Mises and Rothbard on Marx
One of the most insidious ideologies of our time is Marxism. Its proponents use Marxism to undermine our political and social institutions. They dismiss ordinary morality as a tool to cover up exploitation and oppression. They claim that capitalism exploits workers and that it should be replaced by socialism, even though socialist and communist regimes have killed millions of people. We must arm ourselves against this devil’s brew. For that reason, it’s essential that we study what the two greatest social thinkers and defenders of freedom, Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, have said about it. That way we will be prepared to battle against the forces of evil.
Marx said that capitalism pushes down workers’ wages until they barely provide enough money to live on. In fact, as Mises points out, capitalism results in a vast improvement of the workers’ standard of living. Mises says: “What really destroyed Marx was his idea of the progressive impoverishment of the workers. Marx didn’t see that the most important characteristic of capitalism was large-scale production for the needs of the masses; the main objective of capitalists is to produce for the broad masses. Nor did Marx see that under capitalism the customer is always right. In his capacity as a wage earner, the worker cannot determine what is to be made. But in his capacity as a customer, he is really the boss and tells his boss, the entrepreneur, what to do. His boss must obey the orders of the workers as they are members of the buying public. Mrs. Webb, like other socialists, was the daughter of a well-to-do businessman. Like other socialists, she thought her father was an autocrat who gave orders to everybody. She didn’t see that he was subject to the sovereignty of the orders of the customers on the market. The ‘great’ Mrs. Webb [Beatrice Potter] was no smarter than the dumbest messenger boy who sees only that his boss gives orders.” [Mrs. Webb was a leading member of the Fabian Society. She and her husband wrote a defense of Stalinism called Soviet Communism: A New Civilization.]
How do Marxists cope with the fact that Marx’s claim that capitalism drives down wages to bare subsistence is false? As Murray Rothbard points out, they do so by changing what Marx claimed. He was really doing something else besides saying what has turned out to be false. They keep doing this when their new interpretation of what Marx was saying also turns ou
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
