Question

What are some shortcomings in Karl Marx’s theory of history?

Answer 1

Marx's theory stated that economic factors are the most important factors in any society and culture. According to him capitalism valued wealth acquisition more than the workers and they view them as a business cost rather than as a human being. But his solution towards this situation was extreme: He believed that workers of the world should overthrow capitalism and when that happened, he argued, workers should abolish private property and eventually abolish the state itself.

One shortoming of Marxist socialism is that it wants to abolish private property. But the ownership of private property is closely tied to freedom and liberty, which are essential to God’s design for human culture. When the government takes public ownership of all property, it reduces our ability to interact freely with each other in every cultural.

Another shortcoming is that socialist forms of government were seen to be coercive than democratic capitalist forms. The more the government controls, the more power it has. The 20th-century Russian version of socialism was authoritarian, as are the ongoing systems in Cuba and China.

Another problem with his approach is that it severely reduces the incentives for which people have to do their work with creativity and excellence, because there is no financial reward for it. If heart surgeons get paid the same as street sweepers, then the men and women who have the potential to make breakthrough discoveries in heart surgery might never have the motivation to go through many years of medical study.