The Evils of Capitalism

Marx was hardly the first thinker to denounce the evils of capitalism. Indeed, anti-capitalism is at least implicit in much of the Judeo-Christian tradition, with its attacks on greed, materialism, and selfishness.

Hear this, you who trample upon the needy,

And would bring the poor of the land to an end,

Saying, When will the new moon pass

That we may sell grain,

And the Sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale,

Making the ephah small and the price great,

And falsifying the scales;

Buying the poor for silver,

And the needy in exchange for a pair of sandals,

And selling the refuse of the grain.



...reads the book of Amos, pre-dating Marx by over 2000 years.

In medieval Christian thought, hatred of capitalism was closely mixed with anti-Semitism, due to Jews' involvement in banking, money-lending, and trade. The famous Protestant reformer Martin Luther, for example, wrote that: "[T]here is on earth no greater enemy of man, after the Devil, than a gripe-money and usurer, for he wants to be God over all men... Usury is a great, huge monster, like a werewolf... And since we break on the wheel and behead highwaymen, murderers, and housebreakers, how much more ought we to break on the wheel and kill... hunt down, curse, and behead all usurers!"

What Marx did was to update and reinvigorate the slumbering anti-capitalist impulse, combining it with Hegelian philosophy and a smattering of Classical economics. To an important and often overlooked extent, Marx merely repeatedly medieval Christian accusations:

What is the profane basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly cult of the Jew? Huckstering What is his worldly god? Money. Very well: then in emancipating itself from huckstering and money, and thus from real and practical Judaism, our age would emancipate itself... The god of the Jews has been secularized and has become the god of this world. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jews. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange.

On the Jewish Question

Aside from invective laced with anti-Semitic undertones, Marx made several specific claims about the evils of capitalism.