Karl Marx and US - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages... Socialism, according to its definition, refers to a state where the ownership of the means of production is collectively held. In a socialistic state, the government or central authority would assume the responsibility of taking care of the needs of its citizens. Furthermore, the value of the goods produced by the labor would not be judged through the amount of revenue or profit that the product or service is able to fetch but its value would be determined by the amount of time and energy consumed in preparing the product (Przebowski, 2009, 72). There are no doubts about the fact that Marx is amongst one of the most influential thinkers in the human history. His ideas inspired several thinkers and policymakers in the world and even the governments of Russia, China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Cuba and several other countries of the world. However, Marx’s ideas and thoughts about capitalism are fundamentally flawed and nothing less than an idealistic novel. Marx believes that capitalism is inherently contradictory and it would be replaced by socialism, which would subsequently be replaced by communism (Sherman, 1991, p. 209). According to Marx, the state of full or pure communism would represent a society without any class, social structure, state, or struggle. Communism aims to employ its resources at creating a desirable and equitable state, where people would not be able to distinguish each other in social classes and would not find any incentive in exploiting others for their good. Marx believes that such a society would become the most powerful manifestation of human freedom and it would empower the working class and put an end to the alienation of labor...
Marx somehow is able to present his entire philosophy without addressing the most basic dynamics of human motivation. Humans are motivated by independence, ownership, and reward for their effort. People of this planet work every day because they believe that they would reward accordingly. However, if a state or a central authority divides incomes based on need rather than effort then the same would take away all the incentive to work. Therefore, in a purely socialistic or communistic system, when the government begins to divide the national output “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”, the total output would decrease as those working according to their abilities would not find the same incentive in producing the same level of output. Therefore, the level of output would continue to shrink to the point where the central authority would have to intervene and force the people to produce. This is one of the biggest inherent contradictions of the communist ideology because the system, which claims to liberalize the working class and the labor, would soon have to enslave them to feed the society. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More