Marx Flashcards
Interpretive Structuralist Methodology (ISM)
ISM argues Positivism’s photography analogy is problematic because reality is not directly observable
A deeper reality exists beyond what we can see
This underlying reality must be theoretically constructed
What must reality be like for us to make our particular observations?
Positivism’s “photograph” cannot capture the deeper, underlying reality, hidden bellow what we see.
Positivism only captures “surface level” phenomena.
Cause and Effect in Positivism
In Positivism causation is a Horizontal Relation.
A —> B
Cause and Effect in IMS
Why are these variables in a relationship with one another? What brings them together in the first place?
How must society be built/structured so that these variables form/share a relationship?
ISM understands causation as a Vertical Relation
A —> B
A deeper reality (Z) causes A and B’s relation to exist.
ISM wants to understand what “sets up” the relationships we see in society
A deeper, underlying structure produces all of the different causal relations we see in society.
Learn to interpret observable social phenomena as products of this underlying structure.
Political economy
It is the cross between economy and human sciences.
Who is Adam Smith?
He was a famous political economist who influenced Marx.
He published the book The Wealth of Nations in 1776.
He believed in the “Laissez faire économique” which means that the economy is going to regulate itself with the help of the “invisible hand”. Therefore, he did not want the government to regulate the economy.
What are Marx’s three main Critiques of Political Economy?
- The “laws” of capitalist production are not universal
- Human Nature
- We can not isolate “economic” relations/categories from social relations
Explain this Critique from the main three of Political Economy. (The “laws” of capitalist production are not universal)
“laws” are social (not natural) constructions and can be changed.
For Marx, capitalism is unique and a fairly new system. We can’t and should not assume that capitalism is natural, mandatory and normal.
Explain this Critique from the main three of Political Economy. (Human Nature)
-People are not naturally “independent profit seekers”: we appear to be in capitalism, but it is not our true essence. We should not confuse our true essence with the social world of that day.
-All production/Economic Activity is “social” or “communal” production: we need others to survive and to produce our lives. Therefore, we are not independent.
- Our human nature is to produce ourselves and not make profits, and to do that, we need a community that helps us produce ourselves. (He is a materialist).
Explain this Critique from the main three of Political Economy. (We can not isolate “economic” relations/categories from social relations)
Things like profit cannot only be seen from the economic point of view; they need to be seen in relation to social relationships.
“What is a Negro slave…. A Negro is a Negro. He only becomes a slave in certain relations” (207)
In other words, no one is naturally a slave; it only happens through the production of slavery.
What is Dialectics?
Two things that creats another one.
Who is Hegel, and What does he believe in?
He is one of Marx’s influences.
He is an idealist.
He believes that history is the dialectical evolution of ideas ending in “absolute knowledge”.
So, history is a series of crisis in thought and overcoming contradictions and produces “absolute knowledge”.
E.G., You argue A, I argue B; actually, the answer is C. We were both right and wrong in what we said, so the answer is the mix of A and B, which forms C.
Freedom = understanding the world: no “mysterious forces” control us
Marx’s critique of Hegel
Knowledge cannot produce freedom if others still constrain and control our daily activities.
E.G. If you gave absolute knowledge to a slave, he remains a slave.
For Marx, this concept is empty because real freedom occurs on a material level.
Main differences between Marx Materialism and Hegel Idealism
Hegel: He argues that history is the dialectical evolution of ideas ending in “absolute knowledge”
So, Ideas produce Society
E.G.: Our current government stems from the evolution of all the different ideas and it evolve to now being democracy
Marx: He also thinks knowledge and history develop in a dialectical and evolutionary process of contradiction but rejects “idealism” (ideas are central to history). Marx examines the “concrete” rather than ideas (historical materialism). So, material production is more important than ideas
In other words, all thoughts and ideas are rooted in the material conditions of daily life. Ideas are socially produced, so we must understand social conditions that we are in to understand thought and ideas.
So, Society produce Ideas
Marx’s Critiques of Existing Forms of “Materialism”
Older materialists believed that people were only material beings, but Marx argues that we also have our own ideology that is produced by the material world.
-As we interact with the material world, we produce our consciousness.
-Humans are creative, self-aware beings who actively transform their world.
-Humans have agency and are self-determining.
Marx’s Material Dialectic (Nature/ Other Nature)
Nature: Everything from the natural world
Other Nature: Our human nature, our consciousness that separates us from other species
Nature ——↓——– Other nature
Production
-We want to understand how the material world and our ideas and consciousness always come together to form production.
-Every act of production transforms both the material world and the producer (the person who is working)
“Not only do the objective conditions change in the act of production, but the producers change too, in that they bring out new qualities in themselves, develop themselves in production, transform themselves, develop new powers and ideas, new modes of intercourse, new needs and new language” (Marx, Grundrisse:475)
E.G., Making a table: you are going to transform the material in some way and yourself: Tchoping a tree down, you need the tools; if you do not have them, you need to make them. In the process, you change yourself because you need the knowledge to make the tools, use them, make the table, etc. So as the world around us is changing we transform ourselves
TO BE CONTINUED
Marx’s Methods
Compares explanations to daily material life
Does an explanation of society “fit” with daily living (what is really going on)? Or, does it paint a “distored picture” of reality?
E.G. *A computer only becomes more productive when bosses monitor the employees’ work and when people can take their work home. Otherwise, pen and paper are more productive because people are accomplishing the same amount of work with pen and paper as with a computer. Indeed, those with computers accomplish the tasks quicker and then waste time instead of accomplishing more tasks. So a computer is not more productive than pen and paper, but with certain conditions, it does.
Name the two kinds of Abstraction.
Empty and Concrete
What is an Empty abstraction?
-Distorted material pratice
-Not grounded in real material practice
-Completely abstract, lacks material content, and only exists in thought
E.G. Overproduction is an example because we produce more than we need.
What is a Concrete abstraction?
-Clearly represents material practice
-Grounded in material practice
-A scientifically valid construction
Definition of Alienation/Estrangement
The world appears “alien” or foreign.
It means that people cannot see a connection to the social world. They fail to see the world as something we produce. People are becoming dominated and “estranged” from the things they create.
E.g. religion, government, the economy: all of those were created by human beings, and they end up controlling people’s lives.
Why does Marx want to end alienation? How can we do it?
Marx wants to end alienation, expose capitalism’s contradictions, and change society to fit human nature, which is producing ourselves consciously.
Marx used Praxis to “induce” the revolution.
We can only overcome alienation by totally reconstructing society.
Under communism, people will not be controlled by the economic system they create (no alienation)
Definition of Praxis
It mixes theory and action to inform revolution.
What are the 4 types of estranged/alienated labour?
- Estrangement from the object of production
- Estrangement from the act of production
- Estrangement from species to being
- Estrangement from human to human
Estrangement goes from the product to the process, to the species to one another.
Explain this form of estrangement from labour. (Estrangement from the object of production)
The fact that the labour is external to the workers.
The things I make are not mine, so I’m alienated from them. I don’t own it, I don’t control it, but I do it. The more we make, the more we don’t control
