Ludwig von Mises Looks at the Central Thesis of Marxism, the Doctrine of the Inevitability of the Great Social Revolution that Will Transform Capitalism into the Everlasting Bliss of Socialism

Thus Marxism is the most radical and unconditional rejection of all the ideals of freedom and liberty. It does not acknowledge any dissenting opinion's right to existence. In its endeavors to extirpate all traces of any view it deems heretical, it is in no way inferior to any persecutors, inquisitors and witch-hunters of the darkest ages. But it parades as the only legitimate continuation of all the past struggles for freedom.

That Marxism could, in spite of all its inherent deficiencies, attain the powerful position it holds in the present-day world is due to the fact that statesmen, politicians and the immense majority of our intellectuals and businessmen are entirely ignorant of the most blatant defects of the Marxian reasoning. Let us look at the central thesis of Marxism, at the doctrine of the inevitability of the great social revolution that will transform capitalism into the everlasting bliss of socialism.

The coming of this revolution, says Marx, it unavoidable because the “immanent laws of capitalistic production” must make “the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation and exploitation” of the working-class grow to such a degree that the proletarians are finally driven into rebellion, expropriate their oppressors, and establish the socialist system that will last forever. Thus the progressing impoverishment of the working masses, that is allegedly inherent in the capitalistic mode of production, leads to the great social catastrophe out of which the final radical revolution and thereby the age of everlasting bliss are born.

Now let us first compare Marx's unconditional forecast with the facts of these one hundred years that have passed. Nobody will deny that in all capitalistic countries the average standard of living of the earners of wages and salaries has improved to an unprecedented and unexpected degree. These people enjoy amenities of which the richest princes and lords of ages gone by could not even dream.

Marx and all the others who developed similar doctrines entirely failed to realize that the characteristic feature of capitalism is that it is mass production for the satisfaction of the needs of the masses. In the precapitalistic ages the processing trades worked only for supplying the well-to-do. The innovation that capitalism brought consisted in the establishment of shops producing for the many. Thus, e.g., the textile industries and the garment industries where not substitutes for activities of artisans who had previously done spinning, weaving and tailoring for the common man. Such a class of businessmen selling to the “lower strata”of the population did not exist in precapitalistic ages. The activities the textile and the garment industries displaced were those of the female members of the family. In the early stages of capitalism factories turning out consumers' goods worked almost exclusively for the poorer strata of the population. And also today only a fraction of all the products of industry is consumed by those in the upper income brackets. The much greater part is consumed by the same people who are working in the factories, shops and offices.

--Ludwig von Mises, “A Hundred Years of Marxian Socialism,” in  Money, Method, and the Market Process, ed. Richard M. Ebeling (Auburn, AL: Praxeology Press of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1990), 218-219.