I'm writing simplified notes on Chris Harman's already concise How Marxism Works. Read that if you find this interesting. There's to be 13 of these posts. Thanks for reading.

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Introduction – tackling the “difficulty of Marxism”

The “difficulty of Marxism” is a myth encouraged by right-wing apologists – or those who defend the current political and economic system. That's the majority of people currently in power in capitalist countries. Academics are also often to blame, coining obscure language in the name of “critical Marxism” in order to give the impression Marxism is an abstract way of thinking requiring specialist knowledge.

Because of this, many workers take it for granted that they have no access to the ideas of Marxism, that it is way above their heads.

1: Marxist Theory – Why we need Marxism

Marxism is not an obscure, complicated or boring way of thinking, but it does often deal with complicated matters – the contradictions found within capitalist society, for instance. Many people – enemies of socialism – warn of theory as something limited to intellectuals, or academics.

A common argument against Marxism or socialism is that, “It's a great idea in theory, but in practice, it will never work.” But if it's a great idea, then how does it not work in practice? If the idea itself is great, then the reasons for its failure must be external, not due to some internal defect. Otherwise, if it failed from its own defects, it is not a great idea.

People who claim to be “anti-Marxist theory” usually have a theory of their own. Common examples of such “theories” include:
- “People are naturally selfish, therefore socialism will always fail.”
- “Anyone can get to the top; all they need is hard work and a bit of luck.”
- “Rich people are required to provide work for the rest of us. Inequality is necessary: if there weren't any managers, who would be there to employ the workers?”
- “The country is the way it is due to declining morals, not the economy.”

But these theories, commonly held by people against Marxist theory, are not fully thought through. This kind of thought is a product of the mass media, whether these people like it or not: the newspapers, radio, TV, etc. are all pointing fingers here and there to explain why we're all in the mess that we're in. Such “explanations” are self-contradictory. We need to expose these contradictions in order to understand them, and change society.

Society cannot be changed until we recognise what is false in all of these different “theories”.

This has always been the case; social progress cannot be made unless the “truth” of established ruling theories – theories made by the ruling powers – are challenged and overcome.

In the 1830s and 1840s the development of industry in the north west of England forced many people into miserable living conditions. Since they had not always lived this way, they knew that these living conditions were not to be “taken for granted”, that they were not “how the way things ought to be”.

They began to fight back: trade unions, fighting for political rights for workers. This led to theories emerging as to how the workers' movement could achieve its aim. The debate continues today.

How can we achieve socialism?

Peaceful persuasion
In the 1830s and 1840s, at the time when the first trade unions were formed and workers began for the first time to fight back against the living conditions they were in, some people claimed that changing society was possible through peaceful means. Hundreds of thousands of workers got together and demonstrated, believing that their mass moral power could force the ruling powers to give them benefits. It didn't work, for reasons explained later on.

Physical force
Others believed physical force was necessary. But this took the form of small, conspiratorial groups, that were not part of the rest of society, but cut off from it. Because cut off from the rest of the workers in society, these groups were easily defeated, leaving workers very demoralised. (And, perhaps, encouraging the “great in theory but not in practice” argument.)

Marx and The Communist Manifesto

In 1848, towards the end of the first stage of these workers' defeats, Marx (and Engels) wrote The Communist Manifesto.

Marx did not write The Communist Manifesto out of thin air. No theoretical ideas come from thin air. His writings, the Manifesto included, are based on a careful examination of society and what is at work within it.

Today, many people argue that since they were written so long ago, Marx's writings are out of date, or not relevant, since society has changed very much. But society has actually changed very little. The economic crises (“recessions”) Marx predicted due to his analyses of capitalism are still happening today.

Whereas during the workers' movements in 1830s and 1840s people debated whether “peaceful persuasion” or “physical force” was the best way to achieve socialism, today socialists argue between “the parliamentary road” or “the revolutionary road”; or “reformism” and “revolution”.

Against Idealism

Marx was writing at a time when new scientific discoveries were allowing factories to invent new ways of working; they were churning out wealth on a scale unheard of by previous generations. Because of this wealth, it seemed that for the first time in history humans could fight against the seemingly “natural calamities” of previous times.

But with the development of industry and wealth came more exploitation for the working people – that is the majority of people in society. Under capitalism, workers were more economically deprived than ever before.

How could such social and economic development create such vast gulfs in wealth?

Marx was not the only writer or theorist to begin to look at these issues. Before him, the German philosophers Hegel and Feuerbach had posed the idea that humanity had found itself in a state of “alienation”.

To account for this alienation, philosophers explained it in religious terms. People had developed the idea of God – and then made themselves subordinate to this idea, becoming increasingly more unhappy as they cannot live up to the “ideal” image of God. As long as the working class lived in a society of immense wealth – wealth they did not have access to due to their exploitation – they would remain unhappy because of their subordination to “God's image”.

If only the unhappy masses could “renounce their sins”, they would be happy. A similar – and just as strange – claim is made today: “to change society, we must first change ourselves”. That is, we must cure our own “selfishness” before society is unselfish.

Marx refers to these views as idealist.

Marx was not against people having ideas; he was against the view that ideas are isolated from the social context in which they live.

Ideas are always linked to the society in which they occur. Under present-day capitalism, for instance, selfishness is encouraged. A worker who wants to put their children first or ensure that their parents have something on top of their pension to live on, has to continue to struggle against other workers – find a better paid job, get more overtime, etc. In a society where this is a reality, selfishness cannot be eradicated by persuading the minds of a few people.

Likewise, it is no good attempting to persuade those at the “top of the ladder” to change their individual views. If a top employer became a socialist and stopped exploiting his workers, he would simply lose to his rival employers and be out of business.

What matters is not ideas, but the structure of the society in which they hold those ideas.

Another way of putting this: if ideas are isolated from society, if they do not come from a specific social context, how did ideas ever change society in the past?

Under present day capitalism, the TV, the radio, the newspapers and the educational system, etc., defend present day capitalism. Ideas arise that contradict the views of these institutions because the daily reality of experienced life contradict those views.

E.g.: to understand why far fewer people believe in God today than they did 100 years ago, you cannot simply look at atheistic propaganda. You have to explain why people listen to atheistic ideas in a way they did not 100 years ago.

Similarly, the impact of “great men” upon history can only be understood in the context in which other people followed them. Napoleon and Lenin were able to impact history only because they – and their ideas – were part of a specific society, at a specific point in time, that led to other people following them. The exact same can be said of Hitler.

In order to understand how ideas change history, you have to look at where those ideas come from, and why the same ideas were accepted. You cannot look at ideas in isolation, but you must look at the social context in which they occur (the material conditions). As Marx said: “It is not consciousness that determines being, but being that determines consciousness.”

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Chapter 2, "The Importance of History", can be read here.

For the sake of argument I'll chip in here; I'd be interested to see Harman's historical exegesis on the historical and social contexts which gave rise to Communism and how it matches up with a more straight-forward account of Marx and his life and the "wedding of the philosophy of materialism with the victims of oppression on the one hand and wealth with the practicioners of oppression on the other." Below is a more straight forward and 'on-the-ground' account of the history of Marx and his movement.

To understand why some historians and economists deem Communism as outdated or outmoded given today's universal access to healthcare and education in most industrialized nations, is to understand the historical and sociological factors present in late 19th century Germanized-continental Europe and across the the pan-Baltic region and into Russia.

Particularly one must understand the projection between the emerging 'working class' of Europe and the millions of "homeless" (non-literally speaking) Jews, with which whom Karl Marx was ethnically and religously bound to, only then can we better postulate the motives behind Marx's Revolution and how these forces came together in the always reactionary Nation of the age, Imperial Russia.

Marx said of nationalism: "How can you expect us (Jewish population in Germany and Europe abroad) to be nationalists, we who haven't had a home since the times of Titus?"

"Marx wanted to submerge racial classification (particuarly that of Russia's Jews) into class; while the National Socialist policies of the Nazis and Mussolini's fascism wanted to submerge class classifications and considerations into race..." "And thus therin lies the correlation between Communism and Fascism..." "It's no coincidence that National Socialism and Communism are convertible concepts..."

"Communism attempts to instill it's nationalism (international solidarity based on the community of interests of all workers) through socialism, while fascism attempts to achieve some sort of socialism--or substitute for socialism--through extreme nationalism." "Communism is international fascism; fascism is national communism...Communism in Russia was mostly largely an attempt to submerge the racial identity of 3 million Russian Jews in the myth of egalitarian economics...and establish the reacquisition of traditional Jewish home ground and the defense of it along classic national lines."

If Communism could establish a relationship between the 'wandering' Jewish population in Europe and class economic conflict, it could provide the theoretical framework for reestablishing a Jewish homeland. Thus explaining the relation between Zionist leaders such as Theodor Herzl and Martin Buber with devout Marxism and thus,"therin lies the inevitability of the conflict between Israel and Russia: Israel is a "racial international", and thus has a claim on Russia to the 3 million or so Jews still there. By the same token, the Russians are in possesion of some 3 millions Jewish hostages."

(Of course, it's also worth noting the correlation between Zionism and National Socialism when considering this fuction consisting of parts Marxism, International Socialism, and Zionism; no one was more in favor of Zionism than the National Socialists and this is evidenced in part by the fact that German and Austrian did the bulk of the fighting in Israel's 'six day war' with Egypt in 1967.)

"According to Marx, the community of material (economic) interests forms the basis of society while culture is the superstructure resting thereon. The general view of the traditionalists (not only fascists but capitalists at large) is that culture forms the basis while economics and the material aspects of life form the superstructure: and these two positions, Capitalism and Communism are interelated and interactive in industrial society: one could not exist without the other."

"The question of which of the two systems provides the more durable solution is too broad to produce anything but a contingent answer. Communism did not solve the nationalities problem in Europe, and Capitalism has not solved the class problem.

For anyone interested...

I answered Ice's response here. The same post is below...

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Where the hell are you quoting from, the Russell book?

Those last two paragraphs are hideously incorrect. I don't know what the others mean in all honesty; it seems like a deliberate way of obscuring Marxist thought with over-complication in order to serve counterrevolution. (Perhaps RNL can chip in, here; maybe he understands what you posted more.)

I haven't given the Jewish question any thought until now. Have you read this?

I'm sorry if I'm misreading you (or whomever you're quoting), but you're trying to argue for the inadequacies of Marxism on the grounds that it eradicates possible emancipation for the Jews, right? You say you're posting "for the sake of argument", but I don't know what you're arguing.

You really must forgive me, but your post is all over the place and I don't know what you're trying to get at; possibly that we're wrong to push for workers' emancipation, because Marxism is based on a falsehood from the outset (that the basis for society is the forces of production and the social relations those forces cause)?

Read Harman's "Base and Superstructure".

All that "universal access to healthcare and education" malarky gives me the willies. Even the emphasis in "in most industrialised nations" seems like a tokenistic counter; a diluted concession of sorts, which allows one to appear sympathetic to socialism, but once again serves the ultimate purpose of becoming "we're doing better than we think", which doesn't help anyone but those wishing to maintain bourgeois rule via reformism.

Reformism is self-adjustment by those at the top in order to qualm those not at the top. It's a process of political deferral.


The class struggle as we know it today is a product of capitalism. To suggest otherwise, by implying that the class problem can be solved under capitalism, is incorrect; reformism once more.

When I've been writing that the consciousness of the working class has to be raised in order for a socialist revolution to occur, I don't just mean workers have to become aware that they are "working class", but that they are exploited necessarily in order for capitalism to be maintained; their economic oppression - and because of economic, their intellectual and political too - is a product of the current economic system.

This system has to be smashed, not reformed. Because, as I said two posts previously:
The problem with reformism is that it attempts to reform within the necessary limits of a system antagonistic to reform.