Politics Under Capitalism

1. Marx addresses the question of politics under capitalism in fairly abstract terms in On the Jewish Question.
1. On the Jewish Question was written in response to a piece with a similar title by Bruno Baer about the issue of whether Jews should be granted the same civil rights as Christians in European societies. Baer’s claim is that it is inconsistent for Jews to demand the same civil rights as Christians while at the same time keeping their religion. That is, for Baer, it is inconsistent for Jews to demand that they have the right to practice the Jewish religion and also to demand that they have the same rights as Christians to speak and publish, hold property, vote in elections, hold office and so forth. Now Baer’s views might strike you as absurd. For isn’t religious toleration central to the whole notion of civil liberty and civil rights? The way we see matters, the separation of church and state means two things. It gives everyone, Jews as well as Christians, the same political and civil rights, including the right to practice their own religion. And it creates a barrier between state and religion. The state no longer supports an established church. And the church does not tell the state what to do. Politics is, in the terms of Baer and Marx, emancipated from religion.
2. To understand Baer’s rejection of the ideas, you have to realize that Baer—and Marx as well—think that both Judaism and Christianity are nonsense. For both of them, the Jewish and Christian idea of God is a projection of human powers onto a non-existent but presumably all-powerful and transcendent being. This projection is a sign of the alienation of human beings. It is we human beings, collectively, who have the power to transform nature and our own lives. But, given that most of us are alienated—and thus are not in control over the conditions under which we live—we attribute our collective powers to another being, God. And, given how difficult it is to imagine and accomplish the taking take back of our power to give collective direction to our lives, we appeal to God to rescue us. Or we look to His giving us a better life in the next world. Thus, for both Marx and Baer, full human emancipation is only possible if we human beings give up religion and recognize that we collectively have the power to change the world for the better.
3. Given this shared presupposition, Baer’s position makes more sense. For he sees the emancipation of politics from religion as the first step towards full human emancipation. Human emancipation would require the elimination of religion. Seen as a step in this direction, the emancipation of politics from religion requires that the state be indifferent to religion in general and the religion of its citizens in particular. So Baer is more or less correct to say that Jews cannot claim civil liberty as Jews but rather as citizens. That is, Jews should not be granted full civil liberty because they are Jewish but because as citizens in a liberal regime and thus deserve the same rights as other citizens. This conclusion leads Baer to say that, in claiming full civil liberties and rights, Jews should give up their Judaism. Marx, however, points out that Baer makes an illogical leap here. For political emancipation is not full human emancipation. Marx points out that it is possible for the state to be emancipated from religion while most members of a society remain religious. For Marx, the freedom and equality of citizens is a kind of idealized status, one that abstracts from the concrete qualities of human beings, including their particular religious views. Political emancipation gives us a preview, as it were, of full human emancipation, when religion ceases to be important for people. But it is not the same thing as human emancipation.
4. In order to make this point, Marx draws a parallel with property, in which he makes the arguments that are central to the question I have asked. The state in a liberal regime, he points out, is also emancipated from property. People are free and equal before the state. The have the same rights and, in democratic regime, the same one vote. Yet this freedom and equality is illusory. For it coexists with the greatest inequality in society. And that inequality has political implications. Indeed, it undermines the presumed equality of democratic regimes.
2. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx’s understanding of politics under capitalism recognizes both the power of the bourgeoisie and the potential for political power on the part of the proletariat.
1. On the one hand, emphasizes the dominance of the bourgeoisie over the political life of capitalist societies.
1. "the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative state, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.(The Communist Manifesto, p. 11)"
2. On the other hand, he points out that the proletariat can some political power in a representative democracy.
1. "This organization of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently, into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus, the Ten-Hours Bill in England was carried. (The Communist Manifesto, p. 18)"
3. Marx’s general point seems to be that while, over time, the proletariat can gain some political power under liberal democratic capitalism, their power is far less than they would deserve if political power were distributed equally. That is, in virtue of their superior class position, the members of the bourgeoisie have far more than their share of political power.
3. Marxists have elaborated Marx’s brief account of how capitalists dominate the politics of capitalists societies. They point out four ways in which capitalists can exercise much more political power than their numbers alone would seem to give them
1. Many capitalists have personal connections with politicians. Many appointive and elective political officials come from the capitalist class while few or none come from the working class.
1. Roughly half of all cabinet officials have been educated at Harvard, Princeton or Yale. (This is not exactly a sign of diversity (or good sense, for that matter.)
2. Capitalists have important resources, including money and organization, with which to contribute to election and lobbying campaigns and thereby influence political office holders.
3. Capitalists have what is often called a structural advantage. Whether politicians are successful or not largely depends upon whether high levels of economic growth and employment are maintained. Yet economic growth depends upon business investment and the expansion of business. But these important decisions over business investment—decisions that have a tremendous effect on the common good—are made by businesses not by political leaders. So in order to get businessmen to invest, politicians have to offer them all kinds of benefits, including relatively low tax rates on capital and on those with high incomes generally; subsidies and tax breaks for investment and research and so forth. So, on this analysis, no matter who is elected to office, politicians must be sure not to help out businessmen and, perhaps more importantly, no do anything that would undermine their desire to invest, such as raising their taxes.
1. Many conservative economists implicitly agree with this point, for they argue that too much taxation of capital or capitalists or too much regulation will undermine economic growth.
4. In response to point c, defenders of capitalism often say that the dependence of politicians on businessmen is simply a fact of life. Marxists then respond by saying that it is an ideological delusion to think that there are no alternatives to private business investment.
1. Governments could raise investment funds by taxing the income and wealth of capitalists and then encourage investment by.
1. Direct control of the government over business enterprises through nationalization. This is done in many countries that are still more or less capitalist in nature.
1. For example, many banks are nationalized in otherwise capitalist countries and governments directly invest in a wide range of business enterprises.
2. Critics of nationalization on both the left and right argue that government run businesses tend to be inefficient. Click here for more on this issue.
2. Indirect government subsidy, by lowering interest rates.
2. Our failure to recognize alternative to current arrangements is, for Marxists, an example of the fourth way in which capitalists have a political advantage: our failure to even question capitalist political and economic relationships. Marxists call this "false consciousness."
1. On the Marxist view, the mass media rarely present criticisms of or alternatives to the capitalist view of economics
1. The owners of and advertisers in newspapers, magazines and television news shows are all capitalists.
2. The working class and poor are essentially invisible in the mass media. This has a number of effects.
1. Few people realize how unequal the distribution of income is or how many working people struggle to make ends meet.
2. Those who are relatively well off in the capitalist and new middle class do not realize just how well off they are in comparison to the vast majority of people in the country.
4. Evaluating the Marxist account of politics under capitalism.
1. One way to evaluate the Marxist account of politics under capitalism is to look at the distribution of income and ask ourselves what that distribution would look like if capitalists rich did not greater political power than workers. Click here for some data about the distribution of income in the United States and elsewhere. Data for the United States do suggest that half of the population—or even 60 or 75% of the population—might increase their standard of living by redistributing some of the income of the very rich.
1. There is substantial redistribution of income in the United States.
1. Although the data that show this do not take into account a number of government policies that diminish the amount of redistribution.
2. Yet, even with this redistribution of income, income is very unequally distributed in the United States.
2. Great inequality of income, however, does not by itself testify to political inequality. For there may be other sources of economic inequality besides the great political power of capitalists.
1. Inequality might simply be a fact of life. It might be that any policies that aimed at significantly reducing the extent of economic inequality would also interfere with the efficiency of our economy or reduce the rate of economic growth. Thus greater equality would, over the long term, hurt everyone.
1. This claim, is in part, the structural argument we saw above, which is made by both Marxist and conservative economists.
2. The truth of this argument is, however, partly called into question by the ability of some fundamentally capitalist countries, such as Sweden and Japan, to have highly efficient and growing economies with much lower rates of inequality. Click here for data on comparative income distribution.
2. Inequality might be desired by the workers as well as the capitalists. That is, given the ideals of distributive justice held by the proletariat and new middle class might justify greater inequality than Marxists would think is just.
1. Marxists would respond by saying that
1. The evidence of public opinion polls suggests that the working class is, by and large, in favor of greater redistribution then if fact exists.
1. Indeed, almost everyone is favor of equality of opportunity.
2. That people do not realize how far we are from true equality of opportunity may be the result of the "false consciousness" discussed above.