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to, but the only point of such objection would be to relieve one's feel–
ings. When Marx called capitalist wages "theft," he was trying to change
the system determining them. And in fact, unionized labor has indeed
changed the wage system, at least under democratic governments.
But was it ever right to call the capitalist's profit "theft," whatever
Marx's motive may have been in calling it that? I think not. On this
point Kai Nielson does give a fair restatement of Jon Elster's argument
against Marx's view, an argument I think irrefutable. Here it is: the
worker's wage does not exist until he is paid it by the boss; Marx's as–
sumption is that he is robbed before being paid, which is just not possi–
ble. Let us assume the worker is not paid enough, at least from his point
of view. This is by no means the same thing as being robbed. I must add
that Nielson, having stated this argument, makes no effort to meet it.
Moreover, he has ignored Marx's intellectual purpose, even as he has ig–
nored Marx's political motive in characterizing the capitalist wage system
as "theft." In addition to making a moral point against capitalism, Marx
wanted to explain how the system worked. He was trying to give an
ex–
planation
of capitalist profit, which would also serve as propaganda
against it, and the notion he hit on was that profit was taken from the
worker's wages. But according to this view, the more workers employed
in a given enterprise, of whatever type, the greater would be the profit.
That such cannot be shown to be the case led certain Marxists (during
the thirties) to suggest that all the profits of capital investment - sub–
tracted from all the workers' wages-were piled in one kitty, divvied up
by all the capitalists like the bills and bonds taken from a bank by rob–
bers. Thus the profits of an enterprise with a few workers would be per–
centage-wise equal to those of an enterprise with many employees. But
this was a hopeless argument, for there is simply no such kitty of capital.
The Marxists who claimed this were simply extending metaphorically
Marx's unjust characterization of capitalist profit. And if Marx's charac–
terization of profit is unjust, can it be said that in making it he was
"arguing for justice"?
In fact, however immoral or amoral Marxists have been in revolu–
tionary action, this at least can be said for them: they were striving for
power, not just arguing for justice. If we were to agree with Professor
Nielson, to the other moral claims made against Marxists, we would
have to add the charge of hypocrisy.
This brings me back to the question of Lenin's character, raised by
the contention that for all his criminality, Stalin was Lenin's proper suc–
cessor. Here I will not take up again Burnham's arguments, which I dealt
with in 1945. For if Burnham's arguments were poor he was still correct
in his conclusion. But I do want to look for a moment at Sartre's ar-
