It has often been taken for granted that the end of the Cold War meant the end of the conflict between capitalism and Marxism, with the latter philosophy having been defeated in all but a few holdouts. For the most part, people considered the economy philosophy of communism to be primarily the domain of intellectuals who still cannot let go, or of a few countries like Cuba and Venezuela. This, however, ignores many of the lessons of Marx that were imparted which have both come true and have serious implications for the world economy.
To be fair, communism was never implemented as it was theoretically described in any country in the world. Nevertheless, Marx’s described far more efficiently the failings of the free market than any solutions, and those problems remain today. For anyone who doubts that Marx has relevance, one merely has to look to his prediction that one of capitalism’s defining traits would be the consolidation of industries as they moved from relatively perfectly competitive markets to more oligopolistic and monopolistic markets. This has happened in every new industry that has arisen.
The downfall of Marx, however, was that despite his predictions of capitalism’s inherent downfall, his message was twisted by Lenin into an advocacy of proletariat revolution. This was unnecessary if Marx’s calculations were to be believed. We see it now: the capitalist system is coming undone from imbalances of trade and the inherent difficulties of the market economy. The current era will lead to a more capitalistic society, but that one will be more likely subject to the problems that Marx predicts.
Will his problems come to pass? It is doubtful. His calculations relied on a huge number of assumptions in terms of actual numbers, and even then it did not account for technological change. Only time will tell, but it seems Marx, like most economists, will have his theories ultimately disproven not by the performance of the market, but rather by the technological innovations that will change it.
