In general, what developed was not a class gap, but a continuum, in which all members of society, from the working poor to the very wealthy, gradually increased their collective wealth over a prolonged period, such that a “middle” class emerged, which he did not foresee as economically sustainable, and which pissed off severely revolutionaries. Rather than distinctions sharpening, they became muted, such that it was and is impossible to say exactly one “class” starts and another ends.
Where “revolution” happened, the actual reality was that a small number of dedicated nihilists–in the formal Russian sense–were able to use deception, violence and long term effort to stage a coup d’etat, and gradually eliminate political opponents, and usher in an era of much GREATER oppression of workers. That victory, in turn, facilitated the rest, including those in China and and Southeast Asia. Everywhere, though, what was called the “revolution” involved mass deception by a small number of people, who used violence against all who opposed them. There was NOTHING organic about it anywhere.
Marx was wrong. There is no other way to put it.
So one must ask: why are there still Marxists? There is a simple answer: Marxism provides a model for creating dichotomous oppositions, which in turn facilitate hatred. Hatred in turn serves as a meaning system, with anger its defining attribute. If you want to break something, if you want to hate “corporations”, then Marxism still enables you to do that.
I want to be clear, though, on what I view as Marx’s foundational misunderstanding. He could not understand what value “capitalists” provided, and viewed them as parasitical.
Look at Hostess, though: is it not clear that what management provides is intelligence and the framework for job creation? The unions create nothing. They take.
One person, Ralph Leroy Nafziger, was responsible for creating what became Hostess. He had the idea of baking and selling bread. He may well have started with a single oven, and likely personally delivered his loaves until he developed more work than he could handle. Then, to facilitate selling more, he started hiring people.
At some point, his primary role was directing employees, to ensure quality product and service. He made money for this. At some point, he may have hired a manager, and done little except read reports thereafter. Maybe he played a daily role.
EITHER WAY, ALL the employees which were later hired had jobs because he had an idea and ran with it. What a union does is negotiate the price of labor in a way that is not fundamentally different than a purchasing department negotiating the price of flour. The difference is that a flour manufacturer would rarely decide NOT to sell flour until they got the price they wanted. A further difference is that the government would never step in to support the “right” of the flour manufacturer not just to withhold the flour, but to prohibit anyone else from selling it, using violence if necessary.
We need to be clear: if you look at the situation carefully, the fact that unions can get away with organized violence literally means that they have more rights than the average citizen; they are a different class of citizen, by law. Union bosses can order someone beaten up, and Federal laws prohibit prosecution under racketeering laws, or even in most cases under normal laws barring assault.
In point of fact, in a truly Capitalist system, EVERYONE would be in a position to create their own corporations, their own control, their own destiny. Marx did not think this was possible, but more importantly leftist nihilists don’t WANT this to be possible.
Marxism is an anti-anxiolytic for emotionally ill people. It is not a valid economic analysis, and it does not and cannot lead to increased human felicity.
Wrote this with some noise around me. I may work on this later.