Marxism Vs Conservatism

From the perspective of an American citizen who has grown up in a capitalist and democratic society, socialism, anarchism and fascism are usually seen as extreme ideologies and ways to live. We are often accustomed to liberalism and conservatism, and see these other three ideologies as bad or harmful, even un-American. They are ideologies just like liberalism and conservatism in that they offer an account of what is going on in society, have their own evaluation based on their vision and present a strategy or course of action. All three ideologies recognize that there is a “struggle” in society. They offer ideas about how they define struggle, and where struggle exists in society, but offer different solutions. Through analysis of several sources,
In the first sentence of the first chapter of the his work titled the Communist Manifesto, he explains, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (Marx CR 129). Hierarchies have existed in societies for centuries, and capitalism went along with it by establishing a divide between the haves and the have-nots. Owners have control over the means of production, meaning that they not only control factories and business, but economic resources and political power as well. Marx comments that the proletariat class suffers for the benefit of the bourgeois, saying, “Not only are they slaves the the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, in the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself” (Marx CR 132). This greatly affects the distribution of wealth as the bourgeois, who only represent one-tenth of the population see an increase in wealth, while the proletarian, nine-tenths of the population, see an increase in poverty. Most people were not benefitting from the capitalist system; the liberal revolutions did not deliver their promise of equality. This inequality is not entirely the fault of the bourgeois, but is actually a fault of the entire system. Both owners and workers are forced into this economic arrangement, but the owners benefit greatly from
He believes that reform towards socialism is evolutionary, through improving labor conditions, legislation and freeing trade unions that helped the working class. Bernstein argues that “...social democracy would flourish far better by lawful than by unlawful means and by violent revolution” (CR 141) and that capitalism is adaptable enough to yield more democracy. Rosa Luxembourg, in Reform or Revolution, explicitly disagrees with Bernstein and sides with Marx and Trussel. “Socialism by means of the progressive extension of social control and the gradual application of the principle of cooperation” (Luxembourg CR 143). She argues that Bernstein’s method of reform would not bring about true socialism, just improve and strengthen capitalism. Capitalism is inherently unequal and trying to achieve socialism through reform of capitalism“would be a slowing up of the pace of the struggle” (Luxembourg CR 143). Written recently, Sheri Berman’s Defining Social Democracy: A Serious Option for the Current Economic Crisis, compares and contrasts the views that Bernstein and Luxembourg present, analyzes socialism’s role and success in history, and offers the idea that, “American leftists must try to...develop a program that promotes growth