The End of Nation States: Chapter 4. Right and Wrong about Marxist prediction
Someone has said that everyone in an advanced country is the middle class citizen because an advanced country provides a citizen with the equality of opportunity to be a skilled professional as an owner of an enterprise as long as this citizen has a merit for it. However, these middle class individuals are often exhausted by their workloads and desperate to opportunities of increasing their income and social-status. They do not seem to have enough freedom to spare their time for leisure. They do not seem to have their wage bargaining power enough to determine their own reward for their contribution to the market.
Karl Marx and his followers blame capitalism for impoverishing majority individuals under the harsh free market competition. However, the form of capitalism itself has been transformed from the early stage of the industrialisation when Karl Marx was alive. The entire condition to determine who can secure their position to maintain their dominance as the ruling class has changed. When Marx was alive, owning capital was the fundamental factor enabling individuals to maintain their privilege of both economic and social status. By contrast, both owning capital and the free market competition no longer secure their dominance.
The skilled professional occupations such as doctors, lawyers, managers of major companies, and scientists, and even some entrepreneurs (mainly owners of small-medium sized enterprises) used to be called the petite-bourgeoisie (which literally means the middle-class) because these occupations did not require the hard physical labour like the proletariat. Their professional skill used to be considered as the capital owned by these skilled professionals so that they were considered to have their own means of production which provides them with the stable income source without their hard physical labour.
By contrast, nowadays, these skilled professionals are busy enough to sacrifice their health condition and time as much as the traditional working-class occupations of the proletariat. These skilled professionals and owners of small-medium sized enterprises may earn relatively more income than the other working class occupations. However, they are far more likely to sacrifice their income and time invested for their higher education and be required to have a strong responsibility over their tasks. Furthermore, they do not look like owning their capital emancipating from the hard physical labour, and they rather look like they are required to put their hard physical labour as much as the traditional proletariat works.
This phenomenon is called the proletarisation of the middle class. When the national economy was developed enough to provide majority of citizens with the equal opportunity to acquire these middle class job with a high social status, the supply of those who have become the middle class dramatically increased. Then, the competition among these skilled professionals has become more intense enough to lower their income level and increase their energy and time invested for their productive activities. They are required to work hard enough to gain their means of living as same as the traditional proletariat. Therefore, these middle class individuals are under the pressure of producing the surplus value with their hard labour as same as the traditional working class so that they should be called the the new working class, or the proletariat-nouveau instead of the petite-bourgeoisie.
The traditional bourgeoisie such as owners of a big enterprise still keep their market dominance. Nonetheless, there are new variables enabling them to maintain and expand their dominance. The management of a big enterprise has become so complicated that it requires a huge volume of bureaucracy as same as the public sector management of a nation state government. Not so many competitors are able to be equip with such a huge complex bureaucratic structure so that those corporations which are already big enough can thrive with little fear from the market competition.
The other variables are the taxation and the excess market regulation which has become far more complex than the old capitalism. Government of a modern nation state imposes various forms of taxation and various regulations instructing entrepreneurs in order to adjust their action to government policies. Furthermore, in order to implement these policies which government force enterprises to follow, it requires a humongous public sector bureaucracy constantly monitoring this complex system regardless of any government elected at each time period. This bureaucracy has become an unavoidable tool of governing a modern nation state and its economy due to the complex nature of modern economy and politics. Then, these bureaucrats in this bureaucracy have their strong influence enough to control the market situation for their own interests, and they are the new ruling class that can be called the bourgeoisie-nouveau.
This new capitalism has transformed the social-stratification, and replaced the old ruling class with the new alternative. Nowadays, there is a new wave of transforming the social-stratification which replace the new capitalist economic political model to another. Due to the rapid development of the information technology and the individuals' network based on it, both owning capital and maintaining the big organisations like big corporations and public-bureaucracies will be less significant to maintain wealth and the dominance in both market and politics.
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From now-on due to the information technological development, including both the internet and the artificial intelligence (AI), which has widen the market entrance of both the real-market (dealing with the goods and services) and the financial market (dealing with money and other forms of capital assets). It used to require a high volume of capital investment to open a new business so that those who were already wealthy to own enough capital had a much stronger advantage. By contrast, the current technology enables individuals to gather efficient tools and investment resources from a far bigger information resource than few decades ago.
This leads to the situation where it does not longer matter to seek a heavy volume of capital investment from banks and private investors for starting up a new business as long as any individual has an attractive idea of a new business. In another word, the cost of capital investment has become substantially low. This is one of the reason why the interest rate set by central banks in developed countries is close to zero or even minus. The supply of entrepreneurs will become far more abundant and the market competition among business owners will become far more competitive than it has been.
The traditional bourgeoisie such as the owners of big enterprises are going to face the severe difficulty in maintaining their dominance. These bourgeoisie owning huge enterprises with a high volume of capital are not flexible to change their policies and their organisational structure in comparison to the newly emerging entrepreneurs having started their business with a low volume of capital investment. These new entrepreneurs are far more flexible to adjust their business structure to the market demand and requirement even though their economies of scale is not big as much as the traditional capitalistic enterprises.
The economies of scale are also predicted to be smaller than they have been due to the technological development such as newly invented AI and 3D printers. Furthermore, the division of labour will be more emphasised in this coming era so that it seems to be the case that the industries had better include various independent small enterprises competing and often cooperated together instead of allowing one or few monopolistic big corporations controlling it.
The development of the cloud data base and the close-based administration system also devalue the importance of these big corporations because industries no longer need a big organisation constantly administrating and monitoring the business activities as well as their data-management. These administration tools will be organised by decentralised platforms such as a set of the remotely located hard-drive centres connected via online. The outsourcing will be more popular as there will be more small enterprises offering flexible services with good-quality. Therefore, companies no longer need to marge various departments and divisions inside their company, and these tasks can be easily outsourced.
This decentralisation process will also lead not only the previously mentioned traditional bourgeoisie owning private enterprises but also government-bureaucrats administrating public sectors and the market regulations, who can be called the new bourgeoisie, will also struggle to maintain their dominance. Not only the previously mentioned technological development and the market decentralisation but also the decline of nation-states caused by the globalisation are devaluing the necessity of the bureaucracy. Some of the public sector projects will be outsourced and the communication tool and the administration tools of public sectors will be so efficient that it will require less man-power.
In addition, both the already developed information technology and the newly developed AI will replace many tasks of these bureaucrats. Also, the diversification of this entire world will require anyone including the tasks of the bureaucracy to constantly change enough to frequently requires their skill sets to be always updated or even replaced by a completely new ones. Therefore, the structured static structure of the bureaucracy will be simply inefficient, and it will devalue the level of intelligence, wisdom, and hard-works of these elite bureaucrats.
At the same time, this transformation of the market structure will cause a hardship for the citizens who are already accustomed with their traditional way of living by being employed by a private company, public sector, or any structured organisation. The market becomes far more capital intensive owing to the technological development and the popularlised entrepreneurship owing to the information technology and networks. Then, the number of labour employed will become far smaller than it has been. Therefore, unless they find any new means of living such as starting their own business or any alternative way of sustaining their life, they will struggle to find their means of living. This may result in an increasing social problem of anomie (Normlessness or Meaninglessness) predicted by Emile Durkheim.
Overall, owing capital will become less important meanwhile people will be employed less and market competition becomes more competitive. Because owing (physical and financial capital) will become far less significant to become successful in the market competition, the name called capitalism may be going to be old fashioned. This newly emerging era should no longer be called capitalism although the market competition becomes much complex and intense and the social stratification still remains (It is far from the utopia for all individuals).
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Marx also predicted the previously mentioned polarisation of have and not-have would be furthermore widened. But, what he was wrong about in his analysis was the possibility of the socialist revolution. He said that, as majority individuals become more frustrated by not gaining enough in their life, they put a collective action to redistribute the wealth in the pool of economy. However, majority of individuals in the post industrialised capitalism are less cohesive than the pre-modern capitalism.
A revolution by mass like what he explained in his book requires the high degree of cohesion among individuals sticking together. In a traditional communities where the industrialisation progress is still immature, the cohesive tie of individuals is strong due to their pastoral life style where they always need to cooperate together in a strong conformity based on rigid norms and values as their life style is more static than the competitive capitalism. By contrast, in the fully-industrialised capitalism, individuals move actively across different jobs to work and places to live so that they are no longer bound by their norms and values in one place. So, individuals in a developed capitalism are far more individualistic and normative than those in the traditional communities, and they tend to consider less about the others.
This chart is based on what Emile Durkheim created in his study of suicide. The vertical axis denotes how strong the communal tie of individuals with others is. Individuals become more altruistic as it goes on on the top of this vertical spectrum meanwhile individuals become egoistic as it goes on the bottom. The horizontal axis denotes how normative individuals are. As it goes to the left hand side of this spectrum, individuals tend to be fated with what is given and commanded for individuals to. As it goes to the right hand side of this spectrum, there is no longer any authority or moral-entrepreneur either commanding or suggesting them to follow and obey in their life.
During the early stage of industrialisation, the aggregate productivity level is so low that majority of individuals are encouraged or even forced to be employed for the production as a workforce. When the industrialisation process becomes matured, the average number of employment per capital investment for the production falls as the production method becomes more efficient so that the unemployment starts increasing. As this evolution proceeds, as previously mentioned, even those individuals who are considered to be the middle class (Petite-Bourgeoisie) start facing the same struggle of the surplus as same as the traditional proletariat. Moreover, norms and values become more pluralistic when the mobility of labour and capital becomes more frequent and more dynamic. Then, the traditional norms of culture which these individuals used to follow as their guideline for their life disappears.
In terms of why they still do not divert from the industrialisation process under the growing capitalism, individuals are still attracted to the overall high material productivity level which provides them with the access to the abundant resources of their needing and wanting goods and services and the convenient life style shared among all those living there. The division of labour is required for expanding the economies of scale to maximise the aggregate productivity level so that individuals become more individualistic to focus on their own duty provided by their employers or trading partners. In another word, the industrialisation is like an addiction to pursue: Individuals exchange their risk of anomie with the high materialistic satisfaction.
As seen in the spectrum, socialism is altruistic and fatalistic because the revolutionary government, either forcibly or suggestively, aims at uniting individuals together under an identical norm and commands and suggests individuals to do what they are supposed to do for their communal interest. Even though the characteristic of socialism is different from the traditional communities such as a pastoral community, the quality of both political structures are homogeneous.
By contrast, the fully developed (industrialised) capitalism is categorised as the opposite from both the traditional community and socialism on the spectrum, individuals living in capitalism are considered to be difficult to welcome socialism. It is because their communal tie is weakened due to their individualistic life style encouraged by the division of labour and their value of life is already so different from what socialism suggests. Then, what is going to happen is that capitalism keeps growing so that individuals in this world become more egoistic and less normative. Then, when individuals lose their means of life such as becoming unemployed are suffering from the aimlessness of their life.
On the other hand, it does not mean decreasing chances of the social mobility across different social classes for individuals: The social mobility will become more and more dynamic in this new era. Even though this world is becoming more anomic and the employment opportunity declines, there are more chance provided for inventions and a new form of entrepreneurship will be easier to advertise and borrow cash from investors as long as their new innovation/invention and business entrepreneurship seem to be valuable. In another word, the idea creation becomes the ultimate key of succeeding in the social mobility.
In addition, due to the developed information technology, it has become much easier to look for and recruit an innovative and talented individual from any part of communities regardless of where this individual person is from. As long as investors find this individual person seems to provide them with a high expected investment return, they will be happy to invest. Therefore, this world has become more meritocratic where the competition will be severe but the change for the dynamic successful social mobility is wide opened
The problem of this social transition is that not all individuals are fortunately endowed with the high competence and special talent with innovative mind. As the communal tie among individuals helping each other becomes weak and none provides those who lost their means of living with the alternative purpose of living, there is less aid for these unfortunate individuals than it used to be. Then, more individuals are considered to be the excess supply so that they are abandoned with the anomie. As Durkheim claimed, the excess of anomie increases the suicide rate.
In the traditional communities and the early stage of the industrial revolution, individuals commit some deadly collective political actions by risking their life which can be called revolution to replace the entire political structure with their desired alternative for not only their own sake but also the others called Comrades. By contrast, such a suicidal collective action is hardly provoked due to the lack of a cohesive network of individuals propped up with their altruism and their community norm. Individuals are no longer risking their life for changing politics because none has the motivation to unite together for one normative objective.
In the new era of political economics, individuals commit their deviant actions without provoking any radical action for their collective interest as such altruistic and normative stuff like the collective interest no longer exists in a political scale. Those who are severely despaired of this capitalism tend to attempt one of these following three behaviours. The first one is quietly committing either suicide to end their unfortunate life. The second one is committing a crime or any deviant action which ignores the rules, of both written and unwritten laws, set by capitalism. The third one is simply escaping from this materialism of capitalism to a spiritualism. The former two behaviours are irrational and unproductive so that they are either ignored and taken for granted or mitigated by some negative sanctions. The latter one is predicted to be grow and thrive as the useful method to keep living in a harsh condition of the terrestrial world. Marx, an atheist who humiliated religion and predicted its decline, ironically said "Religion is the opiate of the people" which is all the more needed to mitigate the sensitive pains from the lack of pleasures gained from the materialistic world.
The typical destination of their escape is a spiritualistic life which can be expressed as religion which Marx and many modern political philosophers have predicted to eventually disappear. They tend to prejudge that religion is a form of a normative community where individuals gather together to help each other. However, this is a prejudice cannot explain the true nature of religion. Religion is formed with the faith in some transcendental substance which is not explained by the materialistic scientific measurement. To whether believe or not, it is dependent on each individual's thought and mindset. Those who believe in this transcendental world believe and think there is a transcendental non-material substance formed and developed their mind of thought which is called "spirituality".
Religious community is just a forum of these faithful individuals believing in spirituality, and their faith in belief itself is completely dependent upon their choice. For instance, there are many individuals practice their religious activities without joining any communal institute. Furthermore, there will be a various form of faiths in the transcendental substances which are distinguished from the traditional theistic religion. The new form of religion will be something in which individuals believe their mind of thoughts is directly connected to the spiritual world detached from the material world.
Jeremy Bentham was partially correct but partially incorrect: Some individuals are willing to incur pains in exchange for the pleasures their extremely long future. Bentham was an atheist not believing in a spiritual world at all so that it was nonsense for him to think about gaining the utility (pleasure minus pain) from any non-materialistic substance. By contrast, those who believe in a spiritual world gain pleasures from their belief in the spirituality. The degree of pleasures and pains for individuals depends on not only their biological, material, and social situations but also their psychological situations. Regardless of the controversy about the existence of the spiritual world, the faithful belief in religion and any spirituality increases believers' pleasures by clinging to their faith. Their pleasures from their spiritual faith can be maximised enough to mitigate their pains in their terrestrial life.
As Max Stirner, an individualist anarchist, said, religion is a personal spiritual property which individuals have an invincible power to keep holding themselves. Any material property is not permanent as it decays and it can be either lost or stolen meanwhile a spiritual property which is a faith in religion may remain permanently. Individuals may keep their faith in their own existence and mind even though the others and the market reject these individuals' existence. Individuals live for their own sake without being interrupted by anyone and anything else. When they are more detached from other individuals and material needs and wants in the terrestrial world, what they communicate with and commands them to live is their own mind.
Various universal religions have existed more than millennium and there can be a strong wisdom for their extremely long survival and a huge scale influence. They may have found the effective ways to explain what provides individuals with pleasures while they are despaired of the materialistic world. Some of their explanations are vague and not scientific but they have succeeded in convincing individuals to acquire their pleasures by believing what they have explained. So, regardless of their controversy about the legitimacy and plausibility, as long as there are those who want to believe in, the religion and its faith keep thriving. Then, increasing anomie in the still growing capitalism causing individuals' lack of material gain and aimlessness of living in a capitalist market will increase the demand of religion furthermore despite the prediction by Marx and the other modern political philosophers.
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