Karl Marx

Question 1

Marx’s key works

Answer 1

The Communist Manifesto

Das Kapital

Question 2

Marx’s opinion of human nature

Answer 2

• Humans were economic + social beings
• Human nature had been contaminated by capitalism, which encouraged selfishness, ruthlessness and greed
• Capitalism has created a state of ‘false consciousness’, removed from mankind’s original state (cooperative, selfless + fraternal)
• a new non-capitalist state is needed to revert mankind back to it’s original state

Question 3

Marx’s explanation of the social class

Answer 3

• capitalism created 2 conflicted economic classes: the bourgeoisie (the ruling class) + the proletariat (the working class)
• class division is toxic, involves harsh inequalities of wealth and power - the proletariat is exploited
• due to toxicity, the proletariat would eventually rebel - capitalist state is unstable

Question 4

Marx’s opposing view of the liberal opinion that ‘capitalism leads to greater individual liberty’

Answer 4

• capitalism creates a ‘surplus value’ through competition
• employers pay employees minimum wage to allow greatest profit, while encouraging a more refined means of production
• surplus value however plants ‘the seeds of it’s own destruction’ by creating class consciousness leading to a revolution

Question 5

Marx’s view on the liberal idea of a ‘politically neutral state’

Answer 5

• no state can be politically neutral, rather it serves the interest of the ruling economic class
• the liberal state is ‘merely a committee’ which could never provide an evolutionary path to socialism
• modern socialists (e.g. Ralph Miliband) who held this view have subsequently criticised ‘parliamentary socialism’ such as the Labour Party

Question 6

Marx’s stance on revolution + ‘Dictatorship of the Prolitariat’

Answer 6

• Revolution isn’t just inevitable, but essential
• In wake of revolution, new state to emerge which would govern in the interests of the economically dominant class - ‘Dictatorship of the Prolitariat’
• Once a socialist state had settled, socialism would ‘wither away’ to be replaced by a communist society
• A truly communist state (as what Marx believed) has never occurred, however this theory has been used to justify many oppressive regimes in modern history (e.g. Mao’s China or the Soviet Union)