Friday, November 2, 2012

Marx's Response to Kelsen's Concerns

Kelsen raises a number of concerns when discussing Marx's ideas. He believes the following questions are raised and unable to be answered by a central authority: What are the capacities of each? What kind of labor is he fit for? What quantity of labor may be expected of him? Which are the needs that shall be satisfied? (These concerns are raised on 196-197). If Kelsen believes these concerns to be exclusive to communism, then I posit that he has never truly observed capitalism. Capitalism already faces these questions and attempts to address them.

There are checkpoints throughout the education and training of young people that periodically assess their displayed capacities. The training and educational opportunities one has access to are partially based on these results. Capitalism may actually serve to impede this process, however, as the costs of higher education and vocational training may prove to be too steep for portions of the citizenry (creating a self-renewing cycle in which people are prevented from fully exercising their capacity). Capitalism also allows for large workforce imbalances (take a look at medical school, law school, and graduate school acceptance rates; many people receive training they can't put to use). Capitalism also attempts to answer which needs shall be satisfied; the presence of social programs confirms that there are agreed-upon minimum needs. The failing of Capitalism here is that many people don't have their needs adequately satisfied. In 2011, 46.2 million people in the United States were classified as being "in poverty" (http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts/hunger-and-poverty-statistics.aspx).

One could argue that Capitalism owes its successes in  answering these questions to social programs and non-Capitalist principles. Consider our country without a public education system--how imbalanced would the workforce be? Consider our country without Medicare, Social Security, and other large social programs--how many more people would die each year from hunger, lack of adequate medical care, etc? In a Communist system, every individual is afforded what they need to be a free and creative being. The beauty of Communism is that, even when a need cannot be met, the hardship is communally shouldered such that individual suffering is lessened. If anything, I believe Capitalism is what prevents us from answering the questions Kelsen poses. What do you think? Are there other questions Kelsen should have asked? Even if Communism couldn't fully address these questions, would Capitalism's worse ability to respond to them justify a revolution?

1 comment:

  1. I would disagree with you at the end though, mainly because I don't think this rules out Kelsen's very viable critique of Communist systems. While I will agree with your point that capitalism is obviously not even close to being an optimal system, I would argue the same applies to Communism. For example, in a Communistic system, who would handle the logistics and record-keeping at the various levels of government? Capitalism, at least, does provide some incentive for doing such menial and unsatisfying tasks. Another point would be the importance of education in a Communist state, since if someone only wishes to paint or play sports, they have no need of school.

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