A NOTE ON EPISTEMIC NAIVETE IN MARX AND ENGELS

Marx and Engels argue that capitalism must ultimately destroy itself because it contains an internal contradiction: Capitalism requires wage laborers at first to be in competitive isolation from one another, lest their common interests become transparent and they unite collectively to improve their employment conditions. At a certain later stage of capitalism's historical development, however, competition eventually forces capitalists to bring their workers together in common workplaces (factories), where their shared interests can be immediately perceived and mutual grievances directly communicated. The Communist Manifesto's argument for the inevitable downfall of capitalism is epistemically naive in several ways, resting as it does on the idea that material interests are perceivable, and that an awareness of common problems translates automatically into a sense of shared interests powerful enough to motivate coordinated action for the sake of achieving economic-political reform.