The economics of Karl Marx.
Marx, was a German economists, philosopher, sociologist and revolutionist. His influence economic theory and on economic practice was enormous - we could say, as you know, that in the name of his ideas entire societies were transformed, especially in the second half of the 20th century.
He was born in 1818 and died in 1883. Therefore, he lived and wrote in the classical economics period.
Marx is the best proof of the importance of economic ideas. It is therefore very important for us to examine the ideas of such an influential economist as Marx, especially since his ideas are nowadays forgotten - justly or unjustly - or presented in a distorted way.
Let's start with a short overview of Marx's views.
Marx was primarily a philosopher, who formulated philosophical a theory about how the whole physical nature evolves in time as well as a theory about how the civilization in all its aspects (economic, social, political and the like) evolves in time.
Therefore, his theoretical system is overwhelming; Marx had the ambition that his system would explain every aspect of the reality - both physical nature and social arrangements.
We will cover only his theories about social reality, especially his economic theory.
First, we should state that Marx was a harsh critic of capitalism; he was the strongest opponent to the classical economics.
He was an advocate of socialism and communism, but he did not write much on these systems, he did not explain in detail how they should be working. His writings are devoted mostly to the analysis and critique of capitalist economic system.
His major economic work is called Das Kapital (English - Capital), first volume of the Capital was published in 1867. Later two volumes heavily edited by his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels, were published after Marx's death in 1885 and 1894.
Moreover, the fourth volume, called Theories of Surplus-Value, was first edited and published by Karl Kautsky in 1905-1910. These forth volume was itself published in three volumes, so the Capital in overall is more than 2000 pages long. And this is only a part of Marx's economic writings.
Marx's economics is in a large part the application of his general theory of history to the capitalist economy. He wanted to formulate general laws governing the dynamics of capitalism. Therefore, he was not interested in the static analysis of equilibrium in capitalist system but in the long-run tendencies of capitalism.
Marx's economics is the application of his general theory of history, history of civilization to the capitalism. Before we will review his economics, we have to present his theory of history - which was called historical materialism.
Marx was a very ambiguous writer, he did not made precise definitions of the concepts used, was rather a bad mathematician, made some logical errors in his theory, probably on purpose and the like, he wrote in a very unclear way - and there are thousands of interpretations of what Marx really wanted to say.
Marx's historical materialism.
The grand question of this theory is the following: can one develop a theory that explains the different ways in which societies have been organized over time and can this theory be used to predict the possible future organization of society?
Are the social structures like feudalism, slavery system, capitalism part of an evolutionary process, which is driven by some factors you can rationally analyze, or are they only a result of random historical events?
According to Marx, there is an evolutionary process in the history of societies that can be rationally analyzed and you can predict what will be the future organization of societies.
Marx believed that all societies could be divided analytically into three parts:
the forces of production (technology, labor skills, scientific knowledge, tools, capital goods)
relations of production - rules of the game in the society, relations between persons in any society; social relations and relations between people and things - example include: work relations (selling labor for wage in capitalism, slave work in slavery-based systems); property rights (private property in capitalism; collective property in communism) and the like.
social superstructure - widely understood culture, the art, literature, music, philosophy, political system, religion, the legal system and the like.
The forces of production are inherently dynamic and changing (people continuously improve technology); they are the main source of changes in the societies.
According to Marx then, economic or materialistic (and not spiritual) factors are the primary determinants of historical change. Mainly economic technology, technology, materialistic, economic factor is the ultimate, the most fundamental cause of change in the social structure of societies in history.
In contrast, the relations of production, institutions of property rights and work relations are static, they do not change very often, and they are always from the past. Therefore, they are never fully adjusted to the continuously changing forces of production - technology.
The static nature of relation of production is reinforced by the nature of the social superstructure. Its purpose, according to Marx, is to keep intact the relations of production - to maintain the status quo. To keep property rights, work relations unchanged.
For example, prevailing idea in economic philosophy in capitalism, provided by classical economics, is the acceptance of free labor markets and private property.
The process of historical change according to Marx, and his theory, can be described in a following way.
In the beginning of every historical period (slavery-based economies, feudalism, capitalism, socialism and the like), there is a harmony between the forces of production and the relations of production.
Over time the changing forces of production, which are dynamic by its nature, bring about contradictions in the system, as the existing and static relations of production (institutions of property and work relations) are no longer appropriate to the forces of production (technology).
These contradictions manifest themselves, Marx said, in class struggle. In capitalism, there is a class struggle between capitalists and workers.
Finally, these contradictions will become so intense that there is a period of social revolution, and a new set of relations of production is brought into being.
At this point, just after revolution, there is again harmony, but the dynamic, changing forces of production ensure that new contradictions will soon develop and that in the future, possibly distant future. However, they will develop unless you have a society, which is classless, there are no social classes in such a society and the class struggle cannot develop. Which society is classless in principle? Communist, of course (no markets and property is collectively owned) - so communism according to Marx will be the end of social history.
This is short explanation of historical materialism - Marx's theory of history. (Why it is materialism - because the fundamental factor of change is economic technology - and this is a material, not spiritual factor. There are many theories of history in which spiritual factors, human ideas or human reason, human mind drives the development of history. However, Marx's theory of history is not of that kind - it is materialistic theory).
Marx was especially interested in applying historical materialism to the analysis of capitalism, analysis of the contradictions of capitalism and to explaining why capitalism has to collapse. In addition, he wanted to predict what would emerge after the collapse of capitalism, what new relations of production will appear in societies on the ruins of capitalism.
This system (historical materialism), these 3 concepts, according to Marx, is sufficient to explain the history of social organization in Western societies. That is historical materialism can explain why we had first societies based on slavery, how these societies had developed, why this slavery-based system had collapsed.
And further, why feudalism developed, how in the beginning the relations of productions were appropriate to the existing forces of production, and that these relations of production were supported by the social superstructure.
Then he showed how the changing forces of production destroyed this harmony, as the institutional structure of feudalism (property owned by the church and the nobles; and peasants bound to the land and working on leased land) became incompatible with developing technology in agriculture, increased trade and the beginning of manufacturing.
What do we mean by incompatibility here? That the improved technology could be much better exploited in a system with a more widely shared property than in feudalism, and that's why after centuries, feudalism finally collapsed and was replaced by capitalism.
In early capitalism we had also a harmony between forces of production and relations of production, but continuous and enormous improvement in technology in capitalism soon brought about conflicts and contradictions - for example extreme inequality and poverty. We will discuss this and other contradictions of capitalism, using Marx's terminology, later.
However, according to Marx those contradictions will bring about the fall of capitalism finally and emergence of a new set of relations of production - socialist one.
Socialism, then, will give way to communism, and this will be the end of history since in communism there are no social classes.
By socialism, Marx meant a system where 1) there is a state or public ownership of economic resources; 2) market still serves to some extent as mechanism of allocation of resources and a mechanism of distribution of incomes.
There are markets, there is a state, but inequality is limited and there is no poverty. Property is collectively owned.
While in communism there would be 1) state or public ownership of resources; and in communism each person should be given as much resources as to fulfill her needs.
Everyone should give to the society as much as his or her ability is - to work as hard as possible.
So in communism, there are no markets, there is no state, there is no class struggle, there is also economic equality.
So much on the historical materialism.
How can we assess, judge this theory of history? Is it a correct theory of history?
Well, if we take this theory as saying that technology is the only factor determining every aspect of relations of production and every aspect of the superstructure (for example music, technology determines music) then the theory is simply absurd and definitely not true, incorrect.
On the other hand, if we interpret historical materialism as saying only that technology is one among many factors determining history (like biological, cultural, spiritual and the like) then the theory becomes obvious and even trivial, not very important.
It is true that technology determines history to some extent, but this is only one factor and you cannot make any predictions on the basis of such a loose theory.
So historical materialism, from the modern point of view is either false, (incorrect) or trivial (not important) theory.
Marx's economic theory.
Marx's main investigation in economic theory was his analysis of labor theory of value.
We have discussed this theory while reviewing views of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. We said that A. Smith rejected this theory and that David Ricardo was a strong supporter of this theory. We also stated that in general classical economists rejected labor theory of value in favor of cost of production theory of value.
Labor theory of value states that the relative value of commodities is equal to the relative amount of labor needed to produce these commodities.
Marx developed Ricardo labor theory of value, because he thought he needed theory of value (theory of prices) to formulate his predictions, his `laws of motion' of capitalism, long-run tendencies of capitalism. He was rather a macroeconomist, not a microeconomist. He also used labor theory of value to make ethical, normative, ideological critique of capitalism, as we will see later.
We have discussed how Ricardo was trying to solve many difficulties connected to labor theory of value. Marx essentially followed Ricardian solutions to these difficulties. For example, such as Ricardo, Marx treated capital, as accumulated, stored-up labor.
He therefore stated that labor time required to produce a commodity is the number of hours applied immediately in production process plus the number of hours of work needed to reproduce the capital destroyed in the production process. It is just like in Ricardo's thought.
Like Ricardo he also thought that land rent does not influence prices.
He dealt better than Ricardo did with the problem of quantifying the amount of work needed to produce a unit of a good.
Since different workers possess different skills and abilities, the time needed to produce a unit of a good is different for various workers. How then should we determine the amount of time needed to produce a unit of any commodity?
Marx originally claimed that the amount of labor needed to produce a unit of a commodity is the so-called socially necessary labor time - which is defined as the time taken by a worker with the average degree of skill possessed by labor class at the time. This is original solution to this problem.
Moreover, there is a most important difficulty to this theory - the fact you should also take into account the role of profits in determining relative prices.
If there are different labor-capital ratios in various industries, that is if industries in the economy differ in capital intensity (some use more capital in relation to labor than others do) than profits influence prices in different way.
If industries differ in capital intensity, labor theory of value is incorrect, because profits also influence prices.
Ricardo was very well aware of this problem, but he thought that empirically different rates of profits in different industries accounted only for very small differences in relative values of goods. In other words, he thought that the influence of the rate of profits is not quantitatively important.
Marx also knew the problem but in the first volume of Capital he assumed in his model that all firms and industries have the same capital intensively.
He relaxed this assumption in volume III, and tried to prove that labor theory of value is even then correct, but he failed - this is the general opinion.
However, this technical problem (influence of profits on prices in labor theory of value) was examined in thousands of papers and books after Marx and still is examined by some Marxists. However, the general opinion is that Marx and Marxist writers did not solve this technical difficulty and that labor theory value is not a correct economic theory of prices. Modern economists generally abandoned labor theory of value.
We will not investigate this technical problem here.
Labor theory of value serves in Marx's system also as a tool to developing the concepts of a surplus value and exploitation.
According to Marx value of any given commodity can be divided into 3 parts
W=C+V+S
C - expenses on constant capital (machines, buildings, tools, intermediate goods) - capital used to buy…
V - expenses on variable capital (wages), capital used to buy labor
S - surplus value
According to Marx expenses on constant capital are not productive, if you invest C on constant capital, you will get in return exactly C in return.
Expenses on labor, V, are productive; they give in return amount of V+S (where S is a surplus value, surplus over the costs of production.
In fact only labor is a productive factor of production.
Surplus value arises because the capitalist buys labor at its market value, that is at the subsistence level of wages.
Because the value of commodities (C+V+S) is greater then the value of cost of production (C+V) capitalist is left with a surplus.
Surplus value belongs to the capitalist, since he employs workers.
Marx used the concept of surplus value to show that workers are exploited under capitalism. Why they are exploited?
Because, only their labor is productive, produces surplus, profits and they do not get the full value of their work (they get only V, while producing value V+S). So surplus value is expropriated from workers, and in this sense, they are exploited in capitalism.
Notice, that workers do not have an opportunity to work less and not to produce surplus value.
Let's assume that it takes only 4 hours' labor a day to produce V (equivalent of worker's wage). If he worked only 4 hours a day, than there would be no surplus value and no exploitation.
However, capitalist is the owner of the means of production and he demands that worker has to work let's say 12 hours a day. Then a surplus value (over V) is created and capitalist appropriates surplus, this is some kind of unearned income for capitalists.
A worker in capitalism does not have a choice: he can work 12 hours, create surplus value and be exploited or he can refuse to work and die from hunger.
Therefore, exploitation is a necessary feature of capitalism, according to Marx.
Of course, this understanding of surplus value and exploitation derives from the fact that Marx assumed that only labor is productive, mainstream economists do not make such an assumption - capital and land and other factors are productive in modern and classical economics. Therefore, this problem does not arise in modern economics.
For Marx, this was scientific proof that there is exploitation at work in capitalism and that this is unjust. Capitalism is exploitative and this is ethically wrong, unjust. Therefore, this was an ethical critique of capitalism. He used therefore labor theory of value to state that capitalism is ethically unattractive, that it exploits workers. He used this theory for ethical or ideological, not economic reasons.
Of course, modern economist shy away from making such ethical evaluations of the economy, but Marx was not only an economist but also was engaged in ethics and philosophy. Since he was mistaken claiming that only labor creates surplus value (is productive) than he was also mistaken claiming that workers are exploited in capitalism.
Well, they may be, may have been exploited in the past, but not for the reasons Marx stated.
So much on labor theory of value and exploitation in Marx's thought.
Marx's `laws of motion' of capitalism - his long-run predictions about tendencies in the development of capitalist economy.
Those laws of motion are at the same time, abovementioned, contradictions between the forces and relations of production inherent in capitalist system, which in the long run bring about the collapse of the system.
He formulated five such “laws of motion” or long-run predictions about the fate of capitalism, by Marxist economists they are treated with much the same relevance as the laws of supply and demand by mainstream economists.
So let's see what Marx's predictions were:
the law of a reserve army of the unemployed
the law a falling rate of profit
the law of increasing concentration and centralization of capital
the law of business cycles
the law of increasing misery (poverty) within the proletariat, working class
Of course these are `laws' only metaphorically, Marx called them like that, in fact they are rather rough predictions from Marx's system, following from his assumptions and theories. Often they are not based on scientific basis or even do not follow correctly from Marx's theory - he made several analytical errors in his analysis.
As you can see, all of them are about negative, undesirable tendencies in capitalism. It was because Marx was critical of capitalism and examined capitalism with a view to find bad tendencies or contradictions in the system.
As historical materialism claimed - in mature capitalism, like in every other social phase (beside communism of course) economic contradictions, resulting from class struggle, will develop.
Those economic contradictions are described by five Marx's laws of motion of capitalism.
In addition, of course, according to Marx, as these bad tendencies, contradictions become manifest over time, Marx thought that capitalism as a phase of history will pass away, give way to socialism and communism.
So let's examine those propositions, `laws of motion' of capitalism in more detail.
reserve army of the unemployed.
According to Marx there is always an excess supply of labor in the market, which has the effect of keeping wages low in competitive markets and keeping surplus value positive. This `army' is being recruited from several sources.
For example:
Workers displaced by new machines (some kind of technological unemployment) do not find often a job in other areas of the economy;
Children finishing schools, housewives who desire to enter the labor market are potential new members of the labor force
Also during the depression the size of reserve army of the unemployed increases according to Marks. Therefore, the Marx's prediction is that this reserve army of unemployed will increase in number over time in capitalism.
This notion of reserve army of the unemployed was never accepted in mainstream, classical or neoclassical economics. Because according to mainstream economics if there is an excess supply in labor market wages will fall down until market clears and there is equilibrium at the market. So, according to mainstream economists Marx's concept of unemployment is not valid or correct.
Nevertheless is Marx's prediction that the reserve army would increase in number over time, correct or not?
It is hard to estimate this since official measures of unemployment are not very helpful here.
People who dropped out of the labor force, because they had given up the hope they find the job, or people who have part-time job, would also be included in the reserve army of unemployed.
Therefore, it is not easy to estimate whether reserve army is larger now than in the past.
In addition, Marx's model assumed competitive markets, while there are labor unions in modern labor markets, so it is not easy empirically to say whether there exist something like reserve army of the unemployed, which keeps wages low in capitalism.
Therefore, this prediction, this law of motion is rather not subject to falsification by empirical evidence, and therefore rather not scientific according to modern standards.
2. the law of falling rate of profit
This is one of the most important contradictions of capitalism according to Marx.
As you remember all classical economists predicted that the rate of profit would fall over time, so Marx's prediction is not so original.
Marx maintained that competition in labor markets would lead to a fall in profits in a following way.
Capitalists accumulate more and more capital and employ more labor to work with increased capital. Wages than will increase (demand for labor increases) and therefore the rate of profit will fall.
Also competition in commodity market will result in decrease in the rate of profit because capitalists will try to reduce the costs of production to sell output at lower prices.
This will lead capitalists to search for new, lower-costs methods of production, which usually involves employing more capital (more efficient machinery). Increased use of capital will result in falling rate of profit.
Increased use of capital results in lower profits, according to Marx, because the added capital has reduced productivity, according to the law of diminishing returns.
However, Marx did not see that increased use of capital does not necessarily results in lower profits. There is opposing force to the law of diminishing returns.
New capital usually incorporates new technology, which reduces the total costs of production and thereby increases rate of profit.
The total influence of increased use of capital is an open question - it depends on how fast is the rate of technological development.
Therefore, Marx was not correct theoretically in this prediction.
He thought that this is very important mechanism in capitalism that will bring about the ultimate collapse of the system - because in the end the rate of profit falls to zero and the very existence of capitalists as a class is not justified.
Empirically it is very hard to measure changes in the rate of profit over time - but on the basis of some empirical research we can state that the rate of profit is rather constant over time.
However, of course Marxist economists argue that the rate of profit in US, for example, is constantly falling.
The issue is hard to settle empirically in definitive way.
3. the law of increasing concentration and centralization of capital
According to this prediction, capitalists accumulate more and more capital, thereby increasing the absolute amount of capital under their control. The size of firms is increasing correspondingly, and the degree of competition in the market tends to be diminished. This is growing concentration of capital.
Competition is also reduced in capitalism over time due to a slightly different phenomenon - centralization of capital.
This occurs through a redistribution of already existing capital in a manner that places capital and control over capital in fewer and fewer hands.
Concentration (that is the number of firms prospering on every market is decreasing over time in capitalism) and centralization of capital (the number of owners of firms is decreasing over time) are little different, but closely connected tendencies in capitalism, according to Marx.
Marx correctly thought that larger firms could produce at lower average costs than would smaller firms. This will result in the elimination of the smaller firms and the growth of monopoly.
Competition will end by destroying itself, and the large corporations would assume monopoly power.
This prediction, law of concentration and centralization of capital, has been to some extend fulfilled. Some markets today are quite highly concentrated - for example world market for cars.
However, Marx did not backed up this prediction by any scientific reasoning, a model, showing analytically factors responsible for concentration and centralization of capital.
It was rather a brilliant guess about a specific tendency in capitalism that will lead to the ultimate destruction of capitalism.
So this prediction is the most successful, it describes to some extent a tendency in modern capitalist economies.
However, at least up to today, the consequences of concentration of capital are not as disastrous as Marx thought - this process has not been brought about the fall of market economies.
4. the law of business crises (business depressions)
Marx constantly repeated that business crises would develop in capitalism and that those crises would become more and more lasting and severe. However, he did not formulate any clear theory of business cycle or business depressions.
However, he suggested several reasons for economic fluctuations - he did not show precisely how those reasons (economic factors) would cause economic depressions to happen.
First, Marx thought that economic crises can repeatedly occur in capitalism because in different industries technological change is introduced unevenly, that is in some industries the pace of technological change is faster, while in others it is slower. This may result in depression for the whole economy.
Second, Marx thought that depression could occur in any single industry in the economy and spread all over the economy to cause a decrease in the general level of economic activity.
Third, the falling rate of profit will cause economic depressions in capitalism. Marx used his law, his prediction about the falling rate of profit to argue that capitalists will periodically react to this fall in the rate of profit by reducing investment spending, causing fluctuations in economic activity, and therefore generating economic depressions.
So together, these three reasons, that is uneven pace of technological change, depressions in particular sectors that are spreading throughout the economy and the falling rate of profit, according to Marx, make capitalism an inherently unstable economic system, that will ultimately be destroyed by itself.
Marx vision of cyclical business depressions in capitalism was largely ignored in mainstream economic theory until the 1930s, when the coming of the Great Depression has turned the attention of economists to the problem of business cycles and since then mainstream economists produced many different theories of business cycles.
However, is Marx's prediction - that capitalism is subject to more and more disastrous economic depressions - a correct one?
Empirical research is not conclusive. It is a fact that after the 2nd world war, economic fluctuations in US, for example, are rather less frequent and less severe (production and income drops to a lesser degree) than before the 2nd world war.
However, this seems not to be the result of the free working of capitalist economy, but rather the effect of organized state action, designed to stabilize the economy - the so-called stabilization policy, introduced in US and other capitalist countries since 1940s.
Therefore, against Marx's prediction we could say that capitalist societies produced forces that prevent some negative tendencies in capitalism.
Still, it is to some degree an important contribution of Marx that he focused on the not very well appreciated and noticed problem of the business cycles.
5. the law of increasing misery (poverty) of the working class, proletariat
There are at least three different interpretations of this prediction, Marx was not a careful, unambiguous writer
1. increasing absolute misery - real income of the mass of society decreases over time in capitalism
2. increasing relative misery - proletariat's share of national income declines over time
3. quality of life of proletariat declines over time in capitalism (this includes economic - income, and non-economic aspects of life, happiness, cultural educational development, working conditions and the like).
According to this interpretation it is possible that real absolute income and relative real income of the working class would be increasing, but in overall their well-being, their quality of life would be still decreasing because of the conditions of work getting harder and harder, because of the hardening pains connected to the specialized work they do, because of the narrowing opportunities for education, for increasing conscience that they are exploited in capitalism, that they are deprived of the opportunity of cultural and mental development and the like.
What can we say about this prediction from the modern point of view?
1st and 2nd interpretations are falsified by data - absolute and relative income of working class has increased over time in capitalism even in 19th century.
3rd cannot be tested empirically because there is no widely accepted measure of quality of life. There are many different measures, and accordingly different outcomes about the trends in the quality of life of the working class.
In overall against this Marx's prediction, we can state that it is not the workers in capitalist societies in 20th century, which are the most underprivileged, the least fortunate members of society. The standard of living of the working class has dramatically improved; they have often long-term job contracts, the salaries are continuously raising and the like.
On the other hand, there are many groups in capitalism, which live in worse economic conditions.
Homeless, disadvantaged, single mothers with children - all are (as groups) probably poorer than workers, so in modern capitalism - workers are not the least privileged members of the society - against Marx's prediction.
Therefore, this prediction is not confirmed by the data - it failed.
So much on the Marx's laws of motion of capitalism, as we could see most of them is either not possible to falsify by evidence (and therefore not scientific according to modern standards) or simply was not confirmed by data. In overall capitalism did not perform as bad as Marx thought it would.
A summary of Marx's thought.
Marx was not only an economist; he combined philosophical, sociological and economic analysis in a unique way, which makes it difficult to consider his economic contribution separately.
In general, Marx wanted to predict the general tendencies in development of capitalism; he wanted to show that capitalism has to fail, because of the inherent contradictions of this economic system.
To this end, he applied his theory of history - historical materialism, which describes contradictions between the dynamic forces of production and the static relations of production that would lead to the collapse of capitalism and the emergence of a new economic orders, first socialism, and ultimately communism.
Those contradictions, he described in his five laws of motion of capitalism. Those laws, predictions, are not very well founded theoretically and as we concluded, however, the evidence did generally not confirm these laws.
He borrowed many aspects of his economic theory form classical economists especially from D. Ricardo, especially his labor theory of value. He made some advancement in this theory, but generally, he failed to prove that this theory could explain prices in market economy.
He was a harsh critic of capitalism, and tried to show that the working class is under exploitation in capitalism - he developed the concept of surplus value, to realize this aim.
So is there anything important left from Marx's analysis for modern economics?
Many thinks that the answer is: no, Marx was very wrong, was a bad scientist and rather a philosopher than economist.
However, others argue that what remains of Marx's thought is the grand vision of capitalism as dynamic and changing economic order.
Order, which is plagued with difficulties in maintaining the full employment of labor, which is sometimes prone to long-lasting economic depressions and the decreasing competitiveness of markets.
These are all important problems for capitalism, and even if they are not so unsolvable as Marx thought, still modern economics have not solved them adequately and it remains Marx's merit that he focused on those important problems.
In addition, he turned the attention of many economists to the problems of philosophical and ideological underpinnings of capitalism, socialism and communism. These are important questions in normative economics or in the philosophy of economics - is capitalism a just economic system, are workers exploited in capitalism or does socialism or communism fares better than capitalism with respect to freedom, equality and justice.
Marx at least inspired later writers to notice that these important questions arise and that you have to deal with them.
One final thing about Marx.
Marxism in general has not influenced much the mainstream economic theory, which followed rather classical economics in praising capitalism as just and efficient economic system.
However, as you all know Marx theory inspired the introduction of socialism in many countries in 20th century. Marxism has become a ruling ideology and economic doctrine in those countries.
Although many advocates of Marxism claim that in those socialist countries a rather distorted, vulgar versions of Marx's thought were applied, it is nevertheless, to some extent, Marx himself, who is responsible for many of the bad or even disastrous consequences of the fact that some countries tried to adopt Marx's thought in practice.
So many thinkers, probably rightly, put the blame on Marx, for poverty of the masses in socialist countries in the second half of 20th century, for underdevelopment of these countries, for many faces of injustice in real socialism, for lack of freedom and what is most important, millions of victims of 20th century attempts to put Marx's vision into work.
We have to acknowledge these facts also while evaluating Marx's thought.
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