"Karl Marx was vague and cloudy in describing the communist ideal, let alone the specific path for attaining it. But one essential feature is the eradication of the division of labor. Contrary to current belief, Marx’s now popular concept of “alienation” had little to do with a psychological sense of apartness or discontent. The heart of the concept was the individual’s “alienation” from the product of labor. A worker, for example, works in a steel mill. Obviously, he himself will consume little or none of the steel he produces; he earns the value of his product in the shape of a money-commodity, and then he happily uses that money to buy whatever he chooses from the products of other people. Thus, A produces steel, B eggs, C shoes, etc., and then each exchanges them for products of the others through the use of money. To Marx this phenomenon of the market and the division of labor was a radical evil, for it meant that no one consumed any of his own product. The steelworker thus became “alienated” from his steel, the shoemaker from his shoes, etc.
The proper response to this “problem,” it seems to me, is: “So what?” Why should anyone care about this sort of “alienation”? Surely the farmer, shoemaker, and steelworker are very happy to sell their product and exchange it for whatever products they desire; deprive them of this “alienation” and they would be most unhappy, as well as dying from starvation. For if the farmer were not allowed to produce more wheat or eggs than he himself consumes, or the shoemaker more shoes than he can wear, or the Steelworker more steel than he can use, it is clear that the great bulk of the population would rapidly starve and the rest be reduced to a primitive subsistence, with life “nasty, brutish, and short.” But to Marx this condition was the evil result of individualism and capitalism and had to be eradicated.
Furthermore, Marx was completely ignorant of the fact that each participant in the division of labor cooperates through the market economy, exchanging for each other’s products and increasing the productivity and living standards of everyone. To Marx, differences between men and, therefore, any specialization in the division of labor, is a “contradiction,” and the communist goal is to replace that “contradiction” with harmony among all. This means that to the Marxist any individual differences, any diversity among men, are “contradictions” to be stamped out and replaced by the uniformity of the antheap. Friedrich Engels maintained that the emergence of the division of labor shattered the alleged classless harmony and uniformity of primitive society, and was responsible for the cleavage of society into separate and conflicting classes. Hence, for Marx and Engels, the division of labor must be eradicated in order to abolish class conflict and to usher in the ideal harmony of the “classless society,”
the society of total uniformity"[...]
"This absurd ideal—of the man “able to do everything”—is only viable if (a) everyone does everything very badly, or (b) there are only a very few things to do, or (c) everyone is miraculously transformed into a superman. Professor Mises aptly notes that the ideal communist man is the dilettante, the man who knows a little of everything and does nothing well. For how can he develop any of his powers and faculties if he is prevented from developing any one of them to any sustained extent? As Mises says of Bebel’s Utopia,
Art and science are relegated to leisure hours. In this way, thinks Bebel, the society of the future “will possess scientists and artists of all kinds in countless numbers.” These, according to their several inclinations, will pursue their studies and their arts in their spare time. . . . All mental work he regards as mere dilettantism. . . . But nevertheless we must inquire whether under these conditions the mind would be able to create that freedom without which it cannot exist.
Obviously all artistic and scientific work which demands time, travel, technical education and great material expenditure, would be quite out of the question.
Every person’s time and energy on the earth are necessarily limited; hence, in order to develop any of his faculties to the full, he must specialize and concentrate on some rather than others. As Gray
writes,That each individual should have the opportunity of developing all his faculties, physical and mental, in all directions, is a dream which will cheer the vision only of the simple-minded, oblivious of the restrictions imposed by the narrow limits of human life. For life is a series of acts of choice, and each choice is at the same time a renunciation. . . .
Even the inhabitant of Engels’ future fairyland will have to decide sooner or later whether he wishes to be Archbishop of Canterbury or First Sea Lord, whether he should seek to excel as a violinist or as a pugilist, whether he should elect to know all about Chinese literature or about the hidden pages in the life of the mackerel.
Of course, the only way to resolve this dilemma is to fantasize that the New Communist Man will be a superman. The Marxist, Karl Kautsky, asserted that in the future society “a new type of man will arise . . . a superman . . . an exalted man.” Leon Trotsky prophesied that under communism
man will become incomparably stronger, wiser, finer. His body more harmonious, his movements more rhythmical, his voice more musical. . . . THE HUMAN AVERAGE WILL RISE TO THE LEVEL OF AN ARISTOTLE, A GOETHE, A MARX. Above these other heights new peaks will arise."
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