What Karl Marx Got Wrong

And why capitalism/money aren’t the root of all evil

Photo by Lian Begett on Unsplash

Not Real Communism

Almost all arguments against capitalism and for communism, despite the massive failures of communist regimes, come down to “that’s not real communism.” I don’t really have the years of academic experience to cut down Das Kapital point by point, but I think I have some examples I’ve come across in my life that might persuade you. Karl got some things wrong, like not understanding —

The Matthew Principle + Pareto

Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. — Matthew 13:12

The Bible is a rich document, but this little line is really the only rebuttal you need for a communist society.

Not simply people, but creatures follow this distribution, the Pareto Distribution. It can be summarized as: “80% of outputs come from 20% of inputs.”

For many systems, the 80/20 part is a rough approximation, but it essentially captures the Matthew Principle.

Think of wealth in the US. The top 1% have 16.6% of the wealth (16/1) and the top 10 percent have 53%…