Fierce denunciations of Marx are not uncommon, but the more popular tactic is to vaguely pay respects while completely underappreciating his work. The resulting middle-of-the-road position concedes that the history of all hitherto existing society entails some form of proto-capitalism, or “propertarian” forms of social relations. However, it does not appreciate the significance of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the discontinuity between capitalism and previous modes of production, or identify as properly revolutionary the process whereby the seat of power was transferred from feudal lords to business owners (the bourgeoisie). Thus, it does not understand the true nature of capitalism, or how to organize to defeat it.

Capitalism brought with it an unprecedented expansion in social mobility, both upward and downward. The waning of aristocratic mores led to celebration, but it was short-lived. It soon became clear that these new capitalists were something akin to kings, even those of humble origins. And despite a lot of rhetoric about the freedom and equality of the laborer, capitalists routinely used force to discipline the working poor. Thus philosophers and clergymen of the time began to formulate criticisms of capitalism: it’s heartless, it’s exploitative, it tends towards monopoly, it rewards greed, and so forth.

Marx stood out from other anti-capitalist thinkers of his era precisely because while most focused on the many similarities between kings and capitalists, Marx focused on the differences. Even those who claimed the mantle of science, such as Proudhon, focused on how capitalists exploit the people: “the barons of the middle ages plundered the traveller on the highway, and then offered him hospitality in their castles; mercantile feudality, less brutal, exploits the proletaire and builds hospitals for him.” [4] Studying the threat of poverty and the batons of the police force, he emphasized the continuity with old forms inherited from feudalism, and pleaded for an enlightened future where we reject and transcend them. Marx was more concerned with the why. He wanted to understand what made capitalism unique. What exactly is exploitation? How do we measure it? How is this different in feudalism than in capitalism?

Marx’s impressive predictions are a direct result of this analysis. Weber paraphrases Marx as appreciating that “the limits to the exploitation of the feudal serf were determined by the walls of the stomach of the feudal lord.” [5][6] Under capitalism, on the other hand, we have profit-oriented commodity production. This means that neither “stomach walls” nor any other kind of natural limit impose themselves: accumulation can be infinite, and since everything is tradeable with everything else, the capitalist not only can but must (in order to compete) accumulate without limit. Growth for the sake of growth, a growth that is indifferent to what kind of work anybody actually does.

Rather than deny the virtues of capitalist competition, as many socialists still do, Marx actually conceded that capitalism had unleashed production and stitched together supply chains in a prodigious way: “what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?” [7] However, he went on to explain that this virtue would be its core vice, and lead to its downfall. A contradiction.

Adam Smith writes about how competition would help drive prices to their proper value vis-a-vis market needs, about how capitalists are “led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.” [8] Marx did not outright reject this mechanism, but he challenged the value-judgment. He predicted that even in the hypothetical case that a benevolent capitalist did not personally wish to exploit, they would have to do so anyway, or else they would be replaced by another willing exploiter.

To paraphrase William C. Roberts, capitalists are simply at the top of the pyramid of market-dominated producers. [9] What if humans, capable of rational deliberation, want to make healthcare free? What if they want to assert that the environment is valuable in itself? The invisible hand imposes itself decisively: “No.”

Marx described the phenomenon of “commodity fetishism”: through many small separate acts of exchange, we command each other to behave in very specific ways, while disclaiming this same power and attributing its commands to blind necessity. Commodities are inert objects, and humans are rational beings, but society operates as if humans were helpless against the pressures exerted by the market. Market domination even finds lucid expression in natural-sounding phrases like “if I don’t sell out to Facebook, they’ll just copy my features, so may as well do it myself” and “if I paid you more, I’d have to pay everyone more, and then we’d lose to the competition and all be out of a job.”

There is nothing wrong with denouncing American plutocrats like Bezos and Gates for greed, but we cannot stop there: we must understand that the system of exploitation is not held together by any individual’s vices. As Lenin put it, “The capitalists divide the world, not out of any particular malice, but because the degree of concentration which has been reached forces them to adopt this method in order to obtain profits.” [10] If one of them had a major change of heart and stopped pursuing ruthless accumulation, they would quickly be ousted by stockholders for endangering their investment. In the unlikely event that their stockholders were cooperative, a competitor would swoop in and relieve them of their commanding market share. This is not apologia for Bezos, but we need to understand that there is a talent to being a capitalist exploiter, or else we will underestimate our enemy. The market selects for profitability, and it selects well — it just doesn’t select for environmental responsibility or decency or who can bring the most benefits to the greatest number. From Marx, to Lenin, to Deng, we can observe a baseline level of respect for the enemy: “Management is also a technique.” [11]

On my view, the core Marxist insight is the following: Feudal lords were the masters of Feudalism. Capitalists, however, aren’t the masters of capitalism. They are merely the high priests of capitalism. The master of capitalism is Capital itself.

from https://redsails.org/why-marxism/