One Problem with Marx

I was going to throw this out in class, but we ran out of time. When asking why communism failed, we can instead ask: "why did capitalism succeed"? The many imperfections of capitalism led to the exploitation of wage workers during the Industrial Revolution and later gave rise to growing inequality. Yet the class antagonisms that Marx predicted did not completely come to fruition in many countries. Take the United States for example. The early 20th Century was a time of social activism, as oppressed wage workers fought for better working conditions, joined unions, and began to bridge the economic gap. In many ways, this rise of "welfare capitalism" lessened the possibility of any violent revolution. And the United States experienced the rise of the middle class during this time, a whole new group of workers not interested in any bloody overthrow of the bourgeoisie. Basically what I'm getting at is that there is a possibility that Marx's extreme class struggle predictions were just a little bit off. The wealthy classes are going to do whatever it takes to stay in power. If a capitalist feels that his company is in danger of a proletariat rebellion, he is either going to tighten the screws on his workers, thus further fueling the fire, or he will appease the workers in the form of a wage increase, more job security, or added benefits. The latter is what happened in early 20th Century America, which only strengthened capitalism.

Interestingly enough, after the Roarin' 20s, the Great Depression threatened to bury capitalism forever....until John Maynard Keynes came along. This leads me to my actual official post, which I will get to tomorrow. Hopefully.