Marxism Translated

21/09/2026

Bruno Schoenlank on the principles of Social Democracy: taxation and a wealth tax

'How should public expenditure be funded? Clearly, everyone must contribute according to their ability to pay. The guiding principle must be: from each according to their ability to pay, ie their wealth.

In reality, the tax burden is distributed unevenly, such that the economically weak are hit far harder than the wealthy. This is a consequence of class rule, which has made the propertyless the object of exploitation even in the realm of fiscal policy.

Capital, in its various forms, knows how to shift the contributions imposed on it in the realm of public spending —directly or indirectly — onto others. And it is always the workers who end up footing the bill. Leaving aside indirect taxation for a moment, the wide variety of other taxes (property tax, building tax, business tax, etc.) is incapable of taxing either those liable at all or in accordance with their ability to pay. The tax is passed on.'

04/09/2026

Bruno Schoenlank on the Erfurt Programme: Criminal Appeal, Legal Compensation and Abolishing the Death Penalty:

'At its core, the death penalty is merely the barbaric remnant of an earlier social order; it is the ancient practice of blood vengeance cloaked in legal garb. Cruel and counterproductive, it is a mockery of the much-vaunted modern outlook. This single objection alone is enough to expose how reprehensible this whole institution is: that through a mistaken judgment even an innocent person may be handed over to the executioner, and that a judicial murder may result. Who knows how many such murders have been committed and will be committed?! There is certainly more than one Jean Calas who has not yet found his Voltaire.'

21/08/2026

'An ever-widening chasm seems to separate the people’s sense of justice from the judgements passed by learned jurisprudence in our day. The conflict between the new worldview represented by the working class, and the judiciary rooted in the bourgeois world is merely a repetition of the class antagonism. It is a clash between the haves and the have-nots on the battlefield of the law too. When we demand that judges are elected by the people, we are upholding an an age-old principle. To seek and find justice before one’s peers, to present one’s case before judges who are familiar with the welfare and hardships, the thoughts and feelings, and the actual conditions of the masses, and who judge and decide impartially by virtue of their insight into these circumstances — is this not much to ask? The trust we must place in judges will be most easily established when the people elect them for themselves. This is already the case in Switzerland and the United States of America today.'

https://www.patreon.com/marxismtranslated/posts/part-xix-free-167289483

21/07/2026

'In light of these sober figures, which clearly and unequivocally demonstrate the shift in conditions, the untenability of male domination — even if we set all other considerations aside — cannot be denied. This change is asserting itself most forcefully within the working class, the harbinger of a hopeful future. And it is therefore to the working class that the task falls of successfully resolving the women’s question, which is an integral part of the workers' question. It therefore has, without losing sight of the natural differences arising from the relationship between the sexes, the noble task of abolishing the exceptional laws that still prevent the socio-political equality of women and men.'

https://www.patreon.com/marxismtranslated/posts/164448572/edit

08/07/2026

NEW POST: Bruno Schoenlank on International Arbitration and Freedom of Speech

'The labour movement demands freedom for its political and labour organisations, for its newspapers, and for all its activities; it wages this struggle not merely for itself, but for the common good as a whole. States in which freedom of speech and assembly are violently suppressed suffer from an incurable evil; they have fallen into decay. The duties of citizens are so manifold, and they demand so much of the individual as a whole, that these fundamental political rights constitute the necessary precondition of a constitutional way of life. Without them this is simply inconceivable. Restricting and suppressing these rights essentially amounts to the rule of disguised despotism. A government that does not tolerate any discussion of matters of general importance without restriction, that watches the press with spying eyes, weighs every word on golden scales, and destroys freedom of association is at its core as autocratic as the ruler of all Russia. And it is merely a difference of magnitude, not of kind, when the former intervenes more ruthlessly than the latter.'

https://www.patreon.com/marxismtranslated/posts/part-xviii-and-163242741?pr=true

Picture: Caricature of the 'Caroline Islands Crisis' - a dispute between Germany and Spain - in 1886. Schoenlank cites the Pope's intervention here as a positive example of international arbitration to settle disputes amicably and peacefully ...

24/06/2026

NEW POST: More from Bruno Schoenlank on Social Democracy's demands:

'Let the popular militia replace the pernicious institution of the standing army, which is driving the people to ruin. Those fit for military service, trained as we have shown above, must step forward to fight for the common good. A military constitution regulates the conscription of individuals into military service. In peacetime, those fit for military service are called up for brief drills and carefully instructed in their duties; in wartime, however, they are integrated into specific formations according to a prepared plan. Every fit citizen should be a soldier; let their weapons hang above their hearths! The arming of the people is a fait accompli; long terms of service and the unbearable financial burden will be eliminated; the gulf between citizens and the army will come to an end; the people’s army will be established. The Swiss military constitution, based on these principles, reveals what a popular defence force is capable of achieving on a grand scale.'

https://www.patreon.com/marxismtranslated/posts/part-xvii-in-of-161957327?pr=true

10/06/2026

We continue our series on Kautsky and Schoenlank's popular exposition of the principles behind the Erfurt Programme's minimum demands: political rights, proportional representation, bi-annual elections and annual budget approvals.

"The moment the government is granted powers that extend beyond a single fiscal year, Parliament becomes a shadow, and the people a shadow of that shadow. In England, the tenacious struggle for the right to levy taxes — one waged at the cost of unspeakable sacrifices of property and blood — is one of the most striking and significant chapters of constitutional history. Without this right, the nation’s coffers are managed haphazardly; money is given here and taken there with open hands; the lifeblood of the state is undermined and the best way of keeping the running of public affairs within the bounds of the constitution and the law is irretrievably abandoned. Governing, just as much as waging war, requires money, money, and more money. How the people are to be governed is for the people to decide: but their freedom of choice is stolen from them when they open their pockets to others without being able to have any control over how that money is spent."

www.patreon.com/marxismtranslated

26/03/2026

08/03/2026

Clara Zetkin, 'Our Day': The First International Women's Day, March 19 1911

'It is certainly firmly established in history that the decisive victories for the rights of women in bourgeois class society can only be achieved by the armies of the one undivided revolutionary working class. But the other fact that is no less firmly established is that working women themselves must remain the driving force of the fight for this right. For women’s initiative, for the great force of collective action! We owe it to this knowledge that the First International Socialist Women’s Day for female suffrage has become a day of glory for social democracy, a day of glory for proletarian women and socialist women, a political event. It rises up as a landmark that shows us the path on which we advance from stage to stage into the land where socialism, the liberator of humanity, will break the last shackles that society has imposed on women.'

Full article publicly available here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99993891

03/03/2026

Kautsky: 'How this wealth was acquired is not our concern here, but it should be noted in passing that it is nothing but a philistine fable to claim that the wealth through which individuals have risen and continue to rise above the masses comes from thrift. Anyone who reads history will find that the first great fortunes were made through robbery, plunder, theft, fraud, and extortion, not through the savings that their owners set aside from the proceeds of their own labour.'