Karl Marx and the American Dream

You may be wondering, what does Karl Marx have to do with the American Dream? Actually, quite a lot.

Marx is famous for his Communist Manifesto, the anathema of all rich capitalists. In this paper he outlines his system of communism, and tries to examine the course of history though this new lens. However, what many people do not realize is that his system is based on the labor theory of value. (This is mostly because it is hidden in cryptic and archaic language in the first section of the paper.)

Labor theory of value is the idea that the value of a product is directly related to the amount of work needed to create it. However, this idea is obviously false, as modern economics have shown. This is mostly because it does not take into account technological advancements and the simple laws of supply and demand. For example, consider a shoemaker who uses an awl, a wooden bench, and leather to make shoes. He must work for several hours to produce one pair of low-quality shoes. A factory worker, on the other had, can churn out thousands of high-quality rubber shoes per day with little effort by using modern machinery. The shoemaker’s shoes required much more labor, but they are far less valuable than the factory worker’s shoes. However, the shoemaker’s shoes can greatly increase in value if the demand greatly increases; likewise, the factory worker’s can depreciate in value if the demand decreases. Marx’s labor theory of value does not account for either of these factors, so it is obviously flawed.

But how does this relate to the American Dream? Remember the main principle of the American Dream: If you immigrate to the US and work hard, you will be successful and wealthy. This obviously parallels the American dream idea of “the harder you work, the better off you will be.” For this reason, the American Dream is just as fictional as the labor theory of value, as countless manual laborers can confirm. Though it isn’t entirely false—capitalism does reward hard work to some extent, it by no means the guarantee many people believe it to be.

It may sound as if I am disparaging immigration—I’m not. America is a nation of immigrants, and immigration is an integral part of our past and future. However I am skeptical of the idea that anyone can immigrate to the US and be successful by working hard.