The Abolition of the Family

    In the second section of the Communist Manifesto, Marx includes an especially controversial idea, stating

"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists. On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital,

on private gain... The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital. Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty."

     This debate is clearly still relevant to America. From education reform to gay marriage, preservation of the traditional American family is the conservative argument for nearly every social issue. On AmericanThinker.com, Larrey Anderson wrote an article entitled "The Abolition of the Family." He makes typical arguments throughout, but one point he makes stands out from the rest. He complains that in stimulus packages, more aid has been given to professions dominated by women (e.g. education and healthcare) than those dominated by men (e.g. construction and manufacturing). He goes on to state that men have a biological need to be breadwinners and that by providing this disproportionate aid, we are contributing to the breakdown of the family. Not only does he contradict his anti-Marxist sentiments by suggesting that government aid be provided to more male jobs, his blatant sexism clouds any logical argument he could have made. In an economic crisis, much construction stops. We stop building and maintain the infrastructure we have until we

are economically prepared to resume growth. Anderson's suggestion that we end our support of, by most standards, mandatory professions such as education and healthcare so we can provide more blue-collar men work is utterly illogical as well as contradictory to his supposed point. His support of "traditional family values" manifests itself as prejudice and sexism. He assumes that women should be the first to sacrifice their jobs in the case of an economic downturn, because he believes that allowing women to work when there are not enough jobs for all men changes social tradition. He also makes the assumption that a man who is not a breadwinner and can't support his family financially is useless and would abandon them.

    At the opposite end of the spectrum lies Li Onesto, who wrote an article entitled "Part 2: Socialism, Communism, and the Abolition of the Family," for revcom.us, the self-proclaimed voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party of America. Onesto's wording creates a feel of radicalism that would be off-putting to any reader not already in agreement with him, but he has effective historical evidence. He discusses the long history of homosexuality, and how the idea that marriage should be exclusively between a man and a woman is relatively new. By defining marriage and therefore families as changing institutions, he removes the stigma from altering their structures. Though Onesto does not state that the family must break down for a socialist or communist system to be effective, he emphasizes a social freedom that is not present in America today. By eliminating religious and cultural customs, past prejudices are erased and the slate of social tradition is wiped clean. However, even for those who stand to gain most from a change of this type, this may be too high a price.

    I'm not suggesting that children be taken forcibly from their parents and institutionalized Brave New World-style until they are old enough to enter the work force, but certain aspects of Marx's point are valid. As evidenced by the existence of Child Welfare Services, Americans see the need for government

intervention in parenting on occasion. In an age when no man is considered property, the idea that children are under the ultimate authority of their parents, even if those parents do not have the child's interests in mind, is no longer relevant.

    Many parents complain about the education their children receive in public schools, and state that programs like sex education undermine their parental rights. In reality, these programs are nearly always optional. If public education was abolished, parents would be forced to pay for private schooling for their children. Private schools are an option for these parents, but they choose to send their children to public school, often because of financial reasons. They claim that if public education was abolished, their taxes would drop so significantly that they could afford private school. In reality, those with children in school (even parents unhappy with the education offered) are on the receiving end of the deal. They receive a discount-price education because the cost of the education system is spread to everyone, even those without children. These cries of the breakdown of the family by government education are unfounded because parents either make the conscious choice to enroll their children in public school or benefit from a socialist system which they claim to dislike.

    These examples demonstrate that traditional family structure has been weakened over the course of American history, but that this change has strengthened the moral structure of our nation and has only helped those involved. While a complete breakdown is implausible and radical, certain Marxist ideas have been put into place successfully, demonstrating that a more successful society can exist when necessary social changes are made, rather than stamped out because they break from tradition.