Critical Review of The Communist Manifesto - Essay Example

?Critical Review of “The Communist Manifesto” The Communist Manifesto is an important document of communist socialist worldwide. At the same time, itis also an important theory material among academics oriented to the ideology. Many works in sociology either respond in one way or another to Marxist thought or are influenced by Marxist ideas. Thus, we can find in most libraries perspectives like Marxist sociology. On the other hand, we have works such as those by Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, both of whom have sociological perspectives that compete with and contradict Marxist perspectives. Another possible way of viewing the matter is that the ideas of Weber and Durkheim are sociological thought while the ideas of Marx are basically ideology not sociology. Nevertheless, the mere fact that a number of sociologists consider themselves as Marxist sociologists, whether correctly or incorrectly, supplies evidence that there is indeed a Marxist sociological thought. In this review of The Communist Manifesto, we use the material translated by Samuel Moore in 1888 from the German original. The 1888 translation was published by Marxist.org in an offline version in 2000 and is also available in the Marxist.org website. The 1888 Samuel Moore’s translation from German published offline by Marxist.org will be cited as Marx and Engels (2000). In this review, we identify some of the key and most important ideas reflected in The Communist Manifesto and proceed with our critical review using the ideas of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, two great thinkers in the field of sociology. In this work, we will oftentimes use the term “Marx” to mean “Marx and Engels”. History as history of class struggle. “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” constitutes one of the opening lines of The Communist Manifesto. It is also one of The Communist Manifesto’s most famous lines. It is also well-known that it is one of the key doctrines of communism or communist socialists. Several statements in Marx and Engels (2000, p. 3) provided support the key point. For instance, Marx and Engels wrote that “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an interrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” Marx and Engels added that “our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses however this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonism.” They said further that “society as a whole is more and more splitting up into great hostile camp, into two great classes directly facing each other----bourgeoisie and proletariat.” In contrast with Marx’s idea of class struggle, Weber emphasized on a society glued together based on legitimacy or unity based on legitimized authority (Allan 2005, p. 165). In effect, with Weber’s notion, class wars are avoided because the ruling power is legitimated. Legimation takes place in society making class struggle non-operative. Allan (2005, p. 165) also pointed out that Weber’s notion of stratification is more sophisticated than Marx’s. According to Allan (2005, p. 165), Marx notion of stratification is only based on class while Weber’s notion of stratification is based on class, status, and power. For Allan (2005, p. 165), “Marx defines class around the ownership of the means of production.” Weber, on the other hand, argued for multi-stratification based on class, status, and power and argued that although “a person may be high on of those dimensions and low on another (like a Christian minister, typically high in terms of status but low in terms of class).” In sum, Weber’s notion of class stratification is more complex than class (Allan 2005, p. 165). Further, for Weber, class struggle is suppressed or eliminated because of legitimation. For Weber, change takes place not as a result of class struggle but as something that can result when “legitimacy” is questioned (Allan 2005, p. 171). Meanwhile, in an articulation that is complementary to Weber’s perspective, Durkheim argued that the existence of classes is society’s way of implementing a division of labour (Rueschemeyer 1982, pp. 579-280). In the division of labour, instead of class struggle, Durkheim saw organic solidarity in the division of labour (Rueschemeyer 1982, p. 581). Rather than conflict, Durkheim saw that is fundamental in the division of labour is cooperation (Rueschemeyer 1982, p. 581), Political power is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. Marx and Engels (2000, p. 21) pointed out, “political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another.” Engels also affirmed the doctrine in the 1888 English edition of The Communist Manifesto. Based on this doctrine, Marx and Engels (2000, p. 20) extends the concept on how political power or statecraft will be characterized in the political victory of the proletariat, “the proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class.” Against Marx’s concept of power, Allan (2005, p. 170) argued that Weber emphasized on authority. Authority is the ability to require performance (Allan 2005, p. 169). For Weber, there are three types of authority: charismatic, traditional, and rational-legal authority (Allan 2005, p. 170). Charismatic authority is authority based on an association with the supernatural or gifts of an individual attributed to the supernatural (Allan 2005, p. 170). Traditional authority is the ability to demand or enforce obedience based on custom (Allan 2005, p. 170). Rational-legal authority is the ability to enforce compliance based on recognition that the authority had acquired the authority based on qualification, fulfilment of requirements, or law (Allan 2005, p. 170). Rueschemeyer (1982, p. 587), on the other hand, pointed out that Durkheim saw that what is most important in power is that it is a form of division of labour. Instead of seeing power as a weapon in class struggle, Durkheim saw “power constellations in the causation of division of labour” (1982, p. 588). While Marxist would turn to force in amassing political power, Durkheim saw force as indicative of an illegitimate order (Mueller 2005, p. 97). Further, Durkheim argued that injustice “systematically create an asymmetrical division of power which favours an elite at the expense of a mass of society” (Mueller 2005, p. 97). Durkheim “regards force as a temporary phenomenon, associated with anomie, which disappears when new rules for the coordination of functions and the cooperation of groups have been institutionalized” (Mueller 2005, p. 97). While Marxists emphasize on the need for class war to acquire power, Durkheim asserted that “professional groups should serve as intermediate authorities between the State and the individual and act as counterweight to State power” (Mueller 2005, p. 99). Marxists emphasize on the role of the State for class dictatorship; on the other hand, Durkheim pointed out that the State is a special organ to implement representations that are valid for the collective (Mueller 2005, p. 99). Durkheim conceded that the State is a sovereign power but emphasized that the State is nor more than the “supreme legislative body encompassing all the other secondary groups in society which make up ‘political society’” (Mueller 2005, p. 99). Durkheim pointed out that balance of power and communication are the two important conditions so individual autonomy can develop in society (Mueller 2005, p. 100). In particular, a balance of power between professional groups and a democratic state are the essential pre-requisite for ensuring one’s individuality (Mueller 2005, p. 100). Thus, instead of class dominance, the emphasis of Durkheim is in the autonomy of the individual through a “balance of power” between the state and fiscalizers of the state. Economic determinism. In the preface to the 1888 English edition of The Communist Manifesto, Engels said, “the prevailing of mode of production and exchange, and the social organization following from it, form the basis upon which it is built up, and from which alone can be explained the political and intellectual history of that epoch.” (Marx and Engels 2000, p. 38). In contrast, for Weber there are three main factors that influence history as in the rise of capitalism: religion, nation-states, and transportation and technology (Allan 2005, p. 159). One can also interpret the three factors as culture and values, scale, and technology. Another way of interpreting Weber’s perspective is that economic structure is not the determining factor shaping society. Culture, values, and ethics are important factors as well in shaping society. According to Allan (2005, p. 159), Weber had three reasons for writing his book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. First, Weber wanted to refute Marx’s arguments on why capitalism emerged. Second, Weber desired to highlight the role of culture in shaping society. And third, Weber aimed to highlight the role of protestant ethics on “why rational capitalism had risen in the West and nowhere else” (Allan 2005, p. 159). According to Allan (2005), Weber had two notions of capitalism: traditional and rational. In traditional capitalism, “traditional values and positions still held” (Allan 2005, p. 159). In rational capitalism, however, individuals seek to “increase wealth for its own sake and is based on utilitarian social relations” (Allan 2005, p. 159). In The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber emphasized that “cultural milieu or mindset is required for rational capitalism to develop” (Allan 2005, p. 160). For Weber, modern capitalism implied principles for living like what one has to do between waking up and bedtime and what one has to do with his or her life in general (Allan 2005, p. 160). In supporting this point, Allan (2005, p. 160) quoted from Weber’s quotation of Benjamin Franklin in that time is money, credit is money, and money can buy many things; money is the road to many things. Thus, for Weber, capitalism required that individuals must live with goals in mind, to be frugal, organized, and rational (Allan 2005, p. 160). For Weber, life has an end which is to make money but making money serves certain end which is to make more money (Allan 2005, p. 160). According to Allan (2005, p. 160), Weber’s “culture of modern capitalism says that money is to be made but not to be enjoyed.” In contrast with Marxist determinism, Durkheim’s view on the power of society or the collective to shape to individual ranges from minimal to maximal (Ceri 2005, p. 147). This is consistent with our earlier discussion on autonomy of the individual vis-a-vis the state, especially if there are buffers, fiscalizers, or “secondary groups” (Ceri 2005, p. 148). On the matter of method for deriving useful thinking on sociology, we can describe Marx’s methodology for theorizing or building theories as an attempt to review man’s history, interpret that history, and derive supposedly useful generalizations from history for theory. Weber’s method in his book, The Protestant Ethics and History of Capitalism as a method that is of lower scale than Marx’s. In his book, Weber developed theories based on an analysis of a specific historical case: western capitalism as well as non-western capitalism. Durkheim’s method is more advanced. Although Durkheim’s approach is similar with Weber in developing sociological theories, Durkheim attempted to support his theorizing with empirical research. This seems to be clear in his work on suicide. In my opinion, the perspectives of Weber and Durkheim appear more consistent with data but Marx’s perspective can also be useful in examining and explaining specific types of conflict. We can argue that Weber’s discussion on how culture can affect the economic base is powerful enough in illustrating and refuting economic determinism. Reference Allan, K., 2005. Explorations in classical sociological theory. London: Sage Publications. Ceri, P., 2005. Durkheim on social action. In: S. Turner, Emile Durkheim: Sociologist and moralist. London: Routeledge, 135-162. Marx, K. and Engels, F., 2000. Manifesto of the Communist Party. (Samuel Moore, trans. 1888). Marxist .org offline version (original work published 1848). Mueller, H., 2005. Durkheim’s Political Sociology. In: S. Turner, Emile Durkheim: Sociologist and moralist. London: Routeledge, 93-108. Rueschemeyer, D., 1982. On Durkeim’s explanation of division of labour. American Journal of Sociology, 88 (3), 579-589. Turner, S., 2005. Emile Durkheim: Sociologist and moralist. London: Routeledge. Whimster, S., Understanding Weber. London: Routeledge. Read More