Is it proper to classify mankind into different categories? My answer is an emphatic NO, because I consider mankind in itself is an excellent classification of unique nature. Here ‘kind’ itself denotes the classification, accorded to man alone. But when I look around, I become so sad to the hard fact that people in general and philosophers in particular establish their assessments and ideologies through umpteen classifications of fellow humans.

Political philosophy is overloaded with heavy stocks of classifications. And Marxism acquired master craftsmanship in this reprehensible art. The more I studied and observed these philosophies, I am rather forced to believe that political science is after all an art of conducting meticulous collection and compilation of classifications, for ready references and indiscriminate applications. This realisation hurt me so much.

Anyway, leaving aside that confusion over the propriety of classification, we may consider the possibility of it.

Is it possible to classify mankind into different categories? To me, this is a serious issue haunting my mind for a very long time. I always wished to hold the view that mankind cannot be classified. Of course, my personal wish is of no significance. At the same time, I firmly believed that things will have to be proven empirically, and with available materials and observations.

While I am fully aware of the limitations of materials at my disposal, I am attempting to reduce my thoughts before you through this column titled as “classless philosophy,” not as a final word on or against human classifications but to assess the idea of classlessness or humankind bereft of classifications. In doing so, I will inherently critique the Marxian classifications of the human form.

The Marxian classifications

Marx could conduct the bifurcation of world on the basis of “exploitation.” Marx held that all workers are exploited and all capitalists are exploiters. As I do not see reliable and sustainable evidence to substantiate that view, I beg to differ with Marx on his famous theory of exploitation.

While I have no objection in accepting that majority of capitalists are exploiters, I have serious objection to classifying them as a “class” of exploiters. Similarly, I do not wish to hide the truth that the majority of workers are exploited; but there is still a minority who are not subjected to exploitation and, hence, become ineligible to form a “class” of the exploited. Further, there is at least an utter minority of capitalists exploited by an utter minority of workers. These facts propel us to conclude that exploitation is not purely or solely class based.

Marx could reduce the entire mankind just into two categories – the exploiter and the exploited. Like the two-feet measurement of Vamana (the avatar of Lord Vishnu whose mighty foot sent Mahabali to the abyss), Marx had audaciously declared that man is left out for classification, as all are included in either one or other categories - exactly the way Vamana asked the hapless king of equality: where shall I place my third foot? (Had even a little bit of primitive communism prevailed in the Mahabali era, he would have retorted back: there are only two feet, where is your bloody third foot to place for?)

I cannot afford to classify even a condemned man just into one category. I shall cite the example of the notorious Veerappan. Is it possible to contain his cruelty just by accommodating him under the classification of “bandit” alone and Veerappan as an example from the positive end? Can anybody classify Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi just into one category or one classification? If anybody attempts such a blunder, that will be abject injustice to the Mahatma. That is the case with workers as well. For he too possesses many manly qualities, one cannot just reduce him to the nomenclature of the “exploited” alone.

No man can be classified into any one category. It is applicable to all: Philosopher to philistine, poet to prostitute, professor to photographer, patriarch to parasite, parent to paramour, politician to pickpocket, policeman to philanthropist, prosecutor to prisoner, priest to pretender, pilot to pillager, promoter to preventer, postman to picaroon, pilgrim to pilferer, parliamentarian to pawnbroker, physician to peculator, preacher to patentee, peacemaker to provocateur, patient to pervert, puppet to pugilist, proponent to publicist, propagator to prohibitionist, proprietor to pauper, pressman to parvenu, peasant to passenger, physiologist to psychopath, psychiatrist to pick hiker, physicist to psychologist, prospector to philologist, protector to protege, protagonist to protocolist, practitioner to protestant, pragmatist to prattler, and so on.

Everyman is beyond the scope of one category and at the same time below the qualifying mark for classification. That is man. Man, essentially, possess almost all qualities; anything could be developed or suppressed when personal inclination meets social opportunity. Man creates wonders, both in high and low conditions, because man is a classless social animal.

The folly of class-based arguments

Karl Marx is indisputably an outstanding thinker and writer. No study, be it politics, economics or philosophy, would be complete without studying him. However, my greatest grouse against him is for reducing mankind to the mere ‘class’ of workers – a proposition I refuse to accept. Marx reduced the vast majority into mere workers and then placed them as a class that is totally exploited. A legion of supporters worldwide, including in India, had followed this philosophical dictum about exploitation and class categorisation to follow their cause of liberation as a political ideology assuming it as emancipatory and innovative.

I have read volumes of selected works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, as well as their biographies. They were powerful writers though Engels is seldom remembered and commemorated by communists of today. I have also explored Mao’s works and have felt that he was more of an expansionist than a theoretician he is made out to be.

One of the biggest handicaps about Marx was that he was never a worker himself and did not seem to know what the worker was all about, though he, ironically, created an exclusive class – the working class for the cause of emancipation. It is palpable from many of his assessments that Marx did not seem to grasp the aspirations of the average worker. All he had with him was his imaginative conceptions about the ‘worker’.

How could a man who have never worked as a worker write an epic about the working class? If at all a man conducts himself as a worker, it does clearly mean that he did not get any opportunity otherwise, which Marx never knew. There is no voluntarism on the part of any man to be a worker or continue to be a worker or be a par tof the working clas movement. To Marx, unfortunately, these were indeed indispensable. Marx should have known that no sensible worker would ever have refused the offer of kingship, if given a choice.

The fallacy of ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’

I too did not like the idea of a ‘government’ or an authority for any sort of governance. We should be capable, at some point of time, to live in a society where there is no such authority to govern us. However, if a choice is thrown upon me between a dictatorship of the proletariat and a democracy of the bourgeoisie, I shall unhesitatingly accept the latter and shall never accept the former.

What’s there in life – if there’s no freedom?

What’s not in life – if you have freedom?

The very terminology of dictatorship itself is frightening. While proposing such a form of ‘dictatorship’, Marx has no hesitation in criticising the rule of democracy as an “instrument of depression.” What a fall for him!

This, I feel, is indeed the biggest tragedy in the history of political philosophy. Marx, in fact, could never visualise a situation wherein all dictators – power mongers and men of personal aggrandisement – shall overnight turn out to be communists. This is what the history of communism is all about from 1917 to 1991.

It is elementary indeed to understand that dictatorship could never be a substitute to democracy. The substitute, in turn, is no governance, or no government – a conception Marx failed to conceive and philosophise about.

I do not know how many communists have really read the Communist Manifesto, which is quite often quoted as unique and historical. If anyone reads it objectively, he or she would come to the conclusion that many of the propositions envisaged by Marx/Engels are derogatory and unrevolutionary in nature. For example, take the provision number four of the general measures which says, “confiscation of the property of all migrants and rebels.” In fact, this is a clause that has inspired autocrats and conservatives from time immemorial, which underlines the fact that such prescriptions are inherently anti-revolutionary and autocratic in nature.

Yet, communism is touted as a progressive doctrine of ‘revolutionary’ character which has attracted legions of followers. But, all the same, man remains evolutionary in nature and he originated and advanced through consistent evolution. Hence, anything durable too equally ought to be ‘evolutionary’ in character. This essential factor has altogether been ignored by the thinkers of communist tradition.

Man being evolutionary in nature, anything durable need to be correspondingly evolutionary, and if not, when circumstances change, revolution too shall become redundant. This is what history both religion and politics teaches us. However, this fundamental fact has been completely overlooked by the framers of communism.   

(The author can be reached at sasipazhavila1949@gmail.com,)