Marxism has been supported by the rich to put workers on the wrong path, which cannot replace capitalism. It also prevents new left ideas capable of building socialism.
If one searches "theory of alienation" in Google, predominately Marx's theory comes out because other theories of alienation in a political and economic level do not exist. The question is why? What is so incredible in Marx's statement that workers get alienated from the products of their labour, which alienates them from themselves. It just does not hold much water because everyone who produces for the market gets alienated from the product at the moment of purchase.
Marx strongly contributed to the scientific understanding of capitalism. He stated that capitalists profit from the production, while their workers only receive a fraction of the capitalist's profit as wages. Capitalists exploit workers by paying them low earnings. Marx was right about this. He believed that exploitation of workers might be eliminated through socialist revolution only. Marx was wrong here because a violent revolution cannot better society. Although a revolution may replace a certain social injustice, it has always been replaced with a new kind. To ensure the lasting effect of revolutions, new leadership are generally autocratic, and therefore spread alienation throughout society with all the unfavourable dictatorial phenomena that are well-known throughout history. Revolutions have never contributed to the improvement of society as it was desired by people. Marx did not have enough data to be able to build his vision of socialism scientifically. As a result, his vision of socialism failed.
Thanks to social scientists, it is still not known what exactly creates exploitation of workers even though the answer is straightforward-- unemployment creates exploitation. Unemployed workers are pressured to accept poorly paid jobs to feed their families. When we eliminate unemployment, we will create a fair market for work. The lack of workers will increase their demand on the market so that employers will have to pay them more. This will create a chain reaction in which workers' salaries will grow, while employers would still make profits. We may say this would eliminate exploitation. There is no formula that would determine what exploitation is, only workers dissatisfied with their earnings may present it. A fair market of work will remove this dissatisfaction.
The rise in workers' salaries in the fair market can be proved. In the 14th century, the Black Death killed one-third of the European population, which suddenly increased demand for workers. The shortage of workers increased the workers' wages. At Cuxham (Oxfordshire, England), a plowman demanded from his Lord a payment 3.3 times greater in 1350 than in the previous year (The Economic Impact of the Black Death, Economic History Association). "In Parliament, in 1351 the Commons petitioned Edward III for a more resolute and effective response. They complained that "servants completely disregard the said ordinance in the interests of their ease and greed and that they withhold their services to great men and others unless they have liveries and wages twice or three times as great as [prior to the plague] to the serious damage of the great men and impoverishment of all members of the said commons" (Michael Bennett, Australian Journal of Law and Society, 1995, The Impact of the Black Death on English Legal History , Page 197).
According to this, if a political party wins an election offering a reduction of work to 5 hours per day, the lack of workers would increase workers' salaries 2-3 times per hour in one year. The daily wages would rise 30-90% for just a 5-hour shift. Workers would work shorter hours and earn more. It has already happened, and it is much easier to accomplish than raising a revolution.
So who is going to pay for such an increase in salary? The wealthy employers of course! Right now they collect this money as profit for themselves. Can employers refuse to increase worker salaries? They can, but then their workers would find a new employer who would pay more, and that means they will lose the possibility to maintain their businesses. When workers earn more they will purchase more, which will, in turn, increase the employers' profits. So, why have we not created a good economy so far? Because the more workers earn, the less they depend on the rich. The rich keep their power in society by maintaining the fear of unemployment. More about it is presented in my article: Let's remove unemployment .
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Marx thought that the market economy caused the exploitation of workers, so he proposed the elimination of the market economy by a centrally planned economy. Marx knew that the elimination of market economy removes the indicators of economic efficiency so he called for worker conscience to replace it. It revealed a consistency problem of Marx's philosophy. Human conscience belongs to idealism and it was never able to improve society because it was never accepted on the social level. The planned economy was supposed to produce goods and services in quality and quantity to satisfy people's needs. But the leaders have never learned how to gather people's needs, so they decided it for them. Such economy alienates itself from the people. The socialist economy also deteriorates because revolutions replace experienced entrepreneurs with inexperienced theorists. The socialist ideology overprotects workers while also taking their freedom, which does not stimulate them to work enough. The planned economy is not able to make the balance between production and consumption, leaving people unsatisfied. As a result, the Marxist's economy failed to satisfy people's needs sufficiently.
The planned economy was tried in the USSR and China. It has significantly reduced material exploitation of workers that exists in capitalist countries but also, it decreased the efficiency of the economy. The economy in the USSR and China had much lower productivity than capitalist economies. The USSR collapsed due to the inefficiency of the planned economy. Thus, Marxism failed. China has learned on their own mistakes, abandoned the planned economy in 1980, and accepted the regulated market economy. From that moment it has become the fastest growing economy in the world, threatening to take the number one place soon. This explains everything about the Marxist economy.
Taking into account the failures of Marxism, why does it deserve such a significant presence in science, media, and in hearts of Marxists? It would not be possible without the approval of the owners of corporations. Without it, Marxists would not be able to participate in political elections. Neither would they be able to teach Marxism at universities and get media support. Why do the rich help the Marxist ideology, which promotes violent confiscation of their property? The rich simply knew Marxism could not be a threat to capitalism. Otherwise, it would be banned. They knew that Marxism is on the wrong track and support it because Marxism prevents the progress of society. If Marx proposed reducing work hours instead of revolution, his philosophy would not be supported, and hardly anybody would know he has ever existed.
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