KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS

Question 1

What are Marx and Engels key works?

Answer 1

‘The Communist Manifesto’ (1848) and ‘Das Kapital’ (1867)

Question 2

What did Marx and Engels say that capitalism contaminated human nature into doing?

Answer 2

Selfishness, ruthlessness and greed

Question 3

What did Marx and Engels believe capitalism instilled in mankind?

Answer 3

A ‘false consciousness’

Question 4

What were the two conflicting classes Marx and Engels highlighted in their works?

Answer 4

The Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie

Question 5

What did Marx and Engels believe were the main differences between these conflicting classes?

Answer 5

Harsh inequalities of wealth and power and the exploration of the proletariat

Question 6

Why did Marx and Engels believe that other throwing of capitalist societies was ‘historically inevitable’?

Answer 6

Because of the exploitation of the proletariat in capitalist societies

Question 7

What liberal view about capitalism did Marx and Engels reject?

Answer 7

That capitalism promotes prosperity and individual liberty

Question 8

What is the idea of ‘Surplus Value’ that Marx and Engels suggested?

Answer 8

The difference between the amount raised through a sale of a product and the amount it cost to the owner of that product to manufacture

Question 9

What did Marx and Engels say ‘Surplus Value’ implanted into capitalism?

Answer 9

‘The seeds of its own destruction’ by nurturing resentful class consciousness among workers

Question 10

What liberal notion about the state did Marx and Engels challenge?

Answer 10

That the state was politically neutral

Question 11

Which class did Marx and Engels believe the state served and what the liberal state was?

Answer 11

whichever class controlled the economy the state would serve and consequently the liberal state was ‘merely a committee’ for the ruling capitalist class and therefore could never provide an evolutionary road to socialism

Question 12

What socialist other than Marx and Engels also criticised ‘parliamentary socialism’ championed by organisations like the Labour Party?

Answer 12

Ralph Miliband

Question 13

What is ‘a dictatorship of proletariat’

Answer 13

The phase after the revolution against capitalism and before communism where socialist ideas can be cemented and people educated against capitalism which had been cemented in culture

Question 14

What in the view of Marx and Engels is communism?

Answer 14

a stateless comity involving common ownership and the principle of ‘from each according to his ability to each to his needs’

Question 15

What type of socialists were marx and engels

Answer 15

Marxist socialists - Fundamental socialists

Question 16

Marx and Engels view of human nature

Answer 16

Human nature originally fraternal and altruistic, has been contaminated by capitalism instilling the “false consciousness” of bourgeois values. Revolutionary socialism will help this

Question 17

Marx and Engels view of the state

Answer 17

The existing liberal-bourgeois state is a toll of the dominant capitalist class; must be destroyed by revolution and replaced by new socialist state: dictatorship of the proletariat

Question 18

Marx and Engels view of society

Answer 18

Capitalist society is sickeningly, yet fatally, defined by class interests and class conflict. A communist society will be the perfect “end of history”

Question 19

Marx and Engels view of the economy

Answer 19

Capitalism is corrupt, inefficient and ultimately self-destructive. It should - and will - be replaced by an economy based on collective ownership

Question 20

is marx a fag

Answer 20

yes