Lecture 9

Question 1

Situating classical marxism

Answer 1

▪ Marx’s economic determinism, his materialism, and
ideas like ‘false consciousness’ mark the Marxist
approach out as ontologically foundationalist
▪ Epistemologically, classical Marxism has a mixed profile:
critical realism.
▪ Social/political phenomena and structures can explain
how people behave, in the causal sense. Positivists
share this view.
▪ But not all relevant phenomena and structures can be
directly observed/measured. Interpretivists share this
view (LMS 193-194)

Question 2

Capitalism = rising exploitation

Answer 2

▪ Marx argued that capitalism was a mode
of production in which one class of people
– the bourgeoisie or capitalist class –
exploited another class – the proletariat or
working class (LMS p. 110)
▪ The drive for profit would lead to:
– ever greater total wealth (‘social surplus
product’)
– ever more extreme exploitation

Question 3

Capitalism = rising alienation

Answer 3

▪ Alienation:
+ From workers to the
products of their
labour
+ From workers to
each other
= From workers to
their species-being
(human potential)

Question 4

Economic materialism

Answer 4

▪ The economic base determines the political,
legal ideological and cultural superstructure
▪ The capitalist economic base = ‘the mode of
production… the technologies and instruments,
or forces of production’ (LMS p. 111)
▪ Example: False consciousness:
– ‘the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the
ruling ideas’
– Capitalist ideology and ideologists promote ideas that
run against the (objective) interests of the proletariat

Question 5

Historical materialism

Answer 5

▪ The history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of class struggles
▪ Men make their own history, but they do not
make it as they please
▪ Communism (and socialism) ‘require’ capitalism
▪ For Marx, rising wealth plus rising exploitation
must lead to:
– rising alienation
– Socialist revolution

Question 6

Russian revolution 1917-1923

Answer 6

▪ Mensheviks and
Bolsheviks (Lenin,
Trotsky, etc.) were
divided on the question
of the vanguard
▪ Does socialism require
capitalism?
▪ Bolsheviks pushed for a
greater role of
contingency

Question 7

Gramsci and hegemony

Answer 7

▪ Gramsci elevated the importance of ideology in Marxist
thought
▪ The bourgeoisie rules not only by controlling the means of
production, but by hegemonic ideology
What is good for General Motors…
…is good for America!
▪ Focusing more on ideology (superstructure) also gave more
scope for (revolutionary) agency

Question 8

Marxism and internationalism

Answer 8

▪ Marx and Engels thought that capitalism
would gradually erode nationalism
▪
‘The working men have no country…
National differences and antagonisms
between peoples are vanishing gradually
from day to day, owing to… freedom of
commerce, to the world markets’ (cited in
LMS p. 114)
Workers of the world, unite!

Question 9

Imperialism and globalization

Answer 9

▪ But once ‘Communist’ countries arose in
the 20th century, Marxist support for
internationalism became conditioned by
geo-politics
▪ Bolsheviks started to push for national selfdetermination in the post-Colonial context
▪ Capitalism and imperialism
▪ Exploitation and core-periphery relations

Question 10

Marxism and post colonialism

Answer 10

▪ Some post-colonial actors were Marxists or neoMarxists
▪ Alienation, false-consciousness, ideology and
hegemony can be used to analyze colonial
relations
▪ The intersectional thesis: to be anti-colonial, you
need to be anti-capitalist as well (and vice-versa)
▪ But: there is a tension between Marxist historical
materialism/universalism and intersectional
perspectives