The Pamphlet Club

FEBRUARY/MARCH, 1984             NOS. 328, 329

      Karl Marx was concerned with human suffering. He focused attention on institutional evil. It is imperative that we, as Christians, give attention to Marx's analysis of the cause of suffering and his suggested remedy. More than half the population of the world is influenced or governed by his thought, which is hawked around as a substitute gospel of salvation. This brief review is intended to highlight what Marx has to teach us and where he was in error.

HIS LIFE

      Karl Marx was born in Trier, an old town in the vine-growing region at the German Rhineland on the 5th May 1818. His parents were German Jews. Times were difficult, especially for Jews. Napoleon overran the area in 1803. For the first time in years the population experienced a degree of freedom from the autocratic rule of the hereditary German monarchy. This liberty, however, was short lived. In 1814 Prussia incorporated the Rhineland. The German nobility spared no effort to recover their authority. New freedoms and rights were withdrawn and Frederick William III worked to purge the land of French Ideas. The Jews suffered more than most. In 1816 anti-Jewish laws were introduced. Marx's parents, with their rabbinical ancestry, smarted under the restrictions. However, unlike some Jews, whose response was to isolate themselves, Karl's father decided on an alternative course. He was a promising lawyer, but being Jewish prevented him from holding public office without a royal dispensation. To obtain such, he needed to change his religion. This he did not hesitate to do. The family surname was changed from Mordechai to Marx. His first name was altered from Herschel to Heinrich and he had himself baptised a Lutheran. The latter did not imply any religious conversion. His beliefs and opinions, influenced by the French Enlightenment of the 18th Century, remained unaltered. These changes paid off. By 1815 he was practising as a counsellor-at-law in the High Court of Appeal in Trier.

      It was a changing world in which young Karl was brought up. Two revolutions deeply influenced his outlook. The first was the Industrial Revolution, in which technological change altered the pattern and rate of progress and subjected many to industrial slavery. The second was the French Revolution, which convinced the young Marx that industrial progress could be accompanied by the emancipation of the depressed classes and their participation in government

      At school Marx was not an outstanding pupil. He was popular and a practical joker with a liking for satyrical poetry, which he directed against those he disliked.

      In his youth Marx enjoyed the company of Baron von Westphalen, a Lutheran lawyer, who lived close by. Westphalen introduced him to the Romantic Movement. In revolt against the Rationalism of the earlier era, the Romantics emphasized the importance of the imagination over against [1] reason. While Karl lost his early enthusiasm for Romanticism, it influenced his utopian ideals and emotive journalistic style. Westphalen also introduced him to Saint-Simon, one of the early French Socialists.

      Marx was sent by his parents to the University of Bonn, where he drank, duelled and composed poems. His father was unhappy with his behaviour, and, in 1836, arranged for his transfer to Berlin University. Bonn had been a romantic retreat. Berlin, the centre of the Prussian bureaucracy, was the meeting place for discontented radical intellectuals. It was while at Berlin that Karl began writing love letters to Jenny, his future wife.

      At Berlin Marx relinquished law for philosophy. He was fascinated, like others, by Hegel. A group of free spirits, who interpreted Hegel's philosophy in such a way that it justified their radicalism, met together in a "Doctors' Club" at the University. A number of influential intellectuals, who denied the supernatural and the historicity of Jesus, belonged to this group.

      Karl's father died in 1838. With his financial support gone, Karl made a frenzied effort to complete his doctoral dissertation, which he hoped would secure him a university lectureship. When he completed the thesis, he submitted it, not to Berlin, but to Jena, which was regarded as a Ph.D "factory". The degree was granted in 1841.

      Unable to obtain a university teaching post, Marx offered his services to the proprietors of a new periodical, the Rheinische Zeitung. His inflammatory articles, enthusiastically received by radical elements, resulted in the magazine being suppressed. Interpreting this as official intolerance, Marx left Germany for France.

      Out of work again, Karl needed to find a job quickly so that he could marry Jenny, who was passionately in love with him. He was offered a position by some of his older university friends, who were publishing a new journal, the Deutsche-Franzosische Jahrbucher. The new venture did not last long due to lack of support and too great a diversity of opinions among those involved with the project.

      In the 1830's, and the early 1840's, Marx published his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, which were an early draft of what was to become his Capital. It was about this time that he met Friedrich Engels, the son of a rich German industrialist, who had a cotton-spinning factory in Manchester. Engels, who was gathering material for his The Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844, became Marx's closest friend and financial provider.

      It was not long before Marx felt himself unwelcome in Paris and shifted to Brussels.

      During 1848 a series of revolutions convulsed Europe. Marx, who for most of his life was anticipating revolution, was hopeful that the 1848 revolutions would signal the birth of a new age. Just before they broke, he completed, with Engels' help, the first edition of the Communist Manifesto.

      After the revolutionary fervour had abated, the Belgian King decided to rid the country of trouble-makers. Marx was enemy number one. He made his [2] way to Paris. There he managed to convince a number of liberal industrialists and sympathizers to found another journal, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. The venture collapsed after a short time because of Marx's advocacy of violence. He was again forced to leave the country. He set out for England in August 1849. He had visited London once before, and imagined that his stay this time would also be brief. This was not to be. He remained in London for the rent of his life.

      With his eye on Germany, and constantly prodded by fellow Germans to oppose democratic parties and hasten the revolution, he immersed himself in a study of British economics, of which he was at that time ignorant. By 1850, when he wrote The Class Struggles in France, the revolutionary phase of his life was over.

      While working in London, Marx endured dire poverty. Not only was he short of money, he was plagued with boils and a constant stream of German refugees, many of whom he accommodated. And these were not his only problems. A son, Guido, died in 1850. He lost another son, Edgar, five years later. In that same year, a daughter fathered by Marx was born to their housekeeper. Engels, to rescue Marx from this tight spot, accepted paternity. Throughout these years, Jenny acted as his secretary, copying his illegible manuscripts and writing begging letters to Engels. In the winter of 1858 Marx completed an outline of what was to be his major work. This was the Grundrisse, of which several later volumes of the Capital were an expanded section.

      Between 1864 and 1872 Marx involved himself with the trade unions. He also threw himself into the development of an International Federation of Working Men, which was bent on destroying capitalism and replacing it with a system of communal ownership. Enthusiasm for the venture was at its height between 1867 and 1869, but waned after that.

      The Paris Commune, which was set up at the time of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, drew his attention. He considered it an illustration of the way revolution and communism could change society. He simplified the situation to suit his philosophy and overlooked the bloodletting and inhumanity of the Communards. While the experiment failed, it remained for Marx an example in microcosm of the revolution that would finally overthrow capitalism.

      By the time he reached his late 50's, Marx's health was failing. Jenny died of cancer in 1881, and with her death Marx lost the will to live. Two years later, a daughter, Jenny Longuet, also died of cancer. On the 13th March 1883 Marx, falling asleep in his chair, passed away at the age of 64.

WHAT HE BELIEVED

      For Marx, man was a maker, a worker, a creator. Through work he had the capacity to create himself, and, in co-operation with others, to transform the world into an environment that was to his liking. Rejecting God, Marx saw man as his own maker. He was answerable only to himself. It was through work that people made and thus liberated themselves. [3]

      If a man's ability to work for himself and the good of the community was frustrated, his development as an authentic person was stunted. Any constraints placed upon the development of his capacities were not to be tolerated. Men should be liberated from alienating constraints.

      Alienation was a prominent theme in Marx's writings. This is not surprising when it is recognized how deeply he felt his own alienation from society. Born a member of a discriminated-against minority, he was unable to obtain a university teaching post and shuttled from one country to another. He spent his last years in exile in London, where he was several times evicted from his lodgings for rent arrears.

      There were three aspects to the alienation of which Marx wrote. First, he argued that alienation first developed when labour tasks were divided up, and when what was produced by an individual's work, which was an expression of the human essence, was treated as an object separate from him. The second point he made was that the very act of producing was itself alienating. The labour was forced, performed for someone else. This dehumanized individuals, who were left with few activities beyond eating, drinking and giving birth to children. The result was that there was little to distinguish them from animals. Marx also argued that man was alienated from his "species-being". The Idea behind this was that an individual's work benefited society. The benefit was shared with others. When we produce for the private gain of another, we cannot fulfil this function.

      One of the most serious consequences of this alienation was that it made possible the exploitation of the workers by capitalists, who owned the means of production. In his later writings, where his emphasis had shifted from the exchange to the production value of the labourer's work, Marx argued that men create value by their work. Under the capitalist system workers sell their labour-power. When working for Capitalist employers, workers sell the right of disposition of their labour. The capitalist, in disposing of it in his way, used this labour-power for more than its exchange value. The surplus-value he appropriated. Marx regarded this as illegitimate profit. Simply put, the worker, while paid a fixed sum of money for the day's work, created more value during that working day than he was paid for, and the capitalist pocketed the difference as profit. This profit augmenting the capitalist's overall capital, increased his capacity for further private accumulation and exploitation.

      Marx argued that exploitation was not only concerned with unfair wage contracts. The wage contract itself was lopsided. In selling his labour-power, the worker sold a unique commodity, that which made him human. This system led to a form of legal slavery. The inequality of the capitalist system was further aggravated by the fact that, while the wage-labourer was forced to dispose of his labour-power, the one thing he could call his own, the capitalist was under no obligation to dispose of his wealth for the sake of the community. He was arbitrary lord of his capital. Furthermore, to remain operative the system needed to maintain a pool of unemployed. It is little wonder that Marx argued that, to become fully human, private property would need to be abolished. This meant overthrowing the State, which supported capitalist power. [4]

      Marx did not consider everything associated with Capitalism as bad. Influenced by Saint-Simon, who saw capitalism facilitating technological advance, Marx argued that, by liberating technological forces, Capitalism facilitated the development of advances in production. In this process, capitalist entrepreneurs played a leading role. While admitting to their benefit, however, Marx was quick to point out that, because the philosophy underlying the whole system was so inimical to human development, it would, in the logic of history, be destroyed and superseded.

      In Marx's view, capitalism was digging its own grave. A number of factors were involved. As industries expanded, the number of workers in each plant would increase, and thus be able to form larger revolutionary associations. As machinery became more sophisticated, the worker, with less chance of self-creation through his work, would become increasingly frustrated and alienated. Marx also saw a contradiction between the fact that profits are made in surplus time, time worked within the labour day after the worker's industry had provided the capitalist with value equal to his wages, and the fact that increasing automation under Capitalism would give the worker more free time. Furthermore, he argued that, if production is for capital, rather than for the common good, one could expect Capitalism to precipitate crises due to over-production.

      According to Marx, the final overthrow of Capitalism would result from a class struggle between those possessing the means of production and alienated workers. He first encountered this idea in Saint-Simon, who had argued that history can be understood as a series of class struggles between those who possessed the principal economic resources of the community and those who did not. Marx saw the society of his day divided into two classes--the bourgeois capitalists and the proletariat, or industrial workers. The proletariat had nothing to lose but its chains, and would liberate itself through revolution. Improving the capitalist system, forcing a broader share of its profits, he regarded as inadequate. The system itself had to be destroyed, for on this depended the liberation, not only of the worker, but also of the bourgeois capitalist, who was also enslaved by the system. Marx involved himself with the trade union movement, not because he was concerned with the short term benefits of negotiation, but because he saw the unions as the schools of socialism. He was there to propagate his thesis that Capitalist society needed to be overthrown. It was for this reason that he tried to dominate the British Trade Unions and rubbish those who wanted to work gradually and peacefully for the amelioration of social ills.

      For Marx, revolution was not only necessary, it was also inevitable In his formative years, he was influenced by Hegel, who regarded history as a living organism, which was developing in a specific direction. According to Hegel, the past contained the seeds of the future. The whole process was stimulated by a force that he referred to as "Idea" or "Spirit", a sort of god-figure. In Hegel's view, the universal Idea, or Spirit, nudged into existence the whole series of events that we refer to, in retrospect, as history. This universal spirit, which was within man and outside him, aroused and sustained the [5] desire on man's part for absolute knowledge. This absolute knowledge was arrived at through a series of intellectual jumps. Thought developed as contradictions were resolved. One point of view would be contradicted by another, and out of this conflict would come a compromise between the two positions. This compromise would then become a new assertion, which would attract to itself an opposed view. Out of further conflict another compromise would be reached, and so on. This thesis, antithesis, synthesis cycle would continue, resulting in a progressively clearer view of reality. This process Hegel called dialectic.

      While deeply influenced by Hegel, Marx simplified Hegel's basic model. It was his boast that he stood Hegel on his head. Where Hegel argued that thought resulted in action, Marx reversed the equation, and pointed out that true philosophy was to be derived from observation of and participation in events. He rejected Hegel's idea of a universal Spirit, and argued that involvement in this material world was the starting point for Philosophy. This approach, he contended, allowed for the only true marriage between theory and practice. It was his view that most theory was dreamed up apart from the facts and then imposed upon them. It was little wonder that fact and theory were often poles apart. Marx insisted that his approach alone offered adequate scope for a valid synthesis of theory and practice. The point he made was that we must begin with real men and situations, and from their life-processes demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and ethos of these life-processes.

      Beside turning Hegel upside down, and arguing that life-processes and events should give rise to theory, rather than the reverse, Marx also took over Hegel's concept of dialectic. However, in borrowing it, he modified it and substituted for Hegel's dialectical idealism his own theory of dialectical materialism. Hegel saw the dialectic--thesis. Antithesis, and synthesis--going on in men's minds. Marx saw it operative in historical developments.

      According to Marx, civilization could be seen to have progressed through a series of distinct phases in which the transition between the successive political forms was marked by revolution and an overturning of the old order. The initial stage he described as primitive communism. In this form of social organisation, each individual worked for himself, his family and society. This was eventually rejected, through the emergence of the process of primitive acquisition, by the feudal system of the Middle Ages, in which individuals, families, whole classes were maintained in various degrees of slavery. The feudal system itself eventually yielded, through the revolutionary activity of the bourgeoisie, to the capitalist system. However, rather than sharing the freedoms and benefits thus obtained, the bourgeoisie set themselves up as a new ruling class, a monied and propertied plutocrasy, who subjected the workers to industrial slavery to increase their profits. Through the pressure of the proletariat, which their industries had created, bourgeois capitalism was itself destined to be overtaken by communism. Once the proletariat was in power, the benefits of technological production would be shared equally among all. The final transition would be to a classless society in which [6] liberated workers would be able to realize their human potential through their work and contribute to the well-being or society.

      On Marx's analysis, history could be seen to be moving inexorably in a predetermined direction. Progress was marked by a series of revolutionary jumps, which were the result of class struggles in which opposed groups fought with each other to control the means of production. Marx, who was very bourgeois in his tastes and personal attitudes, saw himself as the prophetic ally and intellectual mentor of a relatively unintelligent proletariat, which would be responsible for the final transition.

MARX ON RELIGION

      Several factors influenced Marx's attitude to religion. First, the church with which he was familiar in his youth was the Russian State Church. Little more than an arm of government, it worked hand-in-glove with the ruling Junkers. Marx's only real contact with the church was with this pathetic caricature of Christianity. Second, his father had switched faith without any change in his basic convictions. The transition from Jewish to Lutheran affiliation was purely nominal. A product of the 18th Century Enlightenment, Heinrich Marx faith was not in God, but in reason. The young Marx could not have failed to have been impressed by the fact that religious faith meant so little to his father. Third, Marx was deeply influenced by the Berlin philosopher, Ludwig Feuerbach, to whom God was nothing more than Man-writ-large. The knowledge of God was nothing more nor less than the knowledge of man. It was little wonder that Marx became a convinced atheist. More accurately, he was a post-Christian humanist.

      In Marx's view, religion both revealed and concealed suffering. On the one hand, religion was an expression of human suffering. It was the whimpering of an injured dog. On the other hand, religion also concealed suffering by pointing men to heaven--an escapist fantasy--and encouraging them to put up with pain in anticipation of the release and bliss that would come their way later on. Marx was convinced that the social ills causing suffering persisted because the Church taught the idea that the patient endurance of suffering was a virtue. In Marx's view, the final transition to Communism would be brought about when the Proletariat began to identify with the real causes of suffering and came to see religion for what it really was. It was for this reason that he argued that the criticism of religion was the presupposition of all criticism. Marx contended that the chains of the exploited were obscured by the flowers of ideology and religion. These flowers needed to be removed and the chains broken.

      While committed to the exposure and eradication of religion, Marxism is itself a rival faith. A partial explanation for Communism's opposition to Christianity is that it is a rival religion. Some have argued that Marxist concepts are so close to those of Christianity that Marxism is a Christian heresy. What is certain is that it has its own gospel scriptures, saints, prophets, creed, saviour, philosophy of hope and millennial vision.

      That Marxism is a religion was most clearly demonstrated by the way in which it was introduced in China. The fact that a new and foreign philosophy [7] was so readily accepted in a culture in which foreigners were regarded as the enemy, was nothing short of a miracle. Though the mechanics of propaganda and control played their part, the major reason for the successful propagation of this alien ideology was that it was introduced as a gospel of salvation in an atmosphere of secular revivalism.

      The deified leader, the saviour, was Mao, before whose portrait young people were married. His deity was seen in the fact that his word could not be contradicted, and his humanity in his swimming of the Yangtze. Sun yat-sen was a forerunning John the Baptist. The religion traced its origin to an exodus and wilderness wandering. Following the lean yearn of the long march, the Red Armies took gradual but effective possession of the land. A cult, fostering the memory of this salvation history, where the past was fused with the present in a dynamic continuum, was serviced by officiating priest-cadres. Mao's writings were the party's scriptures that gave inspiration to the whole of everyone's life. They were meditated upon and memorized. In the area of doctrine, it was emphasised that there was only one way of salvation. Faith was stressed over against reason, and repentance was encouraged following the building up of feelings of guilt. Devotees were urged to asceticism and encouraged, through a secularized doctrine of a future paradise, to accept deprivation and hardship. Common life was encouraged in a koinonial group participation, where each, through criticism and self-criticism, encouraged the others. The ethic of Marxism was work, whose intrinsic virtue was its sufficient reward. The party's mission--to Judea and to the rest of the world--was spearheaded by an "ignorant and unlearned" group of cadre-apostles. A revivalist flavour was seen in the singing of songs, fervour-generating campaigns, a pronounced good-bad cleavage--the US being the devil--the simplicity of the gospel, a joyful militancy reminiscent of the Salvation Army, the exclusiveness of the 'in" group, a Pentecostal-like personal "struggle" for salvation, and a distorted and simplistic world view. Above all, it was reflected in the concept of the "new birth" that marked the culminating stage of one's psychological initiation into the religion.

      While rejecting religion as the opium of the people, and regarding the criticism of religion as the beginning of all criticism, Marx formulated a new gospel, a new religion, which, because he was convinced of its correctness, its accord with the facts of existence, he would not allow to be questioned.

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

      Any criticism of Marxism, if it is to be taken seriously, must concentrate on theory rather than on the man. This does not mean, however, that the man should be overlooked. For this reason, we will, before proceeding to an analysis of Marxism as a system, spend time looking at the man. Our major concern will be to assess the degree to which his life was consistent with his thought.

      When such is attempted it soon becomes obvious that there was often little connection between the two. It is not difficult to find contradictions between Marx the man and his theory. Several illustrations will point this up. [8]

      First, while Marx wrote at length on the evils of Capitalism, he was himself a parasite on that system, living for much of his adult life on the generosity of his friend Engels. His mother perceptively pointed out that if he had spent his time making capital, rather than writing shout it, he would have come up with different insights. Second, while castigating the wealthy bourgeoisie, this champion of the proletariat had expensive bourgeois tastes. While workers were not aware of his standard of living, it frequently landed Marx in financial difficulty. This was compounded by the fact that Marx could not manage money. Third, Marx was no less bourgeois in his attitudes towards women, whom he considered needed to be controlled. Fourth, while praising the proletariat, Marx had little feeling for, or contact with workers. In his view, they were sadly lacking in intelligence. Finally, the area in which the sort of person he was most contradicted the theory he espoused, was concerned with social ideals he was forever proclaiming--a harmonious co-operative society in which each contributed to the good of the whole. Marx would not have fitted into such a society for he never managed to get along with anyone in his life. His wife, Jenny, and friend, Engels, were the only two who were close, and they were only accepted because they were willing to go along with him. Extremely arrogant, Marx had to be right. Those differing from him were wrong. He admitted error only after he had estranged those who opposed him.

      While contradictions between what a man preaches and what he is calls his theory into question, it does not necessarily invalidate it. The theory may be in touch with reality, where the man is not. What about Marx?

      Marx, in bringing to light the dysfunctions of industrial capitalism, in calling attention to the plight of workers, in pointing to the fact that it a important to consider man as a product of, and as imprisoned in social systems, in emphasizing the importance of economic criteria in social and political existence, and in charging the Church with too greet an accommodation to capitalist views has performed an invaluable service. His approach, however, is not without its weaknesses.

      Marx's analysis of the dynamics of history is flawed by the fact that he did not read accurately enough the social dynamics of his day, that his prophesies regarding the future were not wholly accurate, and that his approach was simplistic and utopian.

      That Marx's analysis of the economic dynamics of his day was not wholly accurate will be evident from a number of examples. First, he did not take into account the fact that the accumulation of money need not necessarily lead to capitalism. It could be used, as was the case with the communal experiment in Acts 2, for the good of society. More importantly, while he recognized that the bourgeoisie introduced a revolutionary social and political structure, he did not take into account the fact that it was able to do this only because it had an adequate basis for its revolution in a new mode of production. He should have asked himself what new economic mode the proletariat was introducing!

      Because he paid scant attention to the State--it was going to pass away--Marx's projections about the future were, in many instances, far from [9] accurate. He did not reckon on the power of the State to survive economic and social change or to curtail capitalism. Nor did he count on the social welfare programmes it would introduce. He did not see that the unions, his schools of socialism, would, by bettering the conditions of their members, reduce the revolutionary potential of the proletariat. He could not have anticipated the enormous growth in bureaucracy, no less in Marxist socialist states than in capitalist countries. He would have been surprised to learn that all revolutions this century have occurred in non-industrial societies that lack the revolutionary proletariat he saw as the catalyst for transition. Nor could he have anticipated that in socialist countries an autocratic party machine, that has become increasingly bourgeois in its lifestyle, would take the place the revolutionary proletariat. He would have been horrified if he had realised that this would lead to an decrease in freedom. Finally, Marx did not anticipate that the workers would owe allegiance to loyalties other than class. Wars of the 20th Century demonstrated that nationalism is a greater cohesive force then any sense of community shared by the industrial workers of the world.

      The simplistic element in Marx's analysis is evident in a number of areas. First, his tunnel vision would not allow him to recognize that work is but one of the many aspects of our creaturely existence, and not necessarily the most important. Second, this myopia hid from him the possibility that there could be change apart from capital accumulation and proletarian revolt. In our own day, the oppression of ethnic minorities, the exploitation of third world countries, student discontent, and discrimination against women have all acted as catalysts. A further criticism is that Marx's idea that a more humane society could be produced by overcoming private property is inadequate because it doesn't go deep enough to reveal the innate covetousness that leads to the inordinate acquisition of wealth. It also needs to be recognized that Marx's analysis of class was not sufficiently rigorous. He did not recognise that there were other determinants of class besides the economic factor. Furthermore, class is not equally important in all societies, and it is rarely sufficient in itself to ensure social cohesion. There are many illustrations of co-operation between classes. Again, Marx's assumption that capital and management are non-producers of value would have few supporters today. Finally, if Marx were alive, it would be worthwhile challenging him to explain why he treated Capitalism as a particular kind of society, rather than as an aspect of the wider process of industrialization.

      While Marx accused rival socialists of being utopian, his own program was no less so. There were a number of aspects to this utopianism. The first was his idealization of the future state. He argued that, under Communism, society would regulate general production to make it possible for individuals to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, raise cattle in the evening, and criticize after dinner. How society could he organized to function adequately and provide necessities, even luxuries, for all, and allow all of its citizens to act in this fashion, is beyond me. Another aspect of Marx's utopianism was his belief that once the ultimate classless communist state was reached a New Man would emerge who [10] would be free from all the vices to which man had been prone in pre-communist states. This New Man has not emerged, nor is he likely to. It would seem that Marx was gulled into believing that by altering social structures man's nature could be changed. This is no less a fallacy then Socrates' idea that to know the good is to do it. Another aspect of his utopianism was his contention that social harmony would be brought about by a process of class hatred and violence. A further utopian element in Marx's vision of the future was the assumption he made that, once the classless society was achieved, man would lose his acquisitiveness. Marx does not explain how man in his initial innocence, in the primitive communist state, became acquisitive. In the light of this, there is no guarantee that it would not happen again in the communist utopia. The whole historical process could well repeat itself. It also needs to be recognized that there is little evidence to back Marx's contention that, before the advent of money and profit-seeking, there was no alienation.

      It needs to be pointed out that Marx's analysis, at this point, is highly suspect. It is here that his self-contradiction is most glaringly obvious. Contrasting the present with the future state, and the bourgeoisie with the proletariat, he appeared to divide the human race into two groups, one of which was intrinsically superior to the other in terms of its morality. He credited the proletariat, by virtue of their being workers, and thus potential self-creations, with human virtues above and beyond those possessed by the bourgeoisie. He could only do this, however, by having separate value criteria for both groups--a more than dubious procedure. According to Marx, the same action was morally right for the proletariat and wrong for the bourgeoisie. It was wrong for the bourgeoisie to accumulate capital and property, but, if the proletariat demanded them, then this was apparently good.

      Marx claimed that his approach was scientific and in accord with the facts of economic, and thus human experience. He was influenced at this point by the Positivists, who argued that the only things which should be accepted as factual were what could be empirically verified. In relying on the Positivist thesis, Marx was excluding from consideration factors other than those which were open to scientific proof, but which were equally real, such as beauty and truth. The claim that his approach was scientific was open to a far more serious objection, however. This was the fact that he failed to distinguish between scientific fact, based on observation, and his philosophical theory, which was based on unproven assumptions. Unfortunately, many who own him as their ideological mentor have gone even further than he did in arguing that his theory was based on scientific fact. They have accepted the point of view of Engels, who in a speech delivered at Marx's graveside, argued that just as Darwin discovered the law of the development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history. The supposed scientific basis, and thus the rightness of his theories, has been used to justify tyranny. Lives have been considered expendable in the interests of a coming communist utopia.

      The basic flaw in Marx's analysis is related to the assumption on which the [11] whole is based, i. e. that man is wholly autonomous and his own creator. He failed to understand that man is created by, responsible to, and made for fellowship with God, and that his basic alienation is an alienation from God. Marx made the mistake of viewing man in purely economic terms.

      Finally, in his assessment of the Christian attitude towards suffering, Marx had hold of but half of the truth. While Christians are encouraged to patiently endure suffering, they are also under obligation to work at removing those evils contributing to it. The laws of the Old Testament provided far more adequately than Marxism does, particularly in the period before the Kings, for a style of community life which allowed opportunity for personal development, for the periodic release of those enslaved for debt, and for the return to its original owners of expropriated property. Justice and equality were recurrent prophetic themes. Jesus, in his teaching, did not merely reiterate these emphases. His ethic was far more rigorous and uncompromising. He urged his followers to hunger and thirst to see right prevail, and to live a simple non-materialistic lifestyle. Furthermore, the new era his coming made possible was to be introduced by the example of love, and not by coercion or police brutality.

      Marx claimed that Christians disguised suffering by their theory. Marxism, by its theory, has not only disguised, but been responsible for producing additional suffering. This has occurred, not so much, as with Christianity, by the misapplication or distortion of theory, but rather by the acceptance, in its purer sense, of the theory itself. Marx claimed that chains enslaving the proletariat were disguised by the flowers of religion. The putting into practice of his theories has resulted in the shackling, not only of one class, but of entire communities. And the chains are far stronger than anything manufactured by industrial Capitalism. They are chains that the flowers of communist theory cannot disguise. Where is the self-creation, or the end of alienation? There has been loss, rather than gain, and a far more serious constriction of human freedom. Ironically, while the disenchanted in the West court agnosticism, disenchanted Marxists are turning to God and Christianity. It is the latter that offers a more nuanced answer to man's basic alienation, the root cause of so much of his suffering. This alienation can only be overcome when Christ reconciles us to God. [12]