MARXISM

Karl Marx 1818 1883

The Communist Manifesto is an 1848 political pamphlet by

German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was
originally published in London (in the German language as
Manifest der kommunistischen Partei) just as the
revolutions of 1848 is recognized as one of the world's
most influential political manuscripts, presenting an
analytical approach to the class struggle and the problems
of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production. It
summarises Marx and Engels' theories about the nature of
society and politics, that "The history of all hitherto
existing society is the history of class struggles". It
features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the
time would eventually be replaced by socialism, and then
finally communism.

MARXISM is a Theory that society evolves through various

stages where the economy and the relationships of
different groups within the economy, defined the type of
society that evolved e.g.

Communitarian where there was equality among the

community land tribally owned, work distributed, the
hunt and harvest shared etc. there was egalitarianism and
therefore few distinctions among members. But over time
the more powerful groups subjugated others as in
enslavement and a system of social stratification
developed.

As the economy developed, it needed workers who had

Freedom to move
Make decisions
Develop a variety of skills

And so the feudal system developed where nobles and

aristocrats (European), protected laborers on their lands
in exchange for their lifelong and generational labor,
produce and loyalty. Marx showed that societies changed
when contradictions and tensions developed in the
economy leading to change in social relations between
groups. The Industrial Revolution of the 17th & 18th
centuries was the catalyst of this movement away from
the feudal system.

This period saw the rise of enterprise from traders,

merchants and industrialists, becoming rich from
shipping, banking and manufacturing. This was the rise of
the new capitalists who bought the lands of the fading
nobles, and land ownership was a status affording entry
into Parliament and the Legislature (law making). They
established laws promoting business and investment and
made way for the rise of the middle class. It was the
demise of the nobility and the rise of business,
manufacturing and heavy industry e.g. iron & steel.
Society was divided into

Workers with labor to sell

Capitalists- owners of the means of production e.g.
land, capital, factories, banks & businesses

In England in the 19th c, Marx saw capitalism in action. For

it to work there had to be exploitation of workers as they
were not paid according to profit but with lowest possible
wages. In this, businesses and industrialists were united
in efforts to keep wages down as low wages meant high
profits. This gave the capitalists a high standard of living
and a lifestyle at polarities with their workers.

Contradictions- capitalists need workers to make the

profits and workers need capitalists to provide jobs &
wages. But the relationship is by no means harmonious as
the capitalists are bent on extracting maximum labor for
lowest wages as the worker struggles for better working
conditions and wages. Meanwhile the rich get richer and
the poor more so poorer.

This gave rise to trade unions agitating for collective

action for better conditions, wages and holding the power
to strike. But strikes cannot be maintained for long by
workers as the capitalists could recruit scab labor. Marx
theorized that the proletariat (the workers) would seek to
overthrow the bourgeoisie capitalists to end the society.

SOCIALISM a classless society only made possible where

all members share in the means of production, and
understand class positions e.g.

Capitalists a position of oppression of others and

therefore temporal
 Workers a position of the oppressed so low wages,
unfair treatment should not be accepted as the norm.

Only when people see through the FALSE

CONSCIOUSNESS* into which they were socialized, would
they see the need for socialism.

*False consciousness - a term stating that the oppressed

often fail to realize that they pave the way of their own
oppression by others by adopting the values of the elites.
(elites are members of the highest social class or those
who rank above others in terms of wealth, status or
prestige.)

Socialism refers to the state when institutions are put in

place for everyone to own the wealth of the land, have
equal say in government. Once achieved, the way is paved
for communism an ideal toward which the newly
enlightened people work. Capitalism then, is a stage
necessary in the movement towards communism.

COMMUNISM at its most basic, may be explained as an

ideal toward which socialist states are working, where the
people, now enlightened, can see the nature of
oppression, alienation and hindrances to their sharing in
the wealth and governance of their society. We in the
Caribbean experienced this oppression and alienation
through the colonial experience and its attendant horrors
of encomienda, slavery and indentureship in establishing
a society stratified in favor of a particular group.
Caribbean intellectuals were therefore drawn to Marxist
thought.

INFLUENCE IN THE CARIBBEAN

At the end of the 19th century Caribbean thinkers saw

freedom from racial and class oppression by the colonists
wrapped up in Marxist thinking e.g. Pan Africanists such
as Cyril Briggs, Claude McKay, George Padmore & C.L.R.
James, Black power fighters such as Stokely Carmichael
and in Negritude activists such as Fanon and Cesaire.

Some actually went beyond thought and applied the

ideology in the governance of their respective territories
e.g. Fidel Castro through revolution, Maurice Bishop in a
coup detat, Michael Manley via legislation and Cheddi
Jagan in Guyana, in the election of a socialist party in
1953, 1957 and 1961, to be stymied by American or British
intervention each time.

Neo Marxism

Marxists thinkers who stressed the role of the

superstructure in shaping social life are referred to as
neo-Marxists. The superstructure refers to the Marxist
concept of describing the social institutions of family,
religion and mass media and politics as being heavily
influenced by the economy so that the ideas, and values of
the elite dominant groups of the economy - the capitalists,
pervade.

Through control of the mass media, the police and politics,

the capitalists are able to increase and solidify their
control of the society. Their religion is the dominant one,
their children go to the elite schools, they put up funding
for the political powers.

Their power might not come from physical force but

through the perpetuations of myths among the masses of
the people. They suggest through dominant ideas and
images in the mass media and other media that a
particular race/class cannot attain or own a particular
standard of living or the accompanying symbols e.g. a
pool, a house in a specific district, a car, and these are
held back by the lack of funds in an economy structured to
ensure that the wealth is accessed by a small elite. Even
the banks that working class people go to for loans to
become entrepreneurs act as hindrances with their
demand for collateral from the landless and their
exorbitant interest rates, banks and lending agencies
owned by the already rich elite.

Take a thought walk through Trinidad society and

jot thoughts on the following:

What is the dominant religion of Trinidad society?

Hint check the number of holidays for that particular
religion on our calendar
What are the elite schools of T&T? What is their
particular religion?
Who are the richest conglomerate businessmen of
Port-of Spain?
Who are the main investors of the local banks?
Did you know that if you even buy a living room set
on hire purchase, that the dominant elite are the
financiers?
Who owns the daily newspapers and tv stations in
T&T?
Do you see your future as a worker or an
entrepreneur?

The ideas and beliefs of the elite become normalized

through the media, and leading figures in society the
clergy, the politicians, the educators and the business
community. The sad reality is that the grassroots buys
into it and accept these ideologies as the norm and that
for someone from the working class to aspire to become
affluent or at least acquire the symbols of wealth, they are
unrealistic and out of place. To overcome this
brainwashing, a new set of ideologies have to replace the
old.

The impact on the (Br) Caribbean

Jamaica - 1972 Michael Manley

Guyana Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham
Grenada - Maurice Bishop

All these leaders tried to establish a fair and just society.

In Jamaica in the 1970s the Black population felt that the

previous politics had favoured the white middle class who
exploited them. Manleys background with the trade union
movement made the oppression felt by the Blacks more
realistic as he represented many oppressed labourers
against capitalist oppression. He set about nationalizing
ownership of the shares of the electricity and telephone
and transport systems of Jamaica. Marxism proposes that
labourers/the proletariat should own the means of
production. He placed a 75% levy on bauxite owned by the
foreign companies operating in Jamaica to increase the
money made in Jamaica/reduce the amount repatriated.
He tried to install social justice via the Family Court act,
Maternity leave and setting a minimum wage.
Grenada with Maurice Bishop

His party the New Jewel Movement tried to remove the

Eric Gairys capitalist rule that upheld colonial politics. He
pushed socialist programs that saw the nationalization of
banks, transportation and the media. There was
legislation concerning labour, education and health
improvement. He established international relations with
other socialist states such as Cuba and Russia with Cuba
giving technical support to build their airport and the
opportunity for Grenadian nationalists to study via
scholarships to Cuba.

His efforts were thwarted in a violent upheaval in 1982

known as the Grenada Revolution where he was
assassinated and the US were called in to assist in
quelling the civil unrest.
The role of Marxism in the intellectual tradition of the
Caribbean is important as it gives a philosophical basis of
some leading West Indian thinkers especially C.L.R. James
who was born at the end of the 19 th century and the start
of the 20th, and a young adult when Cipriani was waging
nationalism campaigns against the Crown Colony
government in the 1920s. He went to England in 1932 and
was one of the most formative writers influencing
intellectual development in the 20th century. James is
credited as the originator of the modern intellectual
tradition in the region, influenced by Hegel, Marx, Trotsky
and Lenin in political ideas. Marxism has also influenced
many political parties in the region.

Co-operative socialism in Guyana

In the post-independence 1966 Linden Forbes Burnham

adopted a socialist economic development program by
amending the constitution to a Co-operative Socialism.
This opposed all types of exploitation - social, economic
and political. He tried to extend socialist democracy of
citizens in the decisions and management of the state.

He nationalized the sugar, bauxite and communication

sectors in order to put resources in the hands of the state
and the masses, so that the wealth could be re-distributed
through social programs in health and education. The
Guyanese government opened ties with the Soviets, Cuba
and China, all Marxists.

His efforts though were stymied by a lack of funds and the

debt burden grew forcing them to go to the IMF.

Neo-Marxists

Are those who used Marxs ideas to develop their own

theories to change their societies such as Lenin and
Trotsky who established the Soviet Union, Chairman Mao
of China, Maurice Bishop of Grenada, Cheddi Jagan and
Forbes Burnham of Guyana and Michael Manley of
Jamaica, as well as Fidel Castro of Cuba. For some of these
Caribbean Marxists, US disapproval and the limited global
communist support caucus meant struggling economies
and a return to capitalist economics with dependency.