Marx Flashcards
1
Q
• What kind of theorist is Marx?
A
• Conflict theoriest
2
Q
• What does Marx say about facts and values?
A
• Does not distinguish between them. Social inquiry is simultaneously inquiry that is concerned with what is fact and what ought to be fact
3
Q
• What is Marx beliefs of human nature?
A
• 1. Variable idea, and constant idea
4
Q
• What is the variable idea?
A
- Human nature is a variable, we cannot be separated from social environment that influences us
- You are only smart in what you know, in what you have experience with
5
Q
• What is constant in human nature?
A
- Objectification and manipulation of things (labour)
- Writing in lecture, using technology
- No other species does this
6
Q
• What is species being
A
- We think, we objectify our thoughts through our actions on to things
- Feedback loop- how we manipulate things, lets us know who we are (we are students because we are sitting in class)
- We create our own needs through manipulation of objects (do we NEED laptops?)
7
Q
• How is labour social?
A
- Labour is always the function of another relationship with another human being
- We labour with others
8
Q
• What do we understand when we see others implicated in our labour?
A
• Morality is a relevant sociological area
• Morality doesn’t exist without human relationship
Self-awareness makes us understand we are apart of the same group
9
Q
• What does Marx say about the moral
A
- He asks what we ought to be, and uses this standard to criticize what isn’t the standard
- Uses mutual respect as a dialogical principle
- The foundation for reaching human achievements is understanding eachother as thinkers and speakers
10
Q
• What is an ideal human relationship
A
• Relationships among persons and nature are always non exploited (negative expression) could have said are always mutually respected (positive expression)
11
Q
• What are the three ways hegel influences marx
A
- Idealism vs. materialism
- Dialectical logic
- The problem of ideas
12
Q
• Explain idealism
A
- Marx says reality causes ideas
* Hegel says ideas cause reality
13
Q
• What is dialectic
A
Exploitation ->alienation and alienation -> exploitation
14
Q
• What are ideologies
A
- Exploitative systems cause them
* Systems of ideas
15
Q
• What is exploitation
A
- The surplus value of your labour is appropriated for benefit of another
- Causes alination
16
Q
• What is alienation
A
- A social cognitive behavioural condition, in which people produce things, fail to see themselves as the authors of those things and allow those things to oppose them in some sense
- Explolitation -> alienation
17
Q
• Explain historical and structural totality
A
- History is 7 and a half circles
- Each represents a separate epoch of history
- Reasonably discrete period of time
- Demoniators of these circles represent reality and the reality of labour (material reality)
- What is the numerator
- The belief system in the way we do things
18
Q
• Why do the circles intersect
A
- Represent the culmination of dialectical tension (revolution)
- Transition from one circle to another is vioelent
- Involves abrupt qualitative changes
19
Q
• What happens as the circle matures
A
- Something in the demoninator begins to oppose itself
- Creating a dialectical leap
- Leaving last circle open
20
Q
• Why is last circle open
A
• Open at the end of time for new ideas
21
Q
• What people decide is based on mutual respect
A
• Represents communism
22
Q
• What circle are we in
A
• 6th
23
Q
• what is communism
A
- never existed in Marx’s view
* the democratic control of production (a social organization)
24
Q
• What are the parts of society
A
Base and superstructure
25
• Explain the base
* denominator
* Mode of production
* 2 major forces: force of production and relations of production
26
• what are the forces of production
• tools and raw materials
27
• what is the relations of production
• how we organize our relationships with eachother in order to use the forces
28
• what is the superstructure
* the numerator – idealational realm has culture, religion education, art
* all generated with how we labour with one another and the tools we use to manipulate
29
• what type of theory is marx
* developmental not evolutionary
* developmental: moving towards an endpoint
* goal is something that ought to happen
* building into our capacity to make moral judgment
* all relationships non exploitive
30
• what happens in a relationship of not exploitation
* we see eachother as thinkers and speakers not jews and catholics
* we respect eachother
31
• what is the first circle
* ‘primitive communism’
* tribal/ primitive society
* women and men do everything the same
* product and labour are both shared
* because of difficulty of survival no knowledge of how they are living
32
• what is the second circle
* Asiatic
* Still hunting and gathering but its more focused on agriculture
* They farm too
* No social classes? Why? No private pripoty
* Labour divided to a noticble extent
* All productive surplus is redistributed
33
• What is the third circle?
* Ancient city
* Cities made through tribes
* There dominant and mode of existice is through agriculture
* They move to private property
* In the rural citicies it’s still common property
* Beginning of social classes and slavery
34
• Explain fourth circle
* Germanic
* Culturally dominated by ethnic distinction
* Dominant mode of existence was still hunting, stealing, planting
* Like robinhood movies
35
• Explain fifth circle
* Feudalism
* Centralism
* Occurs throughout all western Europe and the middle east
* Different forms of agriculture throughout
* Very sophisticated cultural and religious system and castes (king, lord, knight, peasant)
* Private property
* Feudal manners and small cabins
36
• Explain sixth circle
* Social classes
* Private property
* More extreme forms of alienation and exploitation
* Much more simplified social hierarchy
* In the context of labour extremely simplified: owners and workers
37
• Explain Seventh circle
| •
Socialism
38
• Explain Open circle
• communism
39
• what is the dominant theme after the first loop
clear emergence of social class, and increasing exploitation and alienation
40
• what is the importance of history?
* History is necessary
* We can’t have socialism without the technological knowledge of capitalism
* We can’t achieve mutual respect without socialism
41
• Why does the circle change
* Remember hegels dialectic
* At the beginning of any historical epoch, the dominant forces of production and the relations of production will be in harmony
* The superstructure they create will function to legitimate this harmony
* At a certain point in their development the FOP in order to keep growing will have to destroy the existing ROP and replace them with new ones
42
• How do we determine or measure social class
• SES, education income and occupation
43
• What does marx consider class
* False consciousness
* Everything we have learned about stratification is false
* True conception of class would be the need to make a better world
* In the SES notion of class we all have same interests – money
* But working and owning class have different interests
* Thus class is about opposition
44
• what is class for itself
* if your interests are opposed to other groups and you are angry with class differences
* this opposition sets stage for social change and revolution
45
• what are the conditions necessary for class for itself to emerge
* 1. A concentration of workers into urban areas
* 2. A network of communications among workers has to be established
* 3. The owning class can’t be doing same thing – can’t be developing self awareness
* not seing themselves as a coordinating group
* see the working class as a set of people they need to manipulate more efficiently
* if the owning class gets it together, working class won’t move forward
46
• define alienation
• social, cognitive, behavioural condition where we produce things and fail to know our ownership of those things
47
• what are the 3 types of alienation
Religion, political, and economic
48
• Define religious alienation
* Marx gets idea from Feuerbach
* We experience ourselves as evil, born into original sin
* To deal with this we conceptualize the good and right and project these ideas onto god
* See ourselves as good and evil and it’s my responsibility to decide which
49
• Define political alienation
* We forget our authorship of the political
* We relinquish all sorts of rights and responsibility
* We allow surveillance and control
50
• Define economic exploitation
Involves use value and exchange value
51
• What is use value
* What a thing is used for – the use value of something is based on the need it satisfies
* Historically, the farther back you go the more dominant becomes use value in human civilization
* Its realization is in the barter system, but things get complicated when barter goes on in different geographical locations
* So we convert our economies to exchange value
52
• Explain exchange value
* Doesn’t replace use value – use value is always the bottom line even if it is aesthetic everything has use value
* Money can be used for anything
* In exchange value circumstance we forget about the essence of objects and see them in relation to other objects
* Gives you the power to enter into an economic relationship
53
• What are commodities
* Things in an exchange value situation
* An object, don’t look at it’s intrinsic value, look at it in relationship for another thing
* Human labour now becomes a commodity
54
• In what ways is human labour a commodity
• The value of the human being as a worker or laborer isn’t determined by respect of abilities
55
• What is commodity fetishism
* Tend to see in things a value and lust after and crave, but we fail to see the true value of the car
* We have built this cultural system through our economic practices that prevents us from seeing the other
56
• What are the conditions of being alienated
* Workers alienated from
* What they produce
* How they produce
* Themselves
* Other workers (human community)
