It is not widely known that toward the end of his life Marx expressed the view that a violent proletarian revolution to overthrow the capitalist system would not be necessary in every country. In countries like the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, for example, Marx believed the workers could come to power through legal and peaceful methods.

However, he warned that if this were to happen there would always be the possibility that the capitalists, sensing their power slipping away, would begin “a new slave-owners war.” Just as the slave owners in the southern states rebelled when they were outvoted, the future capitalists might well be the ones to resort to violence to protect their interests.¹

This category of posts, The Reactionary Forces,  will explore this tendency today. Of course, as things stand today, we are not talking about outright violence here, or at least we hope not. Rather we will focus on the various legal and political maneuverings employed by the capitalist class to protect its interests and to thwart the development of alternative models.

 

1 Sperber, Johnathan, Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2013. p. 535-6.