Lecture 5: Marx Flashcards
Marx’s critic of capitalism
- Critique of capitalism
- Exposes conflicts and contradictions
- Links capitalism to law and society
Marx’s writings
- Polemical: challenges dominant ideas
- Ideological: critiques capitalism
- Economic: focuses on economic systems
understanding Marx
- Viewed as a social critic of the 19th century
- Influenced debates on economics and society
Marx’s career
- Blacklisted by Purissian authorities for radical views
- Became a journalist and editor of Rheinsche Zeitung
- Met Fredrich Engels at this time
Marx’s intellectual influences
- Introduced dialectic thinking
- Believed human consciousness develops through conflict and resolution
Marx’s dialectic thinking
- Thesis: idea “a”
- Antithesis: opposite “-a”
- Synthesis: new idea from their conflict
Marx’s collaboration with Engels
- Engels co-authored many works with Marx
- Their ideas often overlap and are hard to separate
Hegel’s influence on Marx
Adopted Hegel’s dialectical method to expose contradictions in legal and social systems
Marx’s 3 primary ideologies
- Historical materialism
- Modes of production
- Base and superstructure
Marx’s approach to historical materialism
- Adapted Hegel’s dialectics to explain socioeconomic life
- Shifted focus from metaphysical ideas to concrete historical and economic realities
key principles of historical materialism
- Dialectics govern the progression of human history
- Conflict between the haves (powerful) and the have-notes (powerless)
long-term vs. short-term roles of conflict
- Short-term: oppresses and exploits the lower classes
- Long-term: drives societal progress by replacing old systems with new ones through class conflict
German Ideology (1845-46)
- Primitive accumulation
- Slave society
- Feudalism
- Capitalism
- Socialism
- Communism
primitive accumulation
- Early small-scale hunting and gathering societies
- Simple division of labour:
Men hunted game
Women tended fires, foraged, and cared for children - No concept of private property
Resources like food, water, land, and tools were tribally owned
Society was pre-class with shared resources for survival
slave society
- Emergence of private property:
Ownership of land, dwellings, animals, and humans as chattel - Slave economy:
Dominated ancient Greece and Rome
Slave labour central to producing subsistence goods - Class division:
Society split into oppressors (citizens) and oppressed (slaves)
feudalism
- Land ownership dominated by feudal lords
- Economy is agrarian-based, reliant on arable land
- Serfs worked the land and paid labour rent to landowners
serfs
- Lived as tenants on the lord’s estate
Legally free but had no rights against landowners
Paid rent, taxes, and other dues
Owned tools and huts but not land
capitalism
- Capitalism relies on industrialization and private ownership
- Individuals pursue profit through the exchange of goods
- Marx saw capitalism as just as oppressive as earlier systems
- Devoted most of his work to critiquing its features
- Emerged in the mid-1800s, especially in England
- Relied on power-driven machinery for large-scale production of commodities
- A market economy centred on commodity production and exchange
key features of capitalism
- Private ownership of the means of production
- Commodities produced and sold for profit
- Labour power treated as a commodity for sale
- Money as the universal medium of exchange
- Competition among capitalists and workers
- Laissez-faire ideology: Minimal government interference in production
class conflict in capitalism
- Class rooted in productive arrangements that define society’s structure
- Marx and Engels left “class” undefined but emphasized its central role in social conflict
- Isaiah Berlin: Class as groups shaped by their position in production
bourgeoisie
- Economically dominant class
- Owns and controls the forces of production: labour, raw materials, land, tools, machinery, technology, and factories
- Exploits the proletariat by paying less than the value of their labour
- Prioritizes the maximum profit over fair compensation
Proletariat
- Propertyless, subordinate class
- Lives by selling their labour power for wages
- Paid only the bare minimum to survive and work
- Treated as commodities, not human beings
alienation
a state of estrangement or separation when actions and creations contradict or disconnect from motives, needs, and goals
forms of alienation under capitalism
- From labour: workers sell their labour for wages, losing control over it
- From product: workers have no control over the products they create
- From self: workers are estranged from their humanity
- From others: human relations reduced to commodity exchanges (ex. Mutual indifference between capitalist and worker)
alienation’s relation to needs
- Humans create systems to meet social needs
- Over time, these systems acquire a life of their own and seem like independent, eternal institutions
alienation in social institutions and ideology
- Tools used by bourgeoisise to protect their dominance and interests
- Ex. moral beliefs, legal systems, religious values, adn scientific ideas
- Seen by society as natural and revered, despite being products of the capitalist system
Engels and law
- The legal system appears as an independent force with its own justification
- People forget that laws are human creations rooted in the capitalist system
social institutions and ideologies under capitalism
tools for the bourgeoisie to maintain dominance; seen as natural but rooted in capitalism. Revolutionary consciousness is needed to expose these illusions
mode of production under capitalism
economic systems combining material forces (labour, tools, resources) and social relations (ownership and class conflict)
base and superstructure theory
- Base: economic foundation (mode of production)
- Superstructure: institutions and ideologies shaped by the base (laws on private property)
consciousness under capitalism
social existence shapes thought
revolution under capitalism
class conflict between production forces and relations drives societal change toward socialism
