a complex theory developed by Karl Marx and based on historical materialism, the idea of \u200b\u200bdialectical development and an analysis of the class system of society.

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MARXISM

(Мarxism) The ideas, concepts and theories that formed the basis of the doctrine known as Marxism were formulated by Karl Marx (Marx) and Friedrich Engels (Engels) (they themselves called this doctrine "scientific socialism"). The relationship between Marxism and socialism (socialism) is quite problematic, but there is no doubt that Marx and Engels considered many of their contemporary socialists "utopians" (utopians) in the sense that they were not sufficiently objective in understanding how capitalist society actually develops ... Marx and Engels devoted their lives to the analysis of historical forces, which, from their point of view, inexorably led to the final collapse of the capitalist system and a revolutionary crisis, which should lead to a transitional socialist period and (as a result) to the complete victory of communism (communism). They paid particular attention to economic processes and structures, considering them to be the decisive "material" factors in the formation of social structure and class relations, as well as the state and the distribution of political power. And yet, various schools of Marxism that emerged in the last century assess the importance of economic factors in different ways in explaining and predicting broader models of socio-political change. Several followers of Marxism (and, of course, some of its critics) regarded Marx and Engels as determinists in the field of economics; there were other theorists who recognized the general interaction of economic and other socio-political factors. This polemic took a central place in 20th century Marxism-Leninism, which inevitably sought to analyze and explain the revolutionary processes that shook the whole world (starting with the Russian Revolution (Russian Revolution, 1917), active assistance to them by Marxist movements and political parties. Marxism- Leninism literally bogged down in attempts to prove the importance of political leadership and revolutionary state power for building a socialist (and communist) society.Marx and Engels themselves did not provide a detailed analysis of these issues, and this is one of the reasons why such 20th century Marxists as Lenin ( Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Castro managed to bring their own distinct vision of the future within the framework of the Marxist revolutionary strategy. What many revolutions that called themselves Marxist, in fact led to the strengthening of state power and (often) to the rule of one-party dictatorships, and not to the creation of a society, based on human freedom and the "withering away" of the state, has also significantly increased the differences in assessing the merits of certain Marxist strategies. The extreme position is taken by Marxists who reject the claims of dictatorial regimes to be considered "truly" Marxist. In the Western world, this leads to an insistent search for more democratic and pluralistic strategies for change, for example in eurocommunism, as well as in line with some traditions of social democracy. Marxism can also be seen as a distinct approach to the analysis of society (especially in relation to historical change) that has had a significant impact on many areas of research in the social sciences and the humanities. There is hardly a field of socio-economic, political or cultural studies that has not been subjected to critical study using the methods of Marxist analysis. This applies in particular to the use of historical materialism as a scrupulous methodological approach based on the conviction that the structure of different forms of society and human relations are products of material conditions and circumstances to a greater extent than ideas, thoughts or consciousness. It was under the influence of this postulate that the problem of "determinism" arose in Marxism: the emphasis on the material forces of economic production and social relations of production (ie, class relations) inevitably presupposes that they are the key factors that have determined and continue to determine the process of historical change. In particular, there is a positive attempt to emphasize that systems of ideas, incl. political belief systems and cultural "products" (such as art and literature) are fundamentally an expression of class interests and the socio-economic outlook of particular social groups. Thus, when analyzing capitalist society, Marxism pays great attention to the problems of power not only in terms of clear political superiority, but also in terms of superiority due to the dominant position in the class structure (which is believed to be related to the political position) and dominance in the sphere ideas, values \u200b\u200band cultural norms. The Marxist analysis of capitalism and the conditions under which capitalism enters periods of economic crisis, which ultimately leads to a social and political revolution, is extremely complex and has a predominantly economic focus. Since capitalism continued to develop and change its character after the death of Marx and Engels, many Marxist philosophers, beginning with Lenin, added important theoretical aspects related to Marxism such as, for example, the new conditions of world economic production, imperialism and colonialism ( colonialism), the changing position of the working class or proletariat, in which Marxists have always seen the most brutally exploited class of capitalist society and the main force in the final overthrow of capitalism. However, over the last century, the working class of the capitalist countries has changed so much that it is now hardly possible to apply the "classical Marxism" of Marx and Engels without a decisive change in emphasis. In addition, political success often accompanied Marxism in less developed, peasant-based societies, rather than in the more advanced industrial countries of the West. Perhaps (as some Marxists suggest), the center of gravity of class exploitation simply shifted to the third world, but if so, then at the end of the 20th century. it is necessary to critically rethink some of the provisions of Marxism. In the third world, the focus of Marxist thought is imperialism, colonialism and postcolonialism. Marxist criticism of capitalism emphasizes the role of the institution of private property (capital and land) as the basis of class exploitation and the dependence of wage workers on a privileged group of owners. Consequently, the future communist society is seen as a replacement - in the general interest - of private property by collective property, exercised in the form of direct workers' control. Marx and Engels do not have a developed program for organizing a future post-revolutionary society; moreover, they criticized all such programs as "utopian". However, in real life, the Marxist states have conducted so many practical experiments of all kinds, and the Marxist political parties have put forward so many different strategies that it is simply impossible to find a single, coherent approach. In the end, Marx and Engels came to the conviction that in order to realize the tasks of socialist and communist construction, it was necessary to wait for the conditions necessary for historical changes; in this regard, the full question arises of how quickly (or slowly) capitalism will be transformed into socialism and communism, as well as whether it is possible to carry out such a transformation into selected countries or it should be done globally. "Socialism in one country" (socialism in one country) has become a real strategy, which in the XX century. many Marxist regimes followed (including the USSR under Stalin), but if capitalism became a system of a global economic state, then it is highly doubtful that in a single country it is possible to achieve the goals indicated by Marx, Engels and Lenin. The collapse of many Marxist states in the late 1980s and early 1990s. (including the collapse of the USSR) gave rise to new doubts about the ability of such states to survive in an interdependent world, where the main place is occupied by capitalist countries. "Marxism is dead" - such are the popular political assessments of recent years. However, an alternative diagnosis says: only one, private, political form of Marxism has failed, and since at the end of the 20th century. capitalism continues to experience serious economic crises, and the state of the environment poses an increasing threat to the very existence of mankind, insofar as there will be a vast political space where the ideas of Marxism will continue to be expressed, discussed and developed.

The founders of Marxism became odious and politicized figures, heroes of pamphlets and cartoons. Therefore, it is worth remembering what they really thought, and not what is attributed to them. Let's try to briefly describe the main ideas of Marxism. Moreover, there are enough sources. It did not originate from scratch. He was influenced by the theories of Hegel and Feuerbach, as well as other representatives of the German classical school of thought.

Marxism: basic ideas and concepts

First of all, one of the main theories of Marxism is the recognition of the existence of social progress. it's called economics. The main characteristic of a person as a creature is the presence of labor and practice. The latter is aimed at transforming nature and society. In fact, practice is the foundation of the story as well as its meaning. Since the main ideas of Marxism consisted in the extension of materialism to social life, then the understanding of history in it was appropriate. Practice is primary in society, it also acts as a criterion for the correctness of any theory.

The main ideas of Marxism and materialism in history

Concepts and theories are not the source of life. They only reflect it, sometimes true, and sometimes distorted. The combination of them is called ideology, which can both help and inhibit it. People are the reason for the processes taking place in society. They make contact with each other to satisfy their needs. And since material desires are primary: to eat, sleep, and so on - and then philosophize, then the main relations between people are considered to be labor, production. Therefore, when studying history, it is necessary to pay attention to the basis of social life. And this is the level of the mode of production, the basis of the whole society. are the foundation of any state. They correspond to a certain level of legal, political ties, as well as the state of public consciousness. This is what Marx called the superstructure. All together it represents a socio-economic formation that changes with the transition to a new mode of production. It is often carried out in a revolutionary way if there is an acute conflict between groups of people who differ in relation to property, that is, classes.

The main ideas of Marxism and the problem of man

There is a reason that becomes the main factor in the political struggle. This is private property. It generates not only injustice in society, but also alienation between people. There are several forms of this phenomenon. Alienation can be from the products of production, from labor itself, and, finally, from each other. The need (in fact, the compulsion) to work leads to an increase in the desire to have (to have). The only way out that Marx saw out of this situation was the emancipation of man, the creation of such conditions when he could work not out of need, but in pleasure. Then people from creatures striving to possess will turn into real humanists. But the philosopher believed that this way out was rooted in the political solution of the issue: the destruction of private property through the revolution of the proletariat and the onset of communism. True, it should be said that Marx and Engels, in their clear and systematic analysis of their contemporary economy and social relations, saw such a society very vaguely. Rather, they put it forward as an ideal. The practical theory of revolution and communism was already generated by Marxism. The main ideas, briefly analyzed in this article, were inherited by many political and philosophical movements and used both for the benefit of humanity and to the detriment of it. But that's a completely different story.

Marxism is a system of socio-political, economic and philosophical views, first set forth by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and later developed by Vladimir Lenin. Classical Marxism is a scientific theory about the revolutionary transformation of social reality, about the objective laws of the development of society.

Marx's theory is not out of the blue. The sources of Marxism were classical, English political economy and utopian socialism. Taking from these currents all the most valuable, Marx and his closest friend and colleague Engels managed to create a doctrine, the consistency and completeness of which even ardent opponents of Marxism recognize. Marxism combines the materialist understanding of society and nature with the revolutionary theory of scientific communism.

Philosophy of Marxism

Marx's views were formed under the influence of materialistic Feuerbach and Hegel's idealistic logic. The founder of the new theory managed to overcome the limitations of Feuerbach's views, his excessive contemplation and underestimation of the importance of political struggle. In addition, Marx reacted negatively to the metaphysical views of Feuerbach, who did not recognize the development of the world.

To the materialist understanding of nature and society, Marx added Hegel's dialectical method, clearing it of the idealistic husk. Gradually, the contours of a new direction in philosophy, called dialectical materialism, emerged.

Dialectics Marx and Engels subsequently extended to history and other social sciences.

In Marxism, the question of the relationship between thinking and being is resolved unambiguously from a materialist standpoint. In other words, being and matter are primary, and consciousness and thinking are only a function of matter organized in a special way, which is at the highest stage of its development. The philosophy of Marxism denies the existence of a higher divine essence, whatever the dress of idealists.

Political Economy of Marxism

Marx's main work, Capital, is devoted to economic issues. In this essay, the author creatively applied the dialectical method and the materialist concept of the historical process to the study of the capitalist mode of production. Having discovered the laws of development of a society based on capital, Marx convincingly proved that the collapse of capitalist society and its replacement by communism is an inevitability and objective necessity.

Marx studied in detail the basic economic concepts and phenomena inherent in the capitalist mode of production, including the concepts of commodity, money, exchange, rent, capital, surplus value. Such an in-depth analysis allowed Marx to draw a number of conclusions that are valuable not only for those who are attracted by the ideas of building a classless society, but also for modern entrepreneurs, many of whom learn to manage their capital using Marx's book as a guide.

The doctrine of socialism

Marx and Engels in their works carried out a detailed analysis of social relations characteristic of the middle of the 19th century and substantiated the inevitability of the death of the capitalist mode of production and the replacement of capitalism with a more progressive social system - communism. The first phase of a communist society is socialism. This is an immature, incomplete communism, which in many respects contains some of the ugly features of the previous system. But socialism is an inevitable stage in the development of society.

The founders of Marxism were among the first to point out a social force that should become the gravedigger of the bourgeois system. This is the proletariat, wage workers who do not have any means of production and are forced to sell their ability to work by being hired by the capitalists.

By virtue of its special position in production, the proletariat becomes a revolutionary class around which all other progressive forces of society unite.

The central position of the revolutionary theory of Marxism is the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat, through which the working class retains its power and dictates the political will to the exploiting classes. Under the leadership of the proletariat, the working people are able to build a new society in which there will be no place for class oppression. The ultimate goal of Marxism is to build communism, a classless society based on the principles of social justice.

philosopher. and sots.-political. doctrine, the founder of which K. Marx (1818-1883), in collaboration with F. Engels (1820-1895), combined dialectics with materialism, applied the materialist method to the cognition of social phenomena, criticized capitalist society from the standpoint of proletarian socialism and substantiated the need for its revolutionary transformation through the transitional period of the dictatorship of the proletariat into a communist classless society.

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Marxism

the system of philosophical, economic and socio-political views developed by K. Marx and F. Engels, including:

Philosophical materialism and dialectics;

Materialistic understanding of history (the theory of socio-economic formations);

Substantiation of the economic laws of the development of capitalist society (the theory of surplus value, etc.);

The theory of classes and class struggle;

The theory of the proletarian - socialist revolution and the transition to a communist society.

Marxism is a teaching about bourgeois society of the 19th century, about the ways and means of its revolutionary transformation into a new socio-economic formation - communism; theory of practical change in the human world. At the same time, it is a deep socio-philosophical study of human history, its essence, contradictions, driving forces and development trends.

The ideological sources of Marxism were: English political economy, German classical philosophy and French utopian socialism.

Marxism is a definite model of the global reorganization of the world, which includes the idea of \u200b\u200ba general social, spiritual and ideological revolution.

Classical Marxism is distinguished by a sense of historical optimism and the extreme peremptory character, uncompromisingness, and rigidity in resolving the issue of social costs of the project being implemented.

In principle, Marxism defended the idea of \u200b\u200bdemocracy as a just social order associated with the liberation of man. At the same time, democracy was interpreted as a political and legal system, designed to guarantee the security and efficiency of a class capable of ensuring such freedom, that is, the proletariat. Hence the thesis about the inevitability of the dictatorship of the proletariat is quite natural for Marxism.

Originating as a theory, Marxism has undergone practical testing since the revolutions of 1848-1849. in Western Europe. After these revolutions, K. Marx and F. Engels focused their activities on promoting the ideas of scientific communism, training cadres of proletarian revolutionaries in all countries, and rallying the forces of the international proletariat for a new revolutionary struggle. This period was marked by the creation, under the leadership of K. Marx and F. Engels, of a revolutionary international party of the working class, called the International Workingmen's Association (First International, founded on September 28, 1864). In the 70-80s of the 19th century, mass social-democratic parties of the proletariat were formed in a number of European countries.

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INTRODUCTION: KARL MARX AND MARXISM

Karl Marx is one of the most famous people in history. For a long time he was ranked first in the ranking of the most cited thinkers - at least as far back as 1993, this was definitely the case. According to a 1999 BBC poll, Marx was named the greatest thinker of the millennium. According to the catalog of the US Library of Congress, more scientific works are devoted to Marx than to any other person. He tops the list of the 100 most studied personalities in history.

Marx earned fame as a philosopher, as an economist and, finally, as the author of the most influential doctrine on the structure of society and the mechanism of its development.

Karl Marx wrote a lot during his life: he was, among other things, a talented political journalist and editor-in-chief of an opposition newspaper - but two of Marx's texts gained the greatest fame. This is, of course, the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" and a huge work with the laconic title "Capital". Probably all literate people have heard of these two works of Marx, but very, very few have a reliable idea of \u200b\u200bwhat it is about. That is why articles like this are still possible and even necessary.

Marx was born in Germany, in the city of Trier, in 1818. He graduated from the University of Berlin with a degree in philosophy, but the rest of his life continued to engage in self-education: selflessly studied economics (which in his time was called "political economy") and sociology. So that we can imagine the dedication with which Marx was engaged in self-education, the following comparison is permissible: if Karl Marx lived in the 20th century and put the same amount of passion and will not into self-education, but into the construction of his body, the world would most likely never have known about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Because the sevenfold Mr. Olympia would definitely not be Schwarzenegger, but Marx.

The motivation that prompted Marx to study continuously was a completely exorbitant intellectual ambition. Marx was convinced that it was he who had to create the fundamental theory of society, which would provide comprehensive answers to questions about the internal structure of society, about the laws of its development and about the goal towards which this development ultimately aspires. Throughout his life, he worked on the creation of this theory, at the same time actively participating in the political life of Europe, persecuted by the governments of different countries, pursued by family tragedies (Marx and his wife had seven children, four of whom died at an early age) and constantly dissatisfied with the results of his titanic intellectual work. If not for the material support from his long-term friend Friedrich Engels, Marx himself would have died of hunger and his family would have been driven to poverty - to such an extent he was absorbed in what he considered his calling.

Marx died, of course, in a political sump Western Europe, in this dissident oasis, where all opposition, including our Herzen, fled from their governments - in London, in 1883.

Marx's intellectual legacy consists of three parts. It:

1) the philosophical part, which includes dialectical and historical materialism;

2) the economic part is the doctrine of surplus value;

3) finally, the third part of Marxism is the theory of the class structure of society and the inextricably linked doctrine of the class struggle, which should lead through the dictatorship of the proletariat to a fundamentally new classless society based on social ownership of the means of production.

I will briefly outline the content of each of the three constituent parts of Marxism.

Dialectical materialism, or, as they said in abbreviated form in the USSR, diamat is the doctrine of the laws of development (nature, man and society). According to dialectical materialism, matter is the only basis of the world, and consciousness is one of the properties of matter. The main postulate: contradictions are the source (mover) of development, that is, development occurs due to a special property inherent in matter - a property that can be conventionally called a "need" to overcome all kinds of contradictions. It is because of the decisive role that is assigned within the framework of this theory to the existence of contradictions and their overcoming, it is called "dialectic" (dialectics, translated from Greek, is the art of arguing, that is, the ability to identify contradictions).

Dialectical materialism not only asserts that contradictions are the driving force of development, but also describes the three fundamental laws in accordance with which development is carried out.

1) The law of unity and struggle of opposites says: although the opposites that make up a contradiction are in constant struggle, neither of them can completely defeat and displace the other, because they are both different sides of the same, and each of them can only be known through comparison with the other. The Chinese, by the way, were aware of thousands of years ago (the Yin-Yang symbol expresses this very thing), but in Europe, philosophical thought grew to the unity and struggle of opposites only in the 19th century.

2) The law of the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative describes where the struggle of opposites leads. It leads to the accumulation of certain changes in the system, which at first do not change the quality of the system as a whole, but at some point reach a certain critical threshold - and then the system abruptly changes its quality;

3) The law of negation of negation tells us exactly how the system changes its quality beyond the threshold of quantitative changes. It changes it like this: first, the system denies its previous state, and then, at a new stage, denies the previous denial, thereby taking all the best from both the original state and its opposite. The initial state of the system, following Hegel, Marx calls the "thesis", the first negation - "antithesis", well, and the second negation - "synthesis." Of course, this very synthesis immediately becomes a thesis for a new round of development, and the whole triad is repeated, resolving new contradictions. This process is called - Marxist dialectical spiral of development.

If a dialectical materialism is a theory of development as such, then historical materialism (in abbreviated form - istmat) is the doctrine of the development of a specific object, namely, human society. According to historical materialism, the most important thing in any society is how material goods are produced in it, that is, what productive forces operate in a given society, and in what relations of production are people, members of this society, in connection with the use of these productive forces ... According to their role in production relations, people are divided into two classes: the class of working people-producers and the class of owners of the means of production.

The combination of productive forces and production relations characteristic of a given society Marx considers basis, and everything else - that is, the entire set of political, legal, cultural and religious institutions of society, including the moral, aesthetic, legal, philosophical and other views they develop - Marx refers to superstructure.

The productive forces are constantly developing, since it is necessary to satisfy the constantly growing needs of people for material benefits. At some point, the productive forces develop to such an extent that the existing production relations cease to correspond to them. Then the superstructure (which always, in one way or another, consolidates the existing relations of production) becomes a brake on the economic development of society. At such moments, there is a change in the socio-economic formation, that is, the change of an outdated superstructure to a new one.

Depending on how smoothly this change goes, it can be evolutionary or revolutionary. When the change of superstructures and the transition to new relations of production occurs through a revolution, then those forces of society that suffer more than others in the current state of the superstructure and, accordingly, are more interested than others in changing it, always become its driving force. In other words, the driving force behind revolutions is the class of working people-producers, the class directly engaged in the production of the most important product for a given society (or for a given era). Since all property is always in the hands of another class, the workers are still in Ancient Rome they said that they had nothing of their own, except children. Hence the name "proletariat" (from the Latin proletarius, i.e. "Producing offspring").

In the days of Marx, the main product of the era was material goods produced in an industrial way, so the proletariat was then the workers who worked hard in factories. If we apply Marxist theory to our post-industrial era, then today proletariat are those who obtain new information and develop advanced methods of information processing - that is, scientists of a very different profile (generally people of mental labor) and developers of computer programs, in particular. They are what S.E. Kurginyan calls cognitarians.

Marx attached great importance to the question of what exactly is the mechanism of exploitation of the proletariat by the class of capitalist property owners in its contemporary era. The answer to this question was the concept of surplus value introduced by Marx into scientific circulation.

Even before Marx, English economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo formulated labor theory of value, the main provision of which was the assertion that the value of goods is an expression of the labor expended on their production. It was within the framework of this theory that Karl Marx introduced the concept of surplus value.

What is surplus value?

Let's imagine a shoe factory. The leather on it is processed into shoes. Suppose a factory bought a hundred dollars worth of leather. After going through the factory process, the leather turns into shoes worth, say, two hundred dollars - that is, another hundred dollars was added to the cost of leather. Where did the new value come from? It was created by an entrepreneur, the owner of a shoe factory, and his employees. The owner provided the factory and machinery for the industrial process, as well as paid all costs, and the workers provided their labor force and did some work for the production of shoes. Together, these participants in the production process - the owner of the means of production and his employees - created a new value of one hundred dollars.

So, this new value is internally heterogeneous. Part of this new value is a direct expression of the labor expended by workers. It is this part that returns to the workers after the sale of the shoes they have produced in the form of wages. But there is another part - of which the lion's share goes to the owner in the form of entrepreneurial profit, and in addition, taxes are paid, duties, excise taxes and so on are paid. That's what it is surplus value... The source of the surplus value, according to Marx, is the fact that the owner, or, as we are accustomed to say, the capitalist, continues to use the labor force of his workers longer than that time, during which the self-value of this labor power is reproduced. In other words (if we really explain it completely "on the fingers"), after the employee has already worked his wages, the capitalist makes him work more.

This, according to Marx, is the innermost economic essence capitalist exploitation - that is, the exploitation of the class of producers of material goods by the class of owners of the means of production.

Both in the days of Marx and in later times, many, responding to the accusation that Marx threw the exploitation of the worker by the owner, said: well, well, but the owner is not a person? Doesn't he need to eat, drink, dress, feed his family? Where will he get his means of subsistence if not from surplus value? And how can it be argued that the owner did nothing to produce new value - that is, to convert the initial material worth one hundred dollars into a commodity worth two hundred? The owner provided the factory and machines, without which nothing would have happened at all - and, by the way, workers who now complain about exploitation would simply sit without work and starve.

This certainly has common sense - but the fact is that in the days of Marx, exploitation was completely predatory. The working day in factories and factories lasted at least 12 hours. The labor of minor children was widely used. In hazardous areas of production, where there was a high risk of losing an arm or a leg due to a simple mistake in handling the machine, people worked at their own peril and risk - there was no question of insurance. As for wages, they were so low that the workers constantly lived on the brink of poverty. This pushed women from working families to the panel in order to somehow feed their children, and so on. The life of the workers in the largest industrial centers of Western Europe was a sheer nightmare, and no light was visible.

It is not surprising that the works of famous French socialists: Fourier, Saint-Simon, and so on were very popular in the working environment. The socialists wrote that the modern system is terrible and must be replaced by a more just society, where there will be no division of society into classes, nor, accordingly, exploitation. But if the very concept of exploitation was known even before Marx, for the disasters of the workers were in plain sight and, as mentioned above, were of a monstrous nature, then thanks to Marx, the socialists were finally able to point out the economic nature of exploitation and present the owner class, in addition to moral accusations, as well as specific economic claims. These claims remain valid today.

Especially in order to knock out from under the feet of the socialists the firm economic ground revealed by Marx, the labor theory of value was loudly debunked in the West in the 20th century. The cornerstone of this theory - that the value of goods is an expression of the labor expended on their production - a proposition formulated, as already mentioned, not by Marx, but by the beloved liberal economist Adam Smith, the inventor of the "invisible hand of the market" - this proposition was subjected to ostracized.

How, they say, is value an expression of labor? But does the buyer agree to pay this or that amount of money for the product because, you see, someone's labor was spent on the production of this product ?! Nothing of the kind! The buyer pays money for the product, since he sees in this product some kind of usefulness for himself, his beloved. And depending on how high, in the mind of the buyer, the utility of this product, he agrees to pay more or less money. And how much labor was spent on the production of this product - the buyer is not interested at all. The cost of a product, expressed in the market price, is determined by only one thing: the level of demand for a given product in the market, and demand depends on the subjective perception of buyers about the degree of usefulness of this product for them.

All this is called the "theory of marginal utility", and it was created, we repeat, specifically in order to knock out of the hands of the Marxists their main economic accusation of the capitalist order - the doctrine of surplus value. For many, many years, in all economic universities, this theory has been presented under this very sauce - they say, there was such an economist-dropout Karl Marx, he came up with a absurd theory about cost, but, they say, what does modern economic science say about all this ...

However, it is easy to see that here, as often happens, when a theory is not created in search of objective truth, but on order, that is, in order to protect someone's specific economic interests, the cart is placed in front of the horse. It is absolutely not necessary to be a doctor of economic sciences to see that demand is the cause of the very appearance of a new product on the market, and by no means the source of its value.

For example, when the first cars appeared in the United States, they were very expensive, and there was a demand for a cheap car that could be affordable by an extremely wide range of consumers. The answer to this demand was, as you know, "Ford Model Tee", the people's car from Henry Ford, who, especially for the production of this model, even made an industrial revolution at a separate automobile plant - introduced a conveyor belt. This made it possible to distribute responsibilities among all employees of the plant in such a way that the amount of labor spent by employees on the manufacture of one car was sharply reduced - and thereby the cost of the product also decreased. Thus, the demand actually led to a decrease in the price of the product - but not directly, but indirectly, through one intermediate link. And this intermediate link was nothing more than a reduction in the volume of labor expended on the production of a unit of goods. As they say, what was required to prove.

In addition, if the value of a commodity really did not depend in any way on the labor expended on its production, then there would be no noticeable difference in price between commodities, the production of which requires a huge amount of labor, and commodities, which are produced with minimal labor costs. Which, as you know, is not observed.

So, introducing the concept of surplus value, Marx revealed the economic essence of the exploitation of the class of hired workers - the class of owners of the means of production. And as we remember, historical materialism says: when a contradiction arises between new, advanced productive forces and backward relations of production, the class struggle inevitably intensifies. This is what Marx observed around him.

The productive forces of the epoch of capitalism brought mankind to such heights of labor productivity, which previously could not even have dreamed of. Labor productivity achieved as a result of industrialization of production was so high that it was already quite possible to decently feed and clothe, at least, the population of those countries where industrialization took place - the entire population, without exception. Why did some bathe in luxury and live in gilded palaces, while others huddled in miserable shacks and were constantly on the verge of poverty?

Marx explained why: because production relations, where one class constantly robs another, do not correspond to the achieved level of development of the productive forces. Capitalist relations of production based on class antagonism and exploitation must be replaced by some other relations of production that will open access to a decent standard of living for the widest possible circle of people, and not just a narrow group.

What are the foundations of capitalist production relations? What gives rise to class antagonism? Private ownership of the means of production.

It is it that predetermines the class structure of society, and it is here that the line is drawn between the owners of the means of production - and the hired workers whom the owners exploit, squeezing out of them surplus value. This means that in order to move to other, more progressive relations of production, private property must be abolished, and public property must be introduced instead. With the transition to social ownership of the means of production, the reason for the division of society into classes will also disappear - a classless society will arise, where everyone is simultaneously a worker, that is, a direct producer of material goods, and a co-owner of all factories and plants. And since the institution of the state is an apparatus for ensuring the domination of one class over another, therefore, in a classless society, says Marx, the state will become unnecessary and wither away.

As a person with a purely realistic thinking, Marx understood perfectly well that representatives of the property class, who calmly made their profits from the ruthless exploitation of female and child labor, would never agree to part with property and power. Marx realized that they would resist. There is a real war ahead, a war of classes. It was from here that the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a necessary intermediate stage between modern society class antagonism and a future classless society. The concrete definition of the dictatorship of the proletariat was given by V.I. Lenin: "The scientific concept of dictatorship means nothing more than a power that is not limited by anything, by no laws, by no absolutely rules, power based directly on violence."

The concepts of exploitation, classes and class struggle existed even before Marx. The idea of \u200b\u200bthe state as an instrument of violence by one class against another was actively promoted by anarchists. Therefore, Karl Marx himself evaluated his contribution in this way:

« What I did new was to prove the following:

1) that the existence of classes is associated only with certain historical phases of the development of production;

2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat;

3) that this dictatorship itself is only a transition to the destruction of all classes and to a society without classes. "

(From a letter to the American journalist Joseph Weidemeyer, who published Marx's article "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in the New York Times)

Briefly and very superficialoh, this is Marxism.

WHY IS MARX AGAIN? SOMETHING ABOUT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF MARX'S MAIN SCIENTIFIC PREVIEW

Why, then, today, at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, are we again turning to the intellectual heritage of Karl Marx? How can it be useful to us - 20 years after the first state in history, built by Marxists, left the historical arena?

We turn today to Marx, because, first of all, Marx turned out to be right. We turn to Marx, because it was he who showed the way to the highest social ideal - secondly. Finally, thirdly, we turn to Marx, because we can - and therefore must - lead humanity along the path indicated by Marx.

In what exactly was Marx right?

It would seem that history has shown the complete inconsistency of Marx the theoretician, Marx the prophet of proletarian revolutions.

Marx predicted that the proletarian socialist revolution would simultaneously embrace several countries that were at the highest (for their time) level of industrialization - countries where factory and factory workers had already realized themselves as a single class of hired workers opposed to the class of capitalist property owners. During Marx's lifetime, such countries were Britain, Germany and America.

Instead, the first revolutionary government in history, proclaiming a course towards building socialism and communism in accordance with the precepts of Marx, emerged in Russia - a country where the urban industrial proletariat had just begun to form, in an agrarian country, backward in comparison with Germany or Britain.

Marx argued that the primitive communal system is replaced by slavery, slavery is replaced by feudalism, feudalism is giving way to capitalism, and capitalism is being replaced by the dictatorship of the proletariat, which has no other outcome than a classless society, standing on an impeccable foundation of social ownership of the means of production. And this consistency, according to Marx, is due to indisputable laws, so there can be no “reverse move”. Instead, we see that history can still give a "reverse course": up to a return to the earliest phase of the capitalist formation - the initial accumulation of capital.

Where is Marx right? Where did he prove to be right, and why can we today - and therefore must - with full justification say that Karl Marx's theory helps not only to explain events, but also to predict them correctly?

Marx was right in that his main thesis came true - namely, the thesis of the inevitable end of capitalism. Moreover, in this case we are talking not only - and not even so much - about Russia, where socialism was built instead of capitalism.

Strange as it may seem, this is about the West.

« Since the great economic crisis of 1929-33. capitalism, strictly speaking, no longer exists, and the prediction of Marx-Lenin came true long ago. Contemporary Western society is a different, qualitatively new entity. It is, as it were, a "shadow" of the first emerging socialism, which is naturally formed when the ruling class of the developed capitalist countries in the face of the real force of the communist movement realized by it, which has already won in one or several countries, and in the conditions of an unprecedented exacerbation of the economic crisis, which signifies the complete exhaustion of economic opportunities capital, goes, in the name of preserving its power, to cardinal changes that change the de facto formational nature of society. At the same time, he uses the methods and means of planned management, partly relies on scientific economic models, and deeply intervenes in production relations. As a result of such interference, the ruling elite, while maintaining its power, objectively goes beyond the capitalist class, becomes above it. In a more explicit form, this was carried out by fascism in Germany, in a more hidden form - by the ruling class of the United States during the Roosevelt administration.

According to the stated point of view, modern Western society is still exploitative, based on social inequality, realizing an elite ideal that is alien to us. However, this is no longer capitalism, since capital, while remaining an important element of it, is no longer dominant in it, it is subject to restrictions and planned regulation ”.

« Capitalism in developed countries as a whole ceased to exist in the first decade and a half after the Great October Socialist Revolution. The exploiting society opposing us today is a complex, multi-structured social organism in which a developed capitalist structure continues to exist, but is no longer dominant. The way that today dominates capital (and over all others, including the state) is the financial elite, which, realizing the scientific understanding of some of the objective laws social developmentusing the developed elements of planned economic management, relying on the mechanism of secret power, step by step limits the scope of the "anarchy of social production" and gradually takes over the system public relations, transforming them in the interests of the ruling minority.

It is natural to call this structure elitist, and the social system governed by it as a whole - elitism.. <...> Its appearance in the most developed capitalist countries was naturally caused by the victory of the Russian proletariat and was realized in various forms (from Roosevelt to fascist) in the midst of a great economic crisis.».

The main contradiction of capitalism - the contradiction between the social nature of production and the private form of appropriation - is the very contradiction that, according to Marx, should have brought capitalism to the grave - “ is still inherent in capital as a structure; As for elitism as a whole, it is necessary to realize that it, like socialism, possesses the means of consciously objectively identifying and gradually removing the contradictions of its development. The main contradiction of capitalism gradually ceases to operate, since the form of appropriation under conditions of elitism ceases to be private; elitism, like socialism, is gradually eliminating private property, but only to replace it comes not public property (as under socialism), but corporate-elitist property of the ruling stratum... Thus, elitism, in contrast to capitalism, does not carry within itself any fundamentally insoluble economic contradiction that fatally dooms it to death.».

« Since the form of appropriation of social productive forces, as elitism develops, ceases to be private, the main contradiction of capitalism is no longer insoluble, and its elimination is carried out step by step. Elitism is characterized by many deep economic and other contradictions, however, like socialism, it has a mechanism for their conscious identification and systematic resolution.<...>

The economic power of elitism is based on the exploitation of the "third world" and also, to a lesser extent, the workers of their own countries. However as elitism develops, exploitation in the form of wage labor gives way to others, including neo-feudal and neo-slavery forms, there is a rapid stratification of the working masses and their loss of the quality of the proletariat, as well as direct displacement from the sphere of production and marginalization.

Thus, under the conditions of elitism, the socialist revolutioni - in a peaceful or non-peaceful form - irreversibly loses the "classical" economic basis and social driving force, and without a powerful impact from outside, from the socialist system and the "third world", becomes less and less possible».

In other words, all people, and Marxists in particular, must clearly realize that the exploiting system existing in the West today, elitism - which, as we all see, is already openly striving to conquer world domination, without stopping before using direct military aggression - is absolutely not "Rots". Moreover: it is potentially capable of hold on forever.

THE LOOK OF THE FUTURE, OR WHERE THE ROCK OF EVENTS CARRY US. ON THE MATERIAL OF JACK LONDON'S IRON HEEL AND GEORGE ORWELL'S 1984.

In this regard, I would like to make a small literary digression and turn to two very famous fiction books, which provide excellent illustrations of what can happen if elitism wins. The value of these books, however, is not even in these illustrations, but in an unusually deep penetration into the psychology of the oligarchy - that is, that class, that economic and political entity that dominates under elitism. The authors of both books managed to penetrate very deeply into the psychology of the oligarchy and were not afraid to say the most important thing about what they managed to see there.

One of the books in question is the novel Iron Heel by Jack London. We will not waste time retelling its content, so as not to take away the pleasure of reading this book from those who have not read it yet. The book was published in 1908, and the events described in it cover the period between 1912 and 1932 - that is, firstly, it is a "fantasy about the future", and secondly, a dystopia. But the psychology of the oligarchy is brilliantly described.

For example, in one of the scenes, the protagonist of the book, the socialist Ernest Evergard, turns to the capitalists and makes a passionate speech in which he accuses them of the fact that, against the background of the unprecedentedly high labor productivity achieved in America, the workers stagnate in poverty, while the capitalists bathe in luxury. Evergard is making an accusation on behalf of the working class: capitalism, he claims, has gone bankrupt, has failed. He demands to answer this accusation. One of the prominent representatives of the future oligarchic dictatorship answers him:

« Here is our answer. We have nothing to talk about with you. But as soon as you stretch out your hands, your vaunted hands of the strong men, to our palaces and our luxury, we will show you where the power is. In the roar of shells, in the squeal of buckshot and the chatter of machine guns, you will hear our answer. We will crush you revolutionaries with our fifth, we will trample you into the ground. The world belongs to us, we are its owners, and no one else can own it! Since history has existed, your working army has always been swarming in the mud<...> and will continue to swarm in the mud, until I and those who are with me and those who will come after us will have all the fullness of power. Power! - this is a word that has no equal in the world. Not God, not wealth - power! Ponder on this word, imbued with it, so that it trembles throughout your whole being. Power!

Well, I am satisfied (Evergard answers - AB). This is the only answer that you could give us. Power is exactly what the working class wants. Taught by bitter experience, we know that no calls for justice, humanity, legality have any effect on you. Your hearts are indifferent, like the heel with which you trample the poor. Therefore, we are seeking to seize power. And we will win it in the elections, we will force you to give us power ...

If you managed to win a victory, and even a decisive victory (the future oligarch A.B. answers Evergard), don't you think that we will voluntarily relinquish power after you get it in the elections?»

And one more, very important passage about the psychology of the oligarchy:

« They were taught, and later they themselves taught that truth and goodness are on their side. From childhood, they were instilled with aristocratic ideas about their class exclusivity, they sucked them in with their mother's milk. The oligarchs viewed themselves as tamers of animals, as shepherds of the human flock.<...> They considered themselves the saviors of humanity, selflessly leading it to a high goal. They considered themselves as a class to be the only carriers of civilization. They believed that as soon as they loosen the bridle, they will be swallowed up by the open slobbering mouth of the primitive beast, and all beauty, and joy, and the good of life will perish with them. Without them, anarchy will be established and man will return to the primordial night from which he had struggled to get out. From childhood they were frightened by this picture of the coming anarchy, and, possessed by fear, they themselves frightened their children with it: here is the beast, which must step on the scruff of the neck, and the highest mission of the aristocracy is to keep it under the thumb. Only they, according to their ideas, at the cost of tireless labor and sacrifices were able to protect the human race from the all-devouring beast; and they believed it, believed it unwaveringly.

The self-righteousness inherent in the class of oligarchs must be remembered very, very much. This is the power of the Iron Heel, which some of our comrades did not want or could not see. Many saw the power of the Iron Heel in its system of bribery and punishment. But this is a mistake.<...> Prisons, exile and vilification, honors, palaces and miracle cities - in their system only derivative. The main strength of the oligarchs is their self-righteousness. There are, of course, exceptions; it is also clear that the power of the Iron Heel is based on oppression and lies. This is all true. But what matters to us is that the strength of the Iron Heel now lies in the self-righteous assertion of one's own righteousness. «

George Orwell's novel "1984" - another brilliant artistic insight into the deep essence of oligarchy, a cry novel, a warning novel about a future that should not be allowed - was written in 1948, and throughout the history of the reprint of this book, everyone who is not lazy , copied from each other one and the same delusional myth that had arisen in critical literature in a non-accidental way: that this book is, as it were, Orwell's sentence to Stalin's socialism.

In fact, Orwell created a warning novel in which he described, neither more nor less, the methodology of the impending psychological war - the war that the British government was preparing to wage against the peoples of its own empire. The fact is that during the Second World War, Orwell worked for the BBC, where at that time active experiments were carried out with the so-called "BASIC" - a simplified version of the English language, created by the linguist Charles Ogden.

"BASIC" limited the possibilities of freedom of expression of thought, placing the mind in a kind of invisible "concentration camp", where the main semantic paradigms were expressed through metaphors. As a result, a new linguistic reality was created, which was easy to transmit to the masses, appealing to their feelings through the metaphorical and intonational structure of the language. The possibility of a global ideological "straitjacket for consciousness" arose.

The British Ministry of Information, which completely controlled and censored the dissemination of information at home and abroad during the war, ordered the BBC to broadcast a series of BASIC broadcasts to India. George Orwell was one of the developers of this series. He was deeply impressed by the ability to cancel meaning by means of a new language - everything that was not recorded by the "BASIC", as if dropped out of reality, and vice versa: everything expressed in "BASIC" turned out to be reality. In addition, Orwell was intimidated by the omnipotence of the Ministry of Information in which he worked. It was this that became the prototype of his "ministry of truth", which Orwell describes in the novel "1984".

"BASIC" turned out to be a powerful tool for broadcasting and forming a simplified version of events, in which the very fact of censorship was simply not noticed and not seen. Orwell was really frightened by this. However, with the goal of writing a novel that would warn the English-speaking public and thwart the British government's plans to translate all English literature, the language of the media, and, most importantly, everyday speech, Orwell, being a talented writer and possessing a developed artistic intuition, created something much more serious and said a little more than he originally planned.

Orwell depicts a world where there are only three huge superpowers on the political map - these are Oceaniawhich includes the entire Western Hemisphere, Great Britain, South Africa and Australia; Eurasia, which includes the territory of the former Soviet Union, plus all of Europe and for some reason Turkey; and Eastasia, which occupies the territory of China, Japan, Korea, partly Mongolia and India. At the same time, interestingly, North Africa, the Near and Middle East, as well as Southeast Asia are disputed territories over which there is a continuous war. Let me remind you that the novel was written in 1948.

Orwell writes about the reasons and purposes of this special war:

« The main goal of modern warfare<...> use up the products of machine production without raising the general standard of living. The question of how to deal with the surplus of consumer goods in an industrial society, latently ripened at the end of the 19th century.<...> From the moment the machine declared itself, it became clear to all thinking people that the need for menial work disappeared - and therefore the main prerequisite for human inequality. If machine production were used specifically for this purpose, then in a few generations it would be an end to hunger, and exhausting labor, and dirt, and illiteracy, and disease.<...> But it was just as clear that the general growth of prosperity threatens a hierarchical society with ruin, and in a sense is already its ruin. In a world where the working day is short, where everyone is fed and lives in a home with a bathroom and a refrigerator, owns a car or even an airplane, the most obvious, and perhaps the most important form of inequality has already disappeared. Having become universal, wealth ceases to generate differences. One can, of course, imagine a society where the benefits, in the sense of personal property and pleasure, will be equally distributed, and power will remain with a small privileged caste. But in reality, such a society cannot be stable for long. For if everyone can enjoy security and leisure, then<...> sooner or later people will realize that the privileged minority is not performing any function and will throw it out. Ultimately, a hierarchical society is based only on poverty and ignorance».

It is to ensure constant poverty that a continuous war is waged between the three superpowers - Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. But not only for this.

« A task (of this war - A.B.)<...> in the fact that the industry works at full speed, without increasing the number material values in the world. Goods have to be produced, but not distributed. In practice, the only way to do this is through continuous war.<...> The essence of war is the destruction of not only human lives, but also the fruits of human labor. War is a way to smash into smithereens, spray into the stratosphere, drown in the depths of the sea materials that could improve the life of a people and thus, ultimately, make them smarter. Even when weapons are not destroyed on the battlefield, manufacturing them is a convenient way to waste human labor and not produce anything for consumption.<...> At the same time, thanks to the feeling of war, and, consequently, danger, the transfer of all power to the small top seems to be a natural, necessary condition for survival».

So, Orwell explains to us, continuous war - no matter who! - can be carried out in order to maintain inequality through the persistence of poverty - this time; for preventing overproduction crises - that's two; Finally, and most importantly, the war is being waged so that society does not even for a second doubt the need for the ultimate concentration of power in the hands of the government. Doesn't it look like anything?

The concentration of all power in the hands of a small elite is the main feature of the society portrayed by Orwell. oligarchic collectivism, in which the main character of the novel lives, a citizen of the western superpower of Oceania. This society is a reference image of the very “multi-storey humanity” that Kurginyan often talks about. At the very top is Big Brother, a semi-mythical leader whom no one has ever seen except on TV. Big Brother leads the all-powerful Party, which is divided into inner and outer parts. A member of the inner party has absolute power over any member of the outer party, but any member of the party, whether internal or external, has absolute power over non-party members, who in Orwell's novel are called "proles" (abbreviated from the word "proletariat"). In fact, we are talking about a caste society, but it is interesting that belonging to a "caste" is by no means inherited here.

« The party is not a class in the old sense of the word. She does not seek to bequeathed power to her children as such; and if there was no other way to gather the most capable at the top, she would not hesitate to recruit a whole new generation of leaders among the proletariat. The fact that the party is not a hereditary corps during the critical years helped a lot to neutralize the opposition. Old-style socialism, accustomed to fighting something called "class privileges", believed that the non-hereditary could not be permanent. He didn’t understand that the continuity of an oligarchy didn’t have to be biological, and he didn’t consider the fact that hereditary aristocrats were always short-lived, whereas organizations based on a set - the Catholic Church, for example - held on for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The essence of oligarchic rule is not in the hereditary transmission from father to son, but in the persistence of a certain worldview and lifestyle dictated by dead alive. The ruling group is as long as the ruling group is able to appoint heirs. The Party is concerned not with perpetuating its own blood, but with perpetuating itself. Who is in power is not important, as long as the hierarchical structure remains unchanged. «

In connection with the extraordinary importance of Orwell's noted truth about the fragility of hereditary aristocrats and the centuries-old survivability of recruitment-based organizations, the recent interview with Andrei Fursov is a must-read.

The economic nature of Orwell's society is extremely remarkable.

« It has long become clear that the only reliable basis for an oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily protected when they are jointly owned. The so-called abolition of private property, carried out (in a party - A.B.) <...> actually meant the concentration of property in the hands of a much narrower group - with the difference that the group was now the owner, not a mass of individuals. Individually, no party member owns anything other than a small amount of personal property. Collectively, the party owns everything in Oceania, because it controls everything and disposes of products as it sees fit. In the years after the revolution, it was able to occupy a dominant position almost unhindered because the process went under the flag of collectivization. It was believed that if the capitalist class was deprived of property, socialism would come; and the capitalists were undoubtedly deprived of their property. Everything was taken from them - factories, mines, land, houses, transport; and since all this has ceased to be private property, it means that it has become public property. Ingsoc (in short, English socialism is the official doctrine of the party that rules Oceania - A.B.), who grew out of the old socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, in fact, fulfilled the main point of the socialist program - with the result that he foresaw and aspired to: economic inequality was fixed forever».

As you can see, the speech in this passage is absolutely, just literally, the same thing that is said in the book "After Communism": " The form of appropriation under conditions of elitism ceases to be private; elitism, like socialism, is gradually eliminating private property, but only to replace it comes not public property (as under socialism), but corporate-elitist property of the ruling stratum».

This is indeed a great danger, replacing the genuine socialization of the means of production in the interests of the whole society - by transferring them into the ownership of a narrow ruling stratum. As a matter of fact, many opponents of Soviet power are still convinced that the nationalization of the means of production carried out by the Bolsheviks was precisely this. It remains to be surprised that the concentration of property in the hands of a narrow group of persons under the guise of socialization is strongly condemned by these people, but the same thing, but under the guise of privatization, is considered an absolutely normal process and a return to world standards of civilized life.

We will not retell the plot of the novel, who have not read it, be sure to read it. This is not only a striking in depth insight into a possible future, not only a description of "multi-storey humanity", that is, the world of finally consolidated inequality - but, among other things, a poignant story of how this world in an extremely cruel way breaks down an individual, concrete person (the main the hero of the novel). 1984 is undoubtedly one of the most terrifying books in world literature. The horror that this book inspires is explained by the fact that the world described by Orwell is absolutely not fantastic, you read and understand that all this may well be realized in life.

Concluding the literary digression, I would like to cite the last quotation from the novel "1984" - this is an excerpt where a member of the inner party, a man named O'Brien, explains to the main character, Winston, why it was so necessary to make equality of people impossible, what was the original motivation , which made the party "freeze history at a certain point" (the most serious attention should be paid to the overlap of this Orwellian metaphor with what Kurginyan warns about).

So, the main character wants to know what motive led the all-powerful party "first to seizing power, and then gave rise to doublethink, and the thought police, and constant war, and other obligatory accessories of the system":

« He knew in advance what O'Brien would say: that the party was looking for power not for its own sake, but for the good of the majority. He is looking for power, because people for the most part are weak, cowardly creatures, they cannot endure freedom, cannot face the truth, so they must be ruled and systematically deceived by those who are stronger than them. That humanity is faced with a choice: freedom or happiness, and for the vast majority, happiness is better. That the party is the eternal guardian of the weak, an order devoted to the idea that does evil in the name of good, sacrifices its own happiness for the happiness of others. The worst thing, Winston thought, the worst thing, is that when O'Brien says this, he will believe himself. You can see it on his face. «

As you can see, there is a direct cross-talk here not so much with Jack London, who wrote about the unshakable faith of the oligarchs in their role as keepers of culture and civilization, as with our Dostoevsky, who in The Brothers Karamazov with great artistic force described such a motivation in the chapter “ Grand Inquisitor ". But George Orwell unexpectedly turns out to be deeper and in a sense more courageous not only Jack London, but also Dostoevsky himself, who, apparently, was still afraid of this last depth and, although he looked into it too, nevertheless put it into his mouth The Grand Inquisitor is the "noble motivation" of a shepherd who cares for the good of the majority.

And here is what O'Brien, a member of the inner party, answers Winston - and here it is necessary to emphasize that this fragment is infinitely important for understanding the psychology of those people who oppose us:

« Silly, Winston, silly! I expected a better answer from you. Now I will answer this question myself. Here's how. The party strives for power solely for its own sake. We are not interested in someone else's good, we are only in power. Neither wealth, nor luxury, nor long life, nor happiness - only power, pure power. You will soon understand what pure power means. We know what we are doing, and this is our difference from all oligarchies of the past. Everyone else, even those who resembled us, were cowards and hypocrites.<...> We are not like that. We know that power is never seized in order to relinquish it. Power is not a means; she is the goal. A dictatorship is not instituted to guard the revolution; a revolution is made in order to establish a dictatorship. The purpose of repression is repression. The purpose of torture is torture. The goal of power is power.<...> Power is to hurt and humiliate. In tearing the consciousness of people to pieces and putting it back together in the way you want. Now you understand what kind of world we are creating?<...> In our world, there will be no other feelings than fear, anger, triumph and self-abasement. We will destroy the rest.<...> We will be done with the variety of pleasures. But there will always - remember, Winston - there will always be an intoxication with power, and the further, the more, the more acute. Always, every moment, there will be a piercing joy of victory, pleasure from stepping on a helpless enemy. If you want an image of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a person's face - forever. «

OTHER IS GIVEN! THE HUMANIST IDEAL AND THE COMMUNIST WAY TO IT

Now, after we, thanks to Jack London and George Orwell, got acquainted with the psychology of the oligarchy and saw the image of its "social ideal", it must be said that this, if one may say so, ideal is not the only one. There is another, diametrically opposite ideal, which is based primarily on the conviction that all people are in some sense equal to each other, and that society should be arranged in such a way that there are no trampled or trampled, or fantastically rich, or perishing from poverty.

And here we come back to Marx and Marxism again. More precisely, we are not "returning" - we never left him anywhere. An elite social ideal that realizes the idea of \u200b\u200bfundamental inequality of people (if only the word "ideal" is applicable in this case) is simply the opposite of the Marxist, egalitarian social ideal that realizes the idea of \u200b\u200bequality. According to the rules of Marxist dialectics, in order to give an exhaustive description of an object, it is necessary to give a description of its opposite, which has been done. Now we can finally focus on the Marxist social ideal and, most importantly, consider the path to this ideal indicated by Marx.

The introduction briefly spoke about dialectics, about historical materialism, revealed the concept of surplus value, and also mentioned the theory of class struggle, which, according to Marx, should lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat and, through it, to a classless society. It was also said there: this is Marxism - but in short and very superficial.

It's time to dig deeper into Marx.

For a long time there has been a very tenacious myth about two Marxes - early and mature. It is said that the early Marx is, so to speak, a "philosopher" and a romantic, while the mature is, on the contrary, a politician, wise in life and a serious scientist-economist. Early Marx, we are told, was interested in only one problem - alienation... While the mature Marx delved into the economic mechanism of class exploitation and organized the first international organization of the proletariat - the International. Early Marx worried that people in their daily life are forced to play the roles that society imposes on them, while the mature Marx specifically indicated who and how oppressed the worker, and what must be done with this oppressor.

So, all this is a myth. There have never been any two Marxes. There was a continuous, long-term search for an answer to one single question, which was going deeper into the essence of the problem - the very question that all truly great thinkers are struggling with: how to overcome what prevents a person from being human.

Before we, following Marx, delve into the depths of this question, it is necessary to say a few words about how exactly Marx understood the human essence. Indeed, in order to find out what hinders a person, you must first understand what it means to be a person, what a person is.

There is a good saying: philosophy is an expression of the temperament of a philosopher. For example, Nietzsche dreamed of power - well, he put the will to power as the most important thing, in his opinion, in a person at the basis of his entire philosophy. For the Church Fathers, a person is defined through the ability to believe in the Supreme Being and love Him. For Einstein, the most acute sensation in life was the feeling of an undisclosed mystery, therefore the most important thing in a person for Einstein is the ability to think in the broadest sense of the word, that is, intellect and intuition.

Karl Marx is an activist by his "temperament". The most important thing in a person, for Marx, is the ability to creatively transform the given. For Marx, being human means being a creator, actively influencing matter, changing reality, creating something new and unprecedented. It is no coincidence that his entire philosophy revolves around concepts that are somehow connected with the creative principle of man, with activity - or, to use the terminology of Marx himself, with production: productive forces, production relations, means of production, producer class.

So, the essence of man for Marx is in creative activity, in the ability to transform the world, to change it in accordance with his needs, to create something new.

What prevents a person from being human, that is, fully expressing himself in creative activity? Here it is necessary to introduce a new concept, which was already mentioned, but was not disclosed. Concept alienation.

In general, alienation is defined as a process in which a part of the whole is separated from the rest and begins to exist in an isolated form, feeling it as a frustration, that is, suffering. The term "alienation" also denotes the very state of being cut off, isolated from the whole.

Marx considers 4 main forms of alienation that make a person suffer:

1) alienation from the product of labor;

2) alienation from the labor process;

3) alienation from other people;

4) alienation of a person from his own essence.

Consider these four forms of alienation in turn.

The alienation from the product of labor is caused by the fact that in a class society the direct producer does not dispose of the product he has created. As soon as a product is produced, it immediately goes to the disposal of the owner of the means of production, and the further fate of this product has nothing to do with the one or those who produced it. As a result, the direct producer of the product turns from a creative subject into tool, into a living appendage to the tools of labor that he uses in his production activities.

But maybe the manufacturer should take comfort in the fact that in the very process of creating the product he was, so to speak, the king and god, where everything was determined by his skill? No, the manufacturer cannot be comforted by this, because even in the process of making the product he was not the owner. What kind of product should be produced was not dictated by his own creative impulse, but by the owner, who is guided by market demand (not least formed by the owner himself, with the help of the advertising industry). How exactly to produce this product is prescribed by the production technology, which is approved by the owner. So even in the process of his production activity, the producer is not a subject, is not a true actor - he is just a means, means of production... This is alienation from the labor process.

Any attempts to at least somehow declare their subjectivity in the production process - that is, to stop being an instrument at least to some extent - run into the fact that others are in exactly the same position. Each has a certain place in the production chain, each performs a certain sequence of actions, which is dictated to him by the production technology and his place in the chain, and all together (including, by the way, the owner), like chains, are shackled hand and foot by the need to produce exactly what society requires, for only in this way can the producer receive his wages, and the owner his profit. The realization that society, by and large, needs you only as an attachment to a particular tool of labor (be it a machine tool or a computer), and not as an intrinsically valuable subject, naturally leads to alienation from other people - this is the third form of alienation. An individual person experiences it like this: he feels that he is dominated by some irresistible force, the mechanism of which he is not aware of, but feels that it is somehow connected with other people. An exhaustive description of this feeling was given by the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who said: "Hell is others."

So, sums up Marx, man is alienated from the product of his production activity, from the very process of activity and from other people. What does it mean? We remember that, according to Marx, the human essence lies in creativity, to be human means to change the given, to create, to transform chaos into order, and the lower forms of order into higher ones. This is the essence of the human way of life, this is the natural and historical destiny of man. But if a person is not a subject of this activity, if each individually and all together are just tools, not subjects, then a person leads a life that alienates him from his own essence. And this is the fourth, highest form of alienation, which contains all the others.

Having described the existing state of affairs with the help of the concept of alienation, Marx, in full accordance with the laws of his own dialectics, gives an image of its complete opposite.

A social system in which there is no alienation, Marx calls humanism, positive humanism... Not communism, but humanism! It is very important. Marx calls this system humanism, since it is a system in which a person is not alienated from his essence, that is, leads human lifestyle.

As we remember, to be a human, according to Marx, means to creatively transform the world, and since the highest form of creativity is such creativity, where the object of transformation is the person himself (that is, self-improvement, development of oneself), Marx describes humanism in the following expressions: it is an association comprehensively developing personalities, where the free development of everyone is a condition for the free development of all.

In the social order that Marx calls for, a person is every single person! - is not a means, not a tool, but, firstly, a complete subject, Secondly, aim all social activities. That is why Marx calls this system humanism.

How can an individual be the target of all social activity? It's very simple: for this, the main content of all social activities should be human production... It is the person who must become the main product social production. Not material goods, as in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, and not even information, as in the second half of the 20th and 21st centuries, but a person. Society must be production-oriented comprehensively and harmoniously developing personalities.

How can this be achieved? It is necessary to reach such a level of development of the productive forces that people no longer need to participate in material production. Marx directly points out that the level of development of the productive forces at which “a person does what he can make things do for himself,” must be overcome.

As long as the main product of all social activity is material goods, and most importantly, as long as a person is involved in their production as an indispensable element of all production chains, as the main means of production - he will only be a means, says Marx.

Consequently, such means of production must be created that will be able to produce all kinds of material objects at the will of man, but without his direct participation.

In other words, it is necessary to "transform the production and technological complex into a self-reproducing, artificial nature" (S. Platonov, "After Communism"), from which everyone will take everything he needs directly, as the need arises, just like in In the wild, living things take whatever they need directly from the environment.

This, incidentally, is the real meaning of the famous expression "to each according to his needs", which is believed to describe the character distribution material goods "under communism." This is a mistake: the very concept of distribution is generally inappropriate here. When there is a distribution, there is always a distributor - that is, an intermediary who, in one way or another, decides who should get what, and most importantly, how much. And as long as man is the main means of production, such an intermediary is necessary. It can be the market or the State Planning Commission - but, in any case, it is impossible without it, because everything has value, and the source of value is the labor of people, which means that it is necessary to somehow regulate the appropriation of materialized human labor by citizens.

When the means of production reach such a level of development at which a person leaves material production, ceases to participate in it, then distribution becomes unnecessary and dies off as a phenomenon and as a concept. A person surrounds himself with an artificial “second nature”, from which he takes everything he needs, as the corresponding need arises. If we allow ourselves to go beyond the genre framework of an article on Marxism and fantasize a little, we can imagine a picture of the distant future of the Earth, where there are no factories and factories, but everything is permeated with a myriad of nanobots obeying people who are rapidly creating any material forms at the request of man. That's what it means - "to each according to his needs."

It is quite clear that in such a society where a person does not participate in material production, production relations are no longer the main type of relations between people - or rather, there are no production relations in such a society at all. That is why the actual human relations, that is, such relationships where people are for each other people, personalities, and not elements of production chains, and where the main activity is the joint embodiment of the Socratic humanistic ideal: the cognition of Truth, the creation of Good and the creation of Beauty. This is the social order that Marx calls humanism and kingdom of freedom.

What should be the first step in the direction of humanism?

Marx calls this "real communist action", implying by this term the elimination of the three forms of alienation, of which the alienation of man from his human essence - alienation from the product of labor, from the labor process itself and from other people.

Since before the appearance of such means of production that would make it possible to free a person from participation in the production process, in the time of Marx it was still very far away (we have to admit that it is far from them even now), and it is necessary to fight alienation already today, it is necessary to change production relations in this way to keep alienation to a minimum.

The reason for alienation, according to Marx, is private ownership of the means of production. In order for people not to feel alienated from the product of their production activity, from the production process itself and from other participants in production relations, the means of production must be socialized, they must cease to be someone's private property.

But the abolition of private property is just the beginning big way, this is the first step, which is still far from true destruction private property. In view of the extreme complexity of this topic, everyone who is interested in what is destruction private property (as opposed to abolishing), it is recommended to read the book by S. Platonov "After Communism", which has already been quoted several times here. And for a seed, we give one more quote from it:

« If anyone wants to understand this "destruction" (private property - A.B.) as soon as the armed expulsion of the landlords and capitalists, then, according to the same logic, he must understand by the destruction of illiteracy his own suicide. «

Understanding this difficult issue is extremely important for anyone who really wants to understand Marx, for, as stated in the "Manifesto of the Communist Party":

« Communists can express their theory in one statement: the destruction of private property».

It must be said that the problem of alienation occupied European philosophy both before Marx and after him - but none of the philosophers drew such decisive and far-reaching practical conclusions from their analysis of this problem. That is why the name of Marx is known to everyone and everyone, and other philosophers who have dealt with the problem of alienation are known only to specialists.

Like Buddha Shakyamuni with his four Noble Truths, Marx proclaims: man is in distress, he suffers; there is a cause of suffering - this is alienation; you cannot put up with this, you need to create such living conditions where there will be no alienation; finally, Marx points out how to actto destroy alienation.

Today, when the world is facing the threat of the establishment of a global dictatorship, the purpose of which is to trample not some particular people or a particular class, but human as such, everyone who does not want to be trampled down urgently needs to find a common language as soon as possible with everyone for whom man is the highest value. That is why Marx is incredibly relevant today. Marx is not in the past.

He, fortunately, is still in the future.