The Ten Planks of Communism
The Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto are ten minimum demands found in the Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx. They have been subject to categorical misinterpretation by anarchists, right-wingers, and even some self-styled Marxists.
Context
 | This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. |
The Ten Planks
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. This was intended to enable a smoother transition to communism in a proletarian revolution, but it does not implement communism in and of itself. Marx argues:
The first point over which the bourgeois democrats will come into conflict with the workers will be the abolition of feudalism as in the first French revolution, the petty bourgeoisie will want to give the feudal lands to the peasants as free property; that is, they will try to perpetrate the existence of the rural proletariat, and to form a petty-bourgeois peasant class which will be subject to the same cycle of impoverishment and debt which still afflicts the French peasant. The workers must oppose this plan both in the interest of the rural proletariat and in their own interest. They must demand that the confiscated feudal property remain state property and be used for workers’ colonies, cultivated collectively by the rural proletariat with all the advantages of large-scale farming and where the principle of common property will immediately achieve a sound basis in the midst of the shaky system of bourgeois property relations. Just as the democrats ally themselves with the peasants, the workers must ally themselves with the rural proletariat.
— Marx, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, 1850
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
They must drive the proposals of the democrats to their logical extreme (the democrats will in any case act in a reformist and not a revolutionary manner) and transform these proposals into direct attacks on private property. If, for instance, the petty bourgeoisie propose the purchase of the railways and factories, the workers must demand that these railways and factories simply be confiscated by the state without compensation as the property of reactionaries. If the democrats propose a proportional tax, then the workers must demand a progressive tax; if the democrats themselves propose a moderate progressive tax, then the workers must insist on a tax whose rates rise so steeply that big capital is ruined by it; if the democrats demand the regulation of the state debt, then the workers must demand national bankruptcy. The demands of the workers will thus have to be adjusted according to the measures and concessions of the democrats.
— Marx, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. “The rule of capital and its rapid accumulation is to be further counteracted, partly by a curtailment of the right of inheritance, and partly by the transference of as much employment as possible to the state. As far as the workers are concerned one thing, above all, is definite: they are to remain wage labourers as before. However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable.|Marx|Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League|Abstract}} Marx later felt that the immediate abolition of inheritance was impractical, as it prolonged the point at which private property could be eliminated,[1] and might alienate the peasantry, whose way of life revolved around the inheritance of farmland.[2]
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. This was intended to discourage continued resistance by reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries and therefore to hasten the victory over the aristocracy.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. The 'Demands of the Communist Party in Germany' of 1848 have a similar demand: “All private banks will be replaced by a state bank whose bonds will have the character of legal tender.” Ironically, this was intended to get the conservative capitalists on the side of the revolution.
This measure will make it possible to regulate credit in the interests of the whole people and will thus undermine the dominance of the large financiers. By gradually replacing gold and silver by paper money, it will cheapen the indispensable instrument of bourgeois trade, the universal means of exchange, and will allow the gold and silver to have an outward effect. Ultimately, this measure is necessary to link the interests of the conservative bourgeoisie to the revolution.
— Marx, [citation needed]
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. Necessary so as to prevent the bourgeoisie from disrupting communication between workers. In hindsight, this was arguably a poorly thought-out measure, as it allowed governments to break strikes in state public works projects, which occurred frequently throughout labor history, such as during the Pullman strike.[3]
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. This is the first of the measures intended to improve productivity. Without substantial capital accumulation and availability of resources, it would be impossible to provide all with their basic needs, as is one of the primary intentions of communists.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. Same reasons as the above measure, increasing capital accumulation, etc.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. In Marx's time, the countryside was dominated by reactionary peasant masses that were a threat to communist revolution. By reducing the distinction between town and land, and apply scientific and industrial methods of production, the countryside was to become industrialised, modernised, and proletarianised. This would ensure that the countryside would partake in the future communist revolution, rather than form a hindrance.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. etc. These demands were intended to reduce or undermine the power of capital by taking away an important source of unskilled manual labour, and presumably also reduce the influence of the family over child rearing.
Misrepresentation by rightists
Right-wing wingnuts have typically cited the ten planks as "evidence" of centre-leftists, such as social-liberals, advancing a Marxist programme. For instance, the website LibertyZone writes "Karl Marx in creating the Communist Manifesto designed these planks AS A TEST to determine whether a society has become communist or not. If they are all in effect and in force, then the people ARE practicing communists."[4] The website Laissez-Faire Republic similarly treats these as "socialist aims".[5]
See also
References
- ↑ https://www.marxists.org/history/international/iwma/documents/1869/inheritance-report.htm "Suppose the means of production transformed from private into social prosperity, then the right of inheritance (so far as it is of any social importance) would die of itself, because a man only leaves after his death what he possessed during his lifetime. Our great aim must, therefore, be to supersede those institutions which give to some people, during their lifetime, the economical power of transferring to themselves the fruits of labor of the many."
- ↑ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm"...as government take measures through which the peasant finds his condition immediately improved, so as to win him for the revolution; measures which will at least provide the possibility of easing the transition from private ownership of land to collective ownership, so that the peasant arrives at this of his own accord, from economic reasons. It must not hit the peasant over the head, as it would e.g. by proclaiming the abolition of the right of inheritance or the abolition of his property."
- ↑ Philip Taft, Organized Labor in American History (New York, Harper & Row, 1959), pp. 152-58.
- ↑ http://www.libertyzone.com/Communist-Manifesto-Planks.html
- ↑ "Although Marx advocated the use of any means, especially including violent revolution, to bring about socialist dictatorship, he suggested ten political goals for developed countries such as the United States. How far has the United States -- traditionally the bastion of freedom, free markets, and private property -- gone down the Marxist road to fulfill these socialist aims?" http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/tenplanks.html