Bertrand Russell Explains Why Karl Marx’s Philosophy Produced the Catastrophe of Communism

In 1927, Bertrand Rus­promote deliv­ered a lec­ture titled “Why I Am Not a Chris­t­ian.” On the time, such a dec­la­ra­tion was nonetheless truthful­ly daring, as was the rea­son­ing he professional­vid­ed for it. Close to­ly three many years there­after, he includ­ed in his col­lec­tion Por­traits from Mem­o­ry anoth­er, quick­er piece, “Why I Am Not a Com­mu­nist.” That descrip­tion was protected to use to at least one­self in 1954, no less than in the principle­stream of the Eng­lish-speak­ing world. It might have been riski­er for many who moved in intel­lec­tu­al cir­cles, as a cel­e­brat­ed philoso­pher like Rus­promote most cer­tain­ly did. What’s extra, his crit­i­cism lengthen­ed not simply to com­mu­nism as then instan­ti­at­ed by cer­tain soci­eties on this planet, however to the considered Karl Marx him­self.

Rus­promote makes two costs towards Marx: “one, that he was mud­dle-head­ed; and the oth­er, that his assume­ing was nearly complete­ly impressed by hatred.” In his view, the creator of Cap­i­tal com­mits intel­lec­tu­al fraud by oppor­tunis­ti­cal­ly settle for­ing Thomas Malthus’ dire pre­dic­tion of pop­u­la­tion development (whereas reject­ing it at oth­er occasions), in addition to apply­ing David Ricar­do’s the­o­ry of val­ue, which describes it as a type of embod­ied labor, to wages however not the costs of man­u­fac­tured items.

“He’s complete­ly sat­is­fied with the consequence, not as a result of it’s in accor­dance with the information or as a result of it’s log­i­cal­ly coher­ent, however as a result of it’s cal­cu­lat­ed to awaken fury in wage-earn­ers.” Marx sees their upris­ing towards cap­i­tal­ists as inevitable due to his “exten­sion to world his­to­ry of cer­tain fea­tures promi­nent in Eng­land and France a hun­dred years in the past” and perception in “a cos­mic drive referred to as Dialec­ti­cal Mate­ri­al­ism which gov­erns human his­to­ry inde­pen­dent­ly of human voli­tions.”

This dis­missal of Marx’s world­view as “mere mythol­o­gy” has some­factor in com­mon with Rus­sel­l’s cri­tique of Chris­tian­i­ty, and never coin­ci­den­tal­ly so. “I believe one of many trou­bles of the world has been the behavior of canine­mat­i­cal­ly believ­ing some­factor or oth­er,” he says in the clip above. “I believe we ought at all times to enter­tain our opin­ions with some mea­certain of doubt.” And “if a phi­los­o­phy is to carry hap­pi­ness, it ought to be impressed by sort­ly really feel­ing. Now, Marx is just not impressed by sort­ly really feel­ing. Marx pre­have a tendency­ed that he need­ed the hap­pi­ness of the professional­le­tari­at, however he actual­ly need­ed is the unhap­pi­ness of the bour­geois. And it was due to that neg­a­tive ele­ment, due to that hate ele­ment that his phi­los­o­phy professional­duced dis­as­ter.” There are, per­haps, argu­ments to be made that com­mu­nism, as prac­ticed in, for examination­ple, the Sovi­et Union, took the shape it did pre­cise­ly as a result of it depart­ed from Marx­ist traces. Whether or not that was wager­ter or worse than the alter­na­tive is a mat­ter no philoso­pher can set­tle.

The clip above comes from the 1952 TV episode A Con­ver­sa­tion with Bertrand Rus­promote. Watch it in full right here.

Relat­ed con­tent:

A Quick Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Karl Marx

Bertrand Russell’s 10 Com­mand­ments for Liv­ing in a Wholesome Democ­ra­cy

The best way to Spot a Com­mu­nist by Utilizing Lit­er­ary Crit­i­cism: A 1955 Man­u­al from the U.S. Mil­i­tary

Karl Marx & the Flaws of Cap­i­tal­ism: Lex Frid­man Talks with Professional­fes­sor Richard Wolff

A Free Course on Karl Marx’s Cap­i­tal, Vol­ume 1 from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty

Bertrand Russell’s Recommendation to Peo­ple Liv­ing 1,000 Years within the Future: “Love is Clever, Hatred is Idiot­ish”

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the creator of the newslet­ter Books on Cities in addition to the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social web­work for­mer­ly often known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.