The Pros And Cons Of Marxism

Socialism belongs to a family of ideologies, and springs from a common impulse. It envisions a society in which everyone contributes their time, labor, and talent to a common pool, and in return receives enough goods to satisfy their needs. It condemns the exploitation of one individual or class by another that occurs, so for example “when one profits from another’s labor.” Socialism also believes that property should be to benefit the public at large, not the wealthy. Socialists tend to favor peaceful and piecemeal reforms as a way of bringing about a socialist society, in which they envision a society whose major means of production are mines, mills, factories, power plants, etc. which are either publically owned or operated to benefit the public (187). Karl Marx’s envision for socialist transformation was, “a society that is changed not through moral suasion, but by understanding the hidden structures and process of material production.” The key to this was the “materialist conception of history” this made the primary determinants of social stability and change, material production and class struggle.

Karl Marx may have been the most influential socialist thinker of them all, he referred to his own philosophy as historical materialism, which is thought to be, the evolution of society historically driven by class struggle. According to him, class conflict within capitalism arises because of intensified contradictions between highly productive and socialized production which is performed by the proletariat and the private ownership and the private surplus product/surplus value performed by the small minority of private owners known as the bourgeoisie. When the contradiction becomes apparent to the proletariat, the social unrest...

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... within the countries and factions within their respective Communist parties, in the 1980’s and early 1990’s (244).

Marx hoped to enlighten or raise the consciousness of the proletariat, by paving the way for a revolution that would be able to free it from the system that oppressed it. He thought only then, could the workers begin to bring about a classless communist society operated according to the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” (188) For more than a century from Marx’s death in 1883 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, communism was the dominant form of socialism. However it was never the only form, and whether these other forms of socialism will flourish like communism did remains to be unknown. However what we do know is that if socialism does have a future, it won’t be in the form of communism (218).