Critique of the Gotha Programme

you'll be forgiven for not knowing who ferdinand lassalle is, but i have to briefly explain who he is in order for you to understand what this is all about. lassalle was a shady character in the german labour movement that marx appears to have believed was a secret agent in the employ of the prussian government, and there is indeed evidence of covert communication between lassalle and no lower a junker than bismarck himself. marx seems to think his purpose was to align the labour movement with a docile form of liberalism that ultimately posed the prussian state no serious threat rather than with marx' socialist international, which most certainly did. as it interestingly turns out, lassalle became one of the primary philosophical guiding forces of the social democratic party of germany (sdp), which to this day remains the largest centre-left political force in germany. the text in question is a short, and very scathing, critique of the sdp's initial party constitution.

there are a couple of things underlying the rebuke. first, it's rather obvious that marx was trying to assert some influence over the new party. second, he appears to be trying to explain to the poor, brainwashed fools that what they're advocating, social democracy, is a liberal form of capitalism and not something that can be identified with socialism. his approach is to go through the five-point constitution, point by point, and offer clarifications, corrections, modifications and additions. it's almost like he's acting as an unwanted editor; as scathing as the criticism is, it's constructive.

unfortunately, it doesn't come off today as substantive. large portions of the short text deal with semantics and "corrections" of points that were almost certainly consciously worded as they are. given that marx' clear motive was not clarification but to take control of the process of writing the constitution, these semanticisms come off as as silly as they are, not to mention entirely void of integrity.

there are, however, a few points to take note of. the first is marx' approach to the concepts of equal rights and equal wages. marx claims that, when applied to a system built on inequality, equal rights will further that existing inequality. he also claims that equal wages will lead to inequality because everybody has different expense levels; some have several children, some have none, and to pay them equally would be to enforce a division. the conclusion is that in order to ensure true equality workers should be compensated at different levels relative to what they require and not at the same pay rate; "to each according to his needs.". the second is marx' clear opposition to state-run education, which many may find surprising but shouldn't given marx' views on the purpose of the state: "Government and church should rather be equally excluded from any influence on the school.".

in the essay, marx asks what a "free state" is and, while i recognize that he's being purposefully difficult, the reader may want to look up the history of a city such as lubeck to understand the context of the term as it was initially used before falling into marx' trap.

in the end, it may be worth noting that, as loudly as marx may pontificate, he is truly the one that should be taking notes; for every society that languishes under the tyranny of the dictatorship of the proletariat, there exists a democratic socialist near utopia. ( )