But the real problem, good Marxists know, isn’t simply or primarily selfishness and avarice. It’s structural and systemic. It is the de facto class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, rooted in capitalism: the private ownership of the means of production and distribution and their operation on behalf of the creation and accumulation of surplus value and profit, leading by its very nature to the ever-greater concentration of wealth, the rise of gigantic corporations, and the inter-penetration of corporate, financial, and state power. The solution is what Dr. Martin Luther King called “the real issue to be faced…the radical reconstruction of society itself.”[2] It isn’t simply less greed and materialism. It’s popular revolution leading to democratic control over the economy and a new politico-economic order that privileges the common good over private profit.
