is fighting for its own needs.

Third, the author of that paragraph is missing the entire early socialist phase of the revolution. Society doesn't go straight from capitalism to "Utopia" (and, to my knowledge, Marx never promised the heaven-on-earth society that many pro-capitalists claim he did).


Despite what Marx thought about it, the need for some kind of religion seems to be hardwired into our psyches. The various communist governments of the world have actively tried to stamp out religion in their countries, sometimes ruthlessly so. However they have all failed. People, by and large, just won't give it up.

This part is pretty shamefully dishonest. It is absolutely absurd to use the actions of later "communist" governments in suppressing religion as an argument against Marx. Marx believed that religion would die out on its own and that by remedying society the sickness of religion would also remedy itself. Thus Marx didn't believe in actively destroying or suppressing religion.

Also it has been shown that religion is in fact loosing much of its influence. People are far less religious today and there are nations in the world where over half the population doesn't believe in god. This would have been unthinkable over a hundred years ago.


. Without some level of central control (government) there is too much disorder for a society's resources to be efficiently allocated. So, you get too much of some things one place and not enough of others elsewhere. (This can also happen if there is too much central control as the USSR found out.)

Central control of the economy was actually largely a success story in the USSR. The fact is that people in the USSR were essentially living at a first world level and the return of capitalism proved to be an immediate disaster with a disturbing toll on human life (for example, life expectancy for males went from 64 in 1990 to 57 in 1994, that is shocking). Russia went from being embarrassingly frail under the czars, to being one of the worlds only two superpowers in less than 50 years.

I believe if that central control of the economy is combined with real democracy, the results will surpass both the achievements of the USSR and the USA.


Finally, when no one owns anything and cannot see any personal benefit to working harder, they usually won't. This point needs a bit more attention. So, let me give you an example. Let's say that I am a laze bum who does not want to work. If there are know private possessions, then I am free to just go and take whatever I need with out doing anything to earn it. On the other hand we have Karl who is working hard to contribute to society. However, he sees me not doing any work but still the reward of Karl's hard work. So, Karl begins to think, "Why should I put in so much effort if Glenn isn't? He's not contributing anything, but is still getting all of the reward. Why should I work so hard to support him?" The end result is that people don't work as hard if they don't see any personal profit from the work. So, the economy stagnates.

"From each according to his ability"

[Revolutionair]

The flaw with Marx's theory is that he did not understand human nature.

Cool story bro. This is a popular position though, so let's dismantle it.

When you would ask this person what do you mean with human nature. He will probably answer with 'humans are greedy'.

So now let's examine: what is greed? Greed takes multiple faces in our society. When I consume a piece of bread, I am doing the most greedy thing I could possibly do. I am using that bread only for myself and I take everyone's option of eating that piece of bread away. However, is this bad? Of course not. Humans need to eat, without this basic instinct we would all be dead. Now there's also the greed for power, that is how greed manifests itself today in capitalism. In capitalism you need power to obtain a piece of bread. Without capitalism, the last form of greed would, I think, disappear.


He envisioned the lower classes rising up and over throwing their rich and then settling down to live in this utopian society in which there would be not religion, no government, and no private ownership of anything.

I would like to add that the struggle is already here. The only thing that Marxists do, is predict that communism will be the outcome of that struggle.


The problem with this vision is that it goes contrary to human nature. Despite what Marx thought about it, the need for some kind of religion seems to be hardwired into our psyches. The various communist governments of the world have actively tried to stamp out religion in their countries, sometimes ruthlessly so. However they have all failed. People, by and large, just won't give it up.


Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.
- Marx


Without some level of central control (government) there is too much disorder for a society's resources to be efficiently allocated. So, you get too much of some things one place and not enough of others elsewhere. (This can also happen if there is too much central control as the USSR found out.)

There is no basis for hypothesis. I have no idea why anyone would assume this to be true. The poster gave no arguments so I can't attack this position. I guess he assumes that people will no longer have material relations because of the lack of police?


Finally, when no one owns anything and cannot see any personal benefit to working harder, they usually won't. This point needs a bit more attention. So, let me give you an example. Let's say that I am a laze bum who does not want to work. If there are no private possessions, then I am free to just go and take whatever I need with out doing anything to earn it. On the other hand we have Karl who is working hard to contribute to society. However, he sees me not doing any work but still the reward of Karl's hard work. So, Karl begins to think, "Why should I put in so much effort if Glenn isn't? He's not contributing anything, but is still getting all of the reward. Why should I work so hard to support him?" The end result is that people don't work as hard if they don't see any personal profit from the work. So, the economy stagnates.

Cool story bro, but you have not supplied any information to make this hypothesis a thesis. Regardless we will try to attack this position since it is a popular one.
In a family today. The dad and the mom are doing a lot of work. But the children aren't doing anything. So all of the parents stopped working? We can look around and see that this is not true.
Granted we will have a lower individual production. I don't see how this is bad. We already have a huge overproduction of products and food.


So, what are the flaws of Karl Marx's theory of communism? The whole theory. It looks good on paper. However, it fails to take into account human nature. Therefore, it always fails in practice. The theories very foundations are flawed.

Then why didn't you give arguments?


You can complain about the inequalities of capitalism all you want, but it is capitalism that has provided you with the ability to easily get on here to whine.

You can complain about the inequalities of feudalism all you want, but it is feudalism that has provided you with the ability to harvest your grain, of which you can keep at least 10%.


The fact of the matter is that every single attempt to implement communism has made most people equal...in poverty. (I say most people because those that rule in such countries have rarely shared the poverty of their subjects.) The subjects in such countries are the true slaves. It does not matter how hard they work, they have no hope of improving their lot in life.

Well, communism has never been implemented. Here the poster is attacking Communism with a capital C, this is the same as Marxism-Leninism. I am not a ML, but I will defend ML for the sake of countering everything this guy says.
Empirically we can observe that Communism is used to create industrial capacity. Both China and Russia were underdeveloped before Communism. Communism allows a government to force the creation of certain industry in a country.
If milk costs 1 dollar when you buy it from the West and it costs 2 dollar when you buy it from Russians, from who do you buy it? Obviously you would buy the Western milk. This eliminates the Russian milk industry.
Communism can force people to buy the Russian milk. Because of this investment, the Russian milk industry can invest in better machines. This lowers the price of Russian milk from 2 dollars to 1 dollar. Now you can implement a 'freer' market without destroying your own industry.



On the other hand, capitalism gives people the opportunity to improve their lives according to the amount of effort they are willing to put in to their lives. I am a middle class American. The only debt that I have at the moment is my car. That I shall have paid off some time this fall. It is not capitalism that keeps people in debt. It is their own choices about how they spend their money.

You do know that your government is going to make you pay for their debt right? And that's a lot more than the debt from your car.

[Red Commissar]

Considering this is the same site that produced gems like "how is babby formed?", I wouldn't take the self-declared sages on yahoo answers too seriously. They won't dare look at sources or provide sources for their claims- their opinions are apparently irrefutable.

Don't exert yourself too much with people on the internet. They're on the internet to find an audience for their flawed opinions that otherwise they'd get torn up for in real life. It makes them sound more significant too- internet is like a big room that echoes.

As for rebuttals to the shitty claims, I believe the users who posted before have done this fine.

[Oswy]

The flaw with Marx's theory is that he did not understand human nature. He envisioned the lower classes rising up and over throwing their rich and then settling down to live in this utopian society in which there would be not religion, no government, and no private ownership of anything. The problem with this vision is that it goes contrary to human nature. Despite what Marx thought about it, the need for some kind of religion seems to be hardwired into our psyches. The various communist governments of the world have actively tried to stamp out religion in their countries, sometimes ruthlessly so. However they have all failed. People, by and large, just won't give it up. Without some level of central control (government) there is too much disorder for a society's resources to be efficiently allocated. So, you get too much of some things one place and not enough of others elsewhere. (This can also happen if there is too much central control as the USSR found out.)


1) Humans have evolved as social animals and have spent 99 per cent of their time living as small-scale communities in which interdependency and mutual support have been central behavioural characteristics. Beyond that, what counts as 'human nature' is in any event problematic because one of the things which makes humans unique is the degree of flexibility we show in how we can make our societal arrangements.

2) Private ownership, that is to say the legalistic monopolisation of the earth by the few to the exclusion of the many and enforced through violence or the threat of violence by the state, is actually a relatively new phenomenon. It has especially come to prominence in the last couple of hundred years, i.e. in the era of capitalism. We shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that arrangements and behaviour which are 'natural' to capitalism are thus 'natural' more generally, indeed the opposite is more easily the case.

3) It's true that 'religious' beliefs of some kind has been universal to human life in the past, though the form and intensity of such belief is very variable. We shouldn't assume that intense and formalised religious belief among social elites in past societies necessarily meant the same thing for the masses, indeed when considered in this critical way we might easily find that most people have been, and indeed are, only 'religious' in a nominal sense.

[cowslayer]

Considering this is the same site that produced gems like "how is babby formed?", I wouldn't take the self-declared sages on yahoo answers too seriously. They won't dare look at sources or provide sources for their claims- their opinions are apparently irrefutable.


This correctly describes most of Yahoo Answers.

[ZeroNowhere]

I love how these people seem to think that the entirety of Das Kapital boils down to repeating over and over again, "Let's establish communism, guys! It's gonna be great!" At least, they don't seem to think that Marx was responsible for any more than that in theoretical terms, and as such they don't even understand what communism is, because they don't understand the rest of what Marx is talking about.


On the other hand, capitalism gives people the opportunity to improve their lives according to the amount of effort they are willing to put in to their lives.As they would know if they had read Marx, the social mobility of capitalism is a result of the fact that it ain't people that are in charge here. To rephrase that: if the proverbial golden rule applies, namely that he who has the gold makes the rules, then it follows: gold rules. After all, it doesn't matter who has the gold, and they have power merely as owners and functionaries of gold, so that they have power essentially only inasmuch as they represent a given amount of gold. This is symptomatic of the general tendency under capitalism for people to be subjected to the violence of things.

In addition:

It is not capitalism that keeps people in debt. It is their own choices about how they spend their money.I believe that it's chapter 3 of volume I of 'Capital' where Marx demonstrates the necessity of debt to capital, inasmuch as money must necessarily take on the form of means of payment. This is elucidated upon in volume III. Of course, the problem is ultimately not debt, but rather over-production, and debt (and credit, of course) in fact simply serves as a means to delay this.

[FreeFocus]

These idiots have never picked up the Manifesto, Das Kapital, or any other book about communist theory. They also haven't picked up any books on psychology or history, either, so they should shut the hell up. The human nature argument is just ridiculous - if anything, experiments with children showing the predisposition to sharing and experiments with hierarchy show that capitalism is an unhealthy and unnatural system of relationships.

[Rafiq]

Is it me, or is everyone who answers on Yahoo answers completely fucking stupid?

LOL Marx was advocating Utopia?

Who the fuck has the right to talk about 'Human nature' when they live in a society where you are implemented to be competitive and capitalistic?

These people piss me off.

[mikelepore]

It was a misuse of the "Yahoo answers" site anyway. The site isn't intended to ask others what their political preferences are, and to ask them them denounce the opposite political view. The site is intended to ask questions that have objective answers, like "how do you block a phone number" or "who first discovered the size of the galaxy."

[Hexen]

Bump, I have decided to copy most of the posts in this thread on the debate about human nature on a another forum (I should had came up with my own words but I just got too lazy and I thought you people said it better than I could have since I'm not very good at debating at people but if anyone feels offended then I apologize and I will cease copying your posts).

http://forums.white-wolf.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=932694#post932694

Am I once again wasting my time arguing with liberals?

[Catmatic Leftist]

Punish them by pointing out their posts that are rife with ad hominem attacks. Punish them by pointing out unbacked assertions. Use hard, cold logic, and be the better man. Also, it seems like the forum you posted on was an inappropriate place to bring up political discussion.

[The Man]

Oh! Human Nature says humans want to exploit and coerce, and be greedy!! So it could never work in Communism! :rolleyes:

Oh yeah?

Communism = Abolition of Currency
Abolition of Currency = No greed

[Savage]

Always remember that we have 90 thousand years of empirical evidence for arguing against the supposed impossibility of a classless society.

[Diello]

Human nature is inherently selfish, irrational, and complacent; this is why the abolition of slavery is simply impossible.

...is what always goes through my head when I hear the "human nature" argument.

[Amphictyonis]

Private possessions isn't private property. Private property is the private ownership of the means of production. As far as the human nature bunkum read some Kropotkin:

http://www.calresco.org/texts/mutaid.htm