All sorts of critiques of Marx arise in our modern, neoliberal world. However, most share the characteristic of being ill-informed and highly selective in terms of the origin of such, assuming they choose to substantiate at all. Because of this, I will start by covering the nature of paragraph 34 of The Manifesto of the Communist Party:

“In proportion to the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed…”

In my translation of the Manifesto, I shall take “developed” to mean entrenched, securing its existence. The bourgeoisie existed in some measure during the age of the guilds and was precipitated into existence by globalization from colonizing the Americas – Marx explains that at the very beginning of the Manifesto. The proletariat only exists because the bourgeoisie does; therefore, the proletariat develops only as the bourgeoisie does. At the time of the Industrial Revolution, steam machines were so expensive that only the wealthiest could afford them. Due to their increased productivity and competitivity, they forced local artisans (who worked by hand) to abandon their trade and move to the cities to work the machines. Artisans became proletarians.

“… a class of laborers, who live so long as they find work,”

Individual proletariat only live as long as they find work, but the class as a whole must exist or the bourgeoisie falls along with it. A proletarian dying of starvation is not an issue for the bourgeoisie because another will take their place eventually.

“and who find work so long as their labor increases capital.”

Marx put labour at the centre of value, known as the Labour Theory of Value, and that’s why he was criticizing capitalism in that passage. Labour that does not increase capital simply does not exist in the market. Note that by capital, Marx does not fall to Austrian school logic and simply equate it with money or profits. Capital exists as a kind of value whose very nature is that of self-reproduction and allows one access to abstract human labour (i.e. Value) through the generation of money. Regardless of profits in the sense of market transfers (which actually sum up to zero), any produced commodity contains within it greater capital than was present before in the prior commodities through the very process of production that generated a surplus of labour hours but masked the nature of production by means of commodity fetishism.

“The laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations in the market”

Your labour-power has become a commodity like any other, it lives within the rules of competition: supply and demand, markets, etc.

A chronological deconstruction of the presented article will be undergone in order to establish that Marx was indeed right about his conception of capital. To begin, the author states:

“The workers produce, and then the employer steals away the product of his or her labor. With this characterization, it is no wonder people are so against modern-day capitalist relationships. But this characterization is not the reality of the situation. It is based on loaded language and misrepresentations of the market process.”

To the words bolded, I present this excerpt from “Notes on Wagner”:

“The obscure man falsely attributes to me the view that ‘the surplus-value produced by the workers alone remains, in an unwarranted manner, in the hands of the capitalist entrepreneurs’ (Note 3, p. 114). In fact I say the exact opposite: that the production of commodities must necessarily become ‘capitalist’ production of commodities at a certain point, and that according to the law of value governing it, the ‘surplus-value’ rightfully belongs to the capitalist and not the worker.”

It seems to me that ascribing “loaded language” onto Marx is another way of projecting one’s own characteristics. Marx states clearly that capitalists have a historical right to extract surplus value such that they are buying a worker’s labour-power while already controlling the manner by which a commodity shall change its form. The principle quality of his critique is that of historical progression not a moral one.



“This paragraph has two core planks: the workers’ lives are dependent on capital, and the workers are owned. Marx says that the worker only lives if they can find work. One may take this as Marx saying that work is bad, but that is not what he is saying. He is saying that work is bad as long as its existence depends upon capital production. Work dependent on capital production is not a bad thing, though. An employer only will hire a worker if the hiring will bring the employer more wealth. This may seem terrible and selfish, but capital accumulation in private hands is a good thing.”

Worker’s lives are dependent on capital, however that is an incomplete statement. The nature of workers to capitalists is one of mutual necessity. The issue with the matter is that a dialectical contradiction is paradoxically formed as capitalists must actively provide wages in such a manner that the worker’s labour-time is not adequately accounted for. As a result, a surplus emerges from which profit can be determined. Yet, the author further finds the need to strawman Marx by stating that “workers are owned.” It may be said that workers are wage-slaves in the sense that their principle method of subsistence is by engaging in the market, however, analogy seems to escape the quoted as a simple device. In the very beginning of the Manifesto itself, Marx describes the class structures of past civilizations and mentions a social progression. One may claim that he had a vitriolic conception of the bourgeoisie, when he truly believed that the class was favourable when it was a revolutionary machine, carrying about the end of feudalism. However, it has become reactionary in the present, entrenched in a culture of historical stagnation. The manner in which it flew under the author’s nose in a sense can be understandable. Anyone reading a work through a preconceived lens cannot gauge for themselves what it means, rather be fed the age-old slop of others. Workers are not owned in Marx’s view, rather, they sell their labour-power to employers. Because of this, an abstract part of themselves is sold as commodity.

“Businesses will garner capital as long as they are serving consumers. The worker is part of this process. Capital accumulation for the employer means that they can go and enter into another entrepreneurial endeavor, thus serving more consumers. Thus, the relationship between the worker and the employer being one that produces capital is good for society.”

Hasn’t been true for a very long time. Lenin observed that capitalism tended to naturally shift to monopolies and oligopolies (and then to imperialism). Of course, a monopoly does not serve consumers but only their own interests. Businesses generate capital regardless of serving “consumers” as, contrary to the so-called “subjective theory of value” or “marginal utility theory,” the input of “consumers” arises only after said “consumers” have entered the market themselves as sellers — sellers of labour-power. In this sense, using the term “consumers” in addition to worker and employer is a tautology due its composition being that of those who find sustenance under capitalism. It is useless in that it may easily be replaced with the word “society” or those living within it. It is also a smoke-screen that works to only examine the processes of exchange, consumption, and a hint of distribution. Why does this occur? It’s rather simple: white-knights of capital only really find a persuasive footing in the clean, trimmed, and proper market element of capitalism, effectively ignoring the process of production. Notice how he never truly gets into the relation between worker and capitalist. Moreover, his argument follows that the relation between x and y produces z, therefore it is “beneficial”. The question is then how is this significant or unique? The production of capital is not “good” simply as it exists. This leads to a circular argument. By his logic, the set that includes the relation of x and y and the production of z becomes desirable as z is produced. Why is z produced? To retain, extend, and regenerate this relation. Why is this relation desirable? Because z is produced. He must explain why the production of capital is “good” or why the set of capitalism is necessary for this production before his point becomes coherent.

“Marx claims that the workers ‘are a commodity.’ […] he goes on to call the workers ‘slaves of the bourgeoisie class.’”

No, their labour (or rather capacity to labour) has become a commodity. The proletariat cannot find work outside of producing capital, therefore they depend on the bourgeoisie to exist. A proletariat, by definition, cannot work for the proletariat. Refer to the commentary on “This paragraph has two core planks…”

“The situation for the working class is not as dire as Marx makes it seem.”

It was pretty dire in the mid-19th century, when the Manifesto was written, and it is still dire now if the author took the time to swim across the Pacific and view for himself, the factories in which many spend the better part of their lives.

“The relationship between the worker and the business owner is voluntary in private enterprise. The worker chooses to work for the employer for a wage they agree upon (minimum wage laws set aside). This consensually agreed upon relationship is only slavery in the furthest reaches of intellectual fantization. Any other situation would be slavery. This is the only relationship that can be outside the definition of slavery. So if this is slavery, what is freedom?”

Voluntary relationships are the best defence of “libertarians”, but there is nothing voluntary about picking your capitalist. They have the power over the worker. Something like the video above. I would like my wage to be $500 an hour but no capitalist will pay that, so if I accept $50 an hour, how did I voluntarily accept the offer? The rest of the paragraph is about setting aside slavery without defining slavery. Consequently, I shall not say much of the matter considering the nature of slavery is first as a class, but also as an analogy.

“Marx believes it is slavery because the employer steals from the laborer.”

He doesn’t. Rather repetitive but refer to the commentary on “This paragraph has two core planks…”

“The worker does not create the products he or she is employed to create from scratch. The worker creates a product using the capital goods the employer has provided them with”

The individual worker is part of a long chain of production involving, you guessed it, several other workers who obey the same rules. The argument is that we don’t need an employer to provide capital goods, but that workers can manage them just fine between themselves. The counter-argument is going to be that “someone has to provide the money to buy the machines”, and to that I say, someone has to labour to create the machine.

“Rather, they are paying the worker to do something with the resources they already own.”

That’s the whole basis for abolishing private property – also, no, that does not include things like toothbrushes. At the same time, the workers add value to a commodity, not merely transform it, and a capitalist takes that and sells it for a profit. It’s quite easy to see for profit to exist, there must be some percentage of a worker’s productivity that they are not given. Hence, the presence of exploitation.

“There is an institution that does steal things it had no hand at all in producing, though. It is called the state.”

I believe that sums it up. The point is, if the cognitive dissonance were to change his perspective, he’d realize that taxes can be equated to profits in that they may be seen as something that will go “back into society” and benefit all for the “greater good.”

“At the same time, the employer does not buy the worker.”

Ah, the product of an eloquent warrior’s fine takedown of the mightiest of men of straw, seeming to regenerate from the hidden hand of kindergarten-level argumentation. With that said, refer to the commentary on “This paragraph has two core planks…”

“Workers rent out their labor voluntarily, and they are still in control of themselves.”

I shall rephrase that in order to further expose the illegitimacy of the state argument: Capitalists rent out their profits voluntarily, and they are still in control of themselves.

“If the employer truly did own the worker, the worker could not leave. The worker would be permanently stuck in the present job. But workers can leave if they are unhappy with the working conditions or wages. Marx talks about competition as if it a terrible fire that workers must burn in, but workers are the ones that force businesses to compete.”

Well, no, because businesses have effectively limitless capital and have more power over workers. If they want to quit, there will be someone else to take their place. The naïveté of saying that they can just “leave” disregards the fact that their whole lives revolve around the system. Where is the happy janitor that can quit due to the lack of sufficient pay? Where is the iPhone factory worker that can afford to demand a shortened workday? Besides, workers are kept from envisioning anything but capital relations as, to put it simply, “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” This past-oriented mindset seems to afflict all who subscribe to bourgeois economics. Any issue in capitalism is deflected as it does not fit into the models constructed by the deflector. Liberal capitalists still tend to be held into the idea that the markets presented at the dawn of capitalism can be recreated with the simple lack of government oversight. And this, in their eyes, allows for the full expression of “human nature” as embodied by “rugged individualists” such as Robinson Crusoe. What they fail to see is that capitalist markets tend to lead to the increase of government oversight as businesses will do what they can to eliminate the competition. Further, they develop “human nature” out of the fact that a certain archetype is present under the current material conditions. Using the same state of mind, someone present under a slave society would be equally justified in saying that there are people that exist to be owned for the good of their superiors.

“Competition is what brings up working conditions, pushes down prices, and keeps quality high.”

Again, capitalism tends to create monopolies and oligopolies, which do none of those things. Workers compete against each other as a job market is designed such that there is unemployment and a present “labour army” to draw from if individual workers become dissident.

“Marx’s criticism of the relationship of the workers to the employers is misguided, and the conclusions he draws are flat out wrong. Thus, they should be entirely rejected.”

What a conclusion. He didn’t know how to end his article and that’s the best he could come up with. To critique is to be able to analyze. As a result, “the conclusions he draws are flat out wrong. Thus, they should be entirely rejected.”