“Smart! Yes, that really is the smartest thing you could do. But if all
capitalists were as smart as you—and they are—the workers would be so
poor that they couldn’t afford to buy goods any more. We would say that
purchasing power is falling. And now we really are in a vicious circle. The
knell has sounded for capitalist private property, Marx would say. We are
rapidly approaching a revolutionary situation.”
“Yes, I see.”
“To make a long story short, in the end the proletariat rises and takes
over the means of production.”
“And then what?”
“For a period, we get a new ‘class society’ in which the proletarians
suppress the bourgeoisie by force. Marx called this the dictatorship of the
proletariat. But after a transition period, the dictatorship of the proletariat is re-
placed by a ‘classless society,’ in which the means of production are owned
‘by all’—that is, by the people themselves. In this kind of society, the policy is
‘from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.’
Moreover, labor now belongs to the workers themselves and capitalism’s
alienation ceases.”
“It all sounds wonderful, but what actually happened? Was there a
revolution?”
“Yes and no. Today, economists can establish that Marx was mistaken
on a number of vital issues, not least his analysis of the crises of capitalism.
And he paid insufficient attention to the plundering of the natural envi-
ronment—the serious consequences of which we are experiencing today.
Nevertheless . . .”
“Nevertheless?”
“Marxism led to great upheavals. There is no doubt that socialism has
largely succeeded in combating an inhumane society. In Europe, at any rate,
we live in a society with more justice—and more solidarity—than Marx did.
This is not least due to Marx himself and the entire socialist movement.”
“What happened?”
“After Marx, the socialist movement split into two main streams, Social
Democracy and Leninism. Social Democracy, which has stood for a gradual
and peaceful path in the direction of socialism, was Western Europe’s way.
We might call this the slow revolution. Leninism, which retained Marx’s belief
that revolution was the only way to combat the old class society, had great
influence in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Each in their own way, both
movements have fought against hardship and oppression.”
“But didn’t it create a new form of oppression? For example in Russia
and Eastern Europe?”
“No doubt of that, and here again we see that everything man touches
becomes a mixture of good and evil. On the other hand, it would be
unreasonable to blame Marx for the negative factors in the so-called socialist
countries fifty or a hundred years after his death. But maybe he had given too
little thought to the people who would be the administrators of communist
society. There will probably never be a ‘promised land.’ Mankind will always
create new problems to fight about.”
“I’m sure it will.”
“And there we bring down the curtain on Marx, Sophie.”
“Hey, wait a minute! Didn’t you say something about justice only existing