The Inevitable Victory of the Proletariat

"Die wesentliche Bedingung für die Existenz und für die Herrschaft der Bourgeoisklasse ist die Anhäufung des Reichtums in den Händen von Privaten, die Bildung und Vermehrung des Kapitals; die Bedingung des Kapitals ist die Lohnarbeit. Die Lohnarbeit beruht ausschließlich auf der Konkurrenz der Arbeiter unter sich. Der Fortschritt der Industrie, dessen willenloser und widerstandsloser Träger die Bourgeoisie ist, setzt an die Stelle der Isolierung der Arbeiter durch die Konkurrenz ihre revolutionäre Vereinigung durch die Assoziation. Mit der Entwicklung der großen Industrie wird also unter den Füßen der Bourgeoisie die Grundlage selbst hinweggezogen, worauf sie produziert und die Produkte sich aneignet. Sie produziert vor allem ihren eigenen Totengräber. Ihr Untergang und der Sieg des Proletariats sind gleich unvermeidlich."

("The essential condition for the existence and for the dominance of the capitalist class is the accumulation of wealth in private hands, the creation of ever-more captial, and capital relies upon wage-labor. Wage-labor rests exclusively on the competition of workers with each other. The progress of industry, whose involuntary and unresisting promoters the capitalists are, puts, in place of the isolation of the workers through their competition, their revolutionary unification through association. With the development of large-scale industry, therefore, the ground upon which the capitalists produce and take the profits of production will pulled out from beneath their feet. What they are producing, above all, are their own gravediggers. Their fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.")

That's the last paragraph of the first chapter, "Bourgeois und Proletarier" ("Capitalists and Proletariats") of the Communist Manifesto by Marx & Engels. That is some stirring prose, no doubt. And if you're wondering who wrote that excellent English translation -- it was me. You're welcome.

Marx was one of the followers of Hegel known as the Young Hegelians. Hegel stated that the development of the mind toward its ever-greater fulfillment was inevitable. The Young Hegelian Marx modified Hegel's prophecy inasmuch as he declared that what was inevitable was the victory of the working class.

I like much of what Marx says, but I would modify this remark of his inasmuch as I believe that what is inevitable is: -- cue Michael Corleone staring down the phony Senator from Nevada -- nothing. The Communist Manifesto was first published 170 years ago. Perhaps it's time to become more critical of Marxist predictions and less confident that any sort of economic justice is inevitable, without our working hard, first to achieve it, and then to hold on to it. The Marxist glass can be seen as half-empty or half-full in its startling relevancy to today' economic conditions. Is it half-full because Marxist works are still so relevant? Or are they still so relevant because this stirring but half-empty prose has changed the world so little in such a long time?

Marxists, don't get angry with me, I don't want to throw away the works of the Prophet. I want to improve upon them. There is much to work with here.