National Law Institute University

Bhopal

Jurisprudence-ii

TOPIC: COMPARISON BETWEEN COMMUNISM AND CAPITALISM (MARXIST VIEWS)

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Mr. Ranjan Rai Rakesh Malviya

Associate Professor 2016B.A.LL.B.45

1
 Table of Contents:-

I. –Introduction…………………………………………………..3
II. Background and context ………………………………………6
III. Definition of capitalism and communism……………………..7
IV. Marxist view on capitalism…………………………………....8
V. Marxist idea of communism………………………………….10
VI. Comparison between capitalism and communism……………13
VII. Conclusion……………………………………………………15
VIII. Bibliography………………………………………………….16

2
INTRODUCTION

Marxism is an economic and socio-political worldview that contains within it a political ideology
for how to change and improve society by implementing socialism. Originally developed in the
early to mid-nineteenth century by two German émigrés living in Britain, Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels, Marxism is based upon a materialist interpretation of history. According to him
social change occurs because of the struggle between different classes within society who are
constantly competing to improve their conditions, the Marxist analysis leads to the conclusion
that capitalism, the currently dominant form of economic management, leads to the oppression of
the proletariat, who not only make up the majority of the world's populace but who also spend
their lives working for the benefit of the bourgeoisie, or the wealthy ruling class in society.

To correct this inequality between the bourgeoisie, who are the wealthy minority, and the
proletariat, who are the poorer majority, Marxism advocates, and believes in the historical
inevitability of, a proletarian revolution, when the proletariat take control of government, and
then implement reforms to benefit their class, eaxmple the confiscation of private property which
is then taken under state control and run for the benefit of the people rather than for the interests
of private profit. Such a system is socialism, and Marxists believe that eventually a socialist
society would develop into an entirely classless system, which is known as communism in
Marxist thought.

Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Marxist governments have taken power in a
variety of nations across the world, and implemented socialist reforms. The first, and most
powerful Marxist-run nation state was the Soviet Union, founded in 1922 following the Russian
revolution of 1917. Several of its leaders, most notably Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and
Joseph Stalin were also important Marxist theoreticians, formulating the theoretical trends of
Marxism-Leninism,Trotskyism and Stalinism respectively. The other prominent Marxist power
of the twentieth century was the People's Republic of China, instituted in 1949 following the
Chinese Civil War, and its first leader, Mao Zedong, was also a noted theoretician, developing
Maoism. Today, a number of nations continue to be run by Marxist leaders, including Cuba,
North Korea, Nepal, large parts of India, and debatably Venezuela.

3
 I. LITERATURE REVIEW

The researcher shall be majorly relying on the below listed scholarly articles for
gaining an understanding of the topic.

 A. C. KAPUR, Principles of Political Science, S. Chand & Company Ltd, New Delhi.

 W. FRIEDMAN, Legal Theory, 5th Edition, Universal Law Publishing Co. Ltd.

 https://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/vision_of_communism.php

II. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The concept of capitalism and communism always creates a debate between

different scholars of jurisprudence. Also, how Marxist view differ in
communist and capitalist society .

III. HYPOTHESIS

Both communism and capitalism are a form of social organization,

that are associated with trade and industry in the economy and
discusses the ownership p of property.

IV. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What is meaning & definition of capitalism?

2. What is meaning and definition of communism?
3. How communism differ from capitalism?
4. What are Marxist views on communism and capitalism?

V. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The mode of research adopted for this research is doctrinal . the analysis
undertaken and the conclusion reached is based on primary as well as
secondary source of information; primarily consisting of scholarly
literature , articles , authenticate internet sources and relevant judgements.

4
 VI. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The objective of study aims at

 To understand the concept of capitalism and communism

 To draw comparison between capitalism and communism .

VII. SCOPE

The scope of this research paper is limited to British and Indian jurisdictions as the Jurists
studied in the course of this paper have restricted their views to these jurisdictions.

5
HISTORY AND BACKGROUND1
Karl Marx was born in the German Rhineland to middle-class parents of Jewish descent who had
abandoned their religion in an attempt to assimilate into an anti-Semitic society. The young Marx
studied philosophy at the University of Berlin and received a doctorate from the University of
Jena in 1841, but he was unable, because of his Jewish ancestry and his liberal political views, to
secure a teaching position. He then turned to journalism, where his investigations disclosed what
he perceived as systematic injustice and corruption at all levels of German society. Convinced
that German (and, more broadly, European) society could not be reformed from within but
instead had to be remade from the ground up, Marx became a political radical. His views soon
brought him to the attention of the police, and, fearing arrest and imprisonment, he left for Paris.
There he renewed an acquaintance with his countryman Friedrich Engels, who became his friend
and coauthor in a collaboration that was to last nearly 40 years.

Marx maintained that the poverty, disease, and early death that afflicted the proletariat (the
industrial working class) were endemic to capitalism: they were systemic and structural problems
that could be resolved only by replacing capitalism with communism. Under this alternative
system, the major means of industrial production—such as mines, mills, factories, and railroads
—would be publicly owned and operated for the benefit of all. Marx presented this critique of
capitalism and a brief sketch of a possible future communist society in Manifesto of the
Communist Party (1848), which they wrote at the commission of a small group of radicals called
the Communist League.

Marx, meanwhile, had begun to lay the theoretical and (he believed) scientific foundations of
communism, first in The German Ideology (written 1845–46, published 1932) and later in Das
Kapital (1867; Capital). His theory has three main aspects: first, a materialist conception of
history; second, a critique of capitalism and its inner workings; and third, an account of the
revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and its eventual replacement by communism.

1
M. Itoh, The Basic Theory of Capitalism

6
DEFINITION OF CAPATALISM2

The term ‘capitalism’ implies an economic system that advocates private ownership of the means
of production, distribution, and exchange, to earn the profit. In this system, the determination of
production and price of the goods and services are done by the market, i.e. the demand and
supply forces play a significant role here.

The key features of capitalism are individual rights, private property, accumulation of wealth,
market economy, free and competitive market, self-interest, minimal government intervention.

In a capitalist economy, it is the owners who decide and invest, in financial and capital market on
the production inputs. The competition in the economy decided the price and distribution of
merchandise in the economy.

DEFINITION OF COMMUNNISM

A form of socialism, in which the means of production, resources, and property are owned and
controlled by the egalitarian society, i.e. by the community equally is called Communism. It is
based on the idea of shared ownership. The theory of communism was mainly sparked by the
German philosophers cum sociologist Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The central principle
behind communism is, the contribution and share of each would be based on his ability and
needs.

In this political system, the government owns everything and all the individual works for a
common goal. Therefore, the class distinction does not exist, as all are considered equal.
Communism aims at removing the gap between wealthy and poor, and establishing equality in
the economy.

2
https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-capitalism-and-communism.html

7
MARX VIEW ON CAPATALISM
The second aspect of Marx’s theory is his critique of capitalism. Marx held that human history
had progressed through a series of stages, from ancient slave society through feudalism to
capitalism. In each stage a dominant class uses its control of the means of production to exploit
the labor of a larger class of workers. But internal tensions or “contradictions” in each stage
eventually lead to the overthrow and replacement of the ruling class by its successor. Thus, the
bourgeoisie overthrew the aristocracy and replaced feudalism with capitalism; so too, Marx
predicted, will the proletariat overthrow the bourgeoisie and replace capitalism with
communism.

Marx acknowledged that capitalism was a historically necessary stage of development that had
brought about remarkable scientific and technological changes—changes that greatly increased
aggregate wealth by extending humankind’s power over nature. The problem, Marx believed,
was that this wealth—and the political power and economic opportunities that went with it—was
unfairly distributed. The capitalists reap the profits while paying the workers a pittance for long
hours of hard labor. Yet it is the workers who create economic value, according to Marx’s labor
theory of value, which holds that the worth of a commodity is determined by the amount of labor
required to produce it. Under capitalism, Marx claimed, workers are not paid fully or fairly for
their labor because the capitalists siphon off surplus value, which they call profit. Therefore, the
bourgeois owners of the means of production amass enormous wealth, while the proletariat falls
further into poverty. This wealth also enables the bourgeoisie to control the government or state,
which does the bidding of the wealthy and the powerful to the detriment of the poor and the
powerless.

The exploitation of one class by another remains hidden, however, by a set of ideas that Marx
called ideology. “The ruling ideas of every epoch,” he wrote in The German Ideology, “are the
ideas of the ruling class.” By this Marx meant that the conventional or mainstream ideas taught
in classrooms, preached from pulpits, and communicated through the mass media are ideas that

8
serve the interests of the dominant class. In slave societies, for example, slavery was depicted as
normal, natural, and just. In capitalist societies the free market is portrayed as operating
efficiently, fairly, and for the benefit of all, while alternative economic arrangements such as
socialism are derided or dismissed as false or fanciful. These ideas serve to justify or legitimize
the unequal distribution of economic and political power. Even exploited workers may fail to
understand their true interests and accept the dominant ideology—a condition that later Marxists
called “false consciousness.” One particularly pernicious source of ideological obfuscation is
religion, which Marx called “the opium of the people” because it purportedly dulls the critical
faculties and leads workers to accept their wretched condition as part of God’s plan.

Besides inequality, poverty, and false consciousness, capitalism also produces “alienation.” By
this Marx meant that workers are separated or estranged from

(1) The product of their labor, which they do not own,

(2) The process of production, which under factory conditions makes them “an appendage of the
machine,”

(3) The sense of satisfaction that they would derive from using their human capacities in unique
and creative ways, and

(4) Other human beings, whom they see as rivals competing for jobs and wages.

MARX IDEA OF COMMUNISM

Marx believed that capitalism is a volatile economic system that will suffer a series of ever-
worsening crises—recessions and depressions—that will produce greater unemployment, lower

9
wages, and increasing misery among the industrial proletariat. These crises will convince the
proletariat that its interests as a class are implacably opposed to those of the ruling bourgeoisie.
Armed with revolutionary class consciousness, the proletariat will seize the major means of
production along with the institutions of state power—police, courts, prisons, and so on—and
establish a socialist state that Marx called “the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” The
proletariat will thus rule in its own class interest, as the bourgeoisie did before, in order to
prevent a counterrevolution by the displaced bourgeoisie. Once this threat disappears, however,
the need for the state will also disappear. Thus, the interim state will wither away and be
replaced by a classless communist society.

Marx’s vision of communist society is remarkably (and perhaps intentionally) vague. Unlike
earlier “utopian socialists,” whom Marx and Engels derided as unscientific and impractical—
including Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen—Marx did not produce
detailed blueprints for a future society. Some features that he did describe, such as public
education and a graduated income tax, are now commonplace. Other features, such as public
ownership of the major means of production and distribution of goods and services according to
the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” remain as
radical as they were in Marx’s time. But for the most part, Marx believed that the institutions of a
future communist society should be designed and decided democratically by the people living in
it; it was not his task, he said, to “write recipes for the kitchens of the future.” Yet, though Marx
was reluctant to write such recipes, many of his followers were not. Among them was his friend
and coauthor, Friedrich Engels.

CHARACTERSTICS OF COMMUNISM3

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and co-author Friedrich Engels outlined the following 10
points.
3
https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/differences-between-capitalism-communism-and-why-did-it-start-russia

10
  Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes
 A heavy progressive or graduated income tax
 Abolition of all right of inheritance
 Confiscation of the property of all immigrants and rebels
 Equal liability of all to labor and establishment of industrial armies (especially for
agriculture)
 The gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country
 Free education for all children in public schools and abolition of children's factory labor
 Centralization of credit in the hands of the state
 The state would control communication and transportation
 The state factories and instruments of production would cultivate wastelands and improve
the soil

CHARACTERSTICS OF CAPATALISM

 System of government is democratic

 Property is privately owned
 Driven by free enterprise
 Wealth distributed unevenly
 Education and health care provided by private entities
 Freedom of the press Class distinctions: upper class, middle class and working class
 Focus is on the individual and his/her own progress in life

IDEOLOGY DIFFERENCES

i. The ideology of capitalism

 People need freedom

11
  When people compete against one another, they achieve greater things

 Some people have more than others because they make better use of their abilities

 Governments should not interfere with the rights of individuals to make their own living

 The government should interfere in the economy as little as possible

ii. The ideology of communism

 People need one another

 When people work together as equals, they achieve greater things

 No-one should have more than anyone else - everybody's needs are equally important

 Governments should make sure that everyone's needs are being met

 There is central control of the economy

COMPARISON BETWEEN CAPITALISM AND COMMUNISM

 Capitalism is an economic system in which the trade and industry of the economy is
owned and controlled by private individuals , to make profit while Communism refers to

12
 social system in which country’s trade and industry are controlled by the community and
the share of each individual relies on his ability and need .
 Basis of Capitalism is principle of individual rights while basis of communism is
principle of community rights
 Capitalism promotes class distinction while communism promotes egalitarian society
 In capitalism system of government is democratic while in communism the system is
totalitarian
 In capitalism government interference is negligible while in communism the interference
of government is high
 In capitalism every individual has to work for himself to create wealth while in
communism wealth is distributed as per needs and ability
 In capitalism factors of products are privately owned while in communism factors of
product ion are state owned
 In capitalism preference given to individual freedom while in communism preference
given to society
 Capitalism holds free and competitive market while in communism there is absence of
competition with state owned market
 In capitalism profit and wages depends on the person’s ability and willingness to work
while in communism profits are not allowed , workers are pushed to work for the fame of
the state
 In capitalism capital sources are invested by owners which may borrowed . it may be
reinvested out of profit earned while in communism state provide all the resource to
begin the business owned by the state .
 In capitalism depreciation is legal while in communism there is no depreciation
 In capitalism workers are free to select the employer and the occupation while in
communism state determines one’s employer and employment
 In capitalism individual have right to own business while in communism all the
productive capacity including communes are owned by the state

13
Conclusion

14
Both communism and capitalism are a form of social organization, that are
associated with trade and industry in the economy and discusses the ownership p of
property.

As every coin has two aspects, a good and a bad, so as with the case of
communism and capitalism.

In capitalism, the distribution of wealth is uneven, due to which rich gets richer
while the poor becomes poorer. On the other hand, in communism, there is an
equal distribution of wealth, but it does not allow individuals to have personal
property.

Communism attempts to eliminate capitalism in the economy, as it was introduced,

as a response to injustices of capitalism

In comparing capitalist society with a communist society to come in the future,

Marx in his “Das Capital” gave an analysis that in capitalist society “social reason”
always asserts itself only post festum, that is, only after everything has failed, but
in a communist society social reason operates in advance of a failure to prevent a
catastrophe. This statement is made in the context of discussing the issue of
economic depression. We are now in an era that keenly requires “social reason” to
operate a priori concerning the issue of the earth’s and humanity’s survival and
sustainability, a broader and more serious issue than that of economic depression.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

15
 A. C. KAPUR, Principles of Political Science, S. Chand & Company Ltd, New Delhi.

 W. FRIEDMAN, Legal Theory, 5th Edition, Universal Law Publishing Co. Ltd.

 https://www.britannica.com/topic/communism/Non-Marxian-communism#ref276335

 https://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/vision_of_communism.php

 https://www.sahistory.org.za/article

 M. Itoh, The Basic Theory of Capitalism

16