Marx Conceptual Definitions Flashcards
British Classical Economics
- Based on empiricism (knowledge based on sensory experience and observations,
downplaying abstract ideas) - British economists saw division of labour as positive force, naturally leading to
equilibrium (“invisible hand”), production, and harmony.
Division of labour
Specialization of tasks and roles within a society, with
different individuals or groups responsible for specific aspects of
production.
French Utopian Socialism
- Concerned with the social consequences of
industrialization - Believed rational planning of the economy
is both possible and necessary to overcome
the crises of class conflict - Marx admired vision, but thought it was
too idealistic, needed to be grounded in
more scientific materialist analysis
Hegelian Philosophy
- Two concepts represent the essence of Hegel’s
philosophy – the dialectic and idealism - Dialectic is both a way of thinking and an image
of the world - Dynamic and contradictory nature of reality
- Put very simply, the idea of the dialectic is that any
idea generates an opposite - Idealism: importance of the mind and mental
products rather than material world - Consciousness precedes existence
Hegelian Philosophy of History
- Hegel argued that history was the
progressive realization of human freedom - Focused on role of ideas, and resolution
of their contradictions, as driving
historical change - Occurs in dialectical way – through
resolution of contradictions - Can be thought of in triadic form:
- Thesis: initial idea
- Anthesis: negation
- Synthesis: forms higher level unity
Alienation
- Under ideal conditions, man and nature are
one: individuals produce objects that are
authentic and self-sufficient - Capitalist division of labour falls
short of these ideal conditions - Produces alienated labour
- Labourer fails to recognize their
own work as an expression of
their purpose - Labour no longer transforms us
– it becomes alien to us, and we
become strangers to ourselves - Contradiction with human
nature
Four Types of Alienation
Marx identifies four aspects of
alienation owing to capitalist production
- 1) Alienated from the process of work
Wage workers do not what they produce
or how they produce it
Reduced to objects in production process
- 2) Alienated from the product
What you end up making is not yours,
but taken by the capitalist for their profit
- 3) Alienated from fellow workers
Capitalist pits workers against one another
Inter-worker competition
You do specialized task in isolation
- 4) Alienated from human potential
Strips work of its intrinsic human meaning and its potential to express human creativity
In this process, humans are reduced essentially
to an animal-like status
Historical Materialism
How people provide for their material needs determines their cultural, political, and social institutions
* Base (mode of production) conditions
superstructure (culture)
* Mode of production consists of productive forces and relations of production
* But as productive forces develop, they can “outgrow” old relations of production
* This tension can lead to revolution
Commodity
Fetishism
Mystification of capitalist
production whereby we inject commodities with special properties beyond what they really are, while remaining ignorant of the exploited labor that underlies the production process
Capitalist Commodity Exchange
- Capital production distinguished from petty commodity production
- Petty commodity production: begin with a commodity, you sell this commodity for money to purchase another commodity
- Oriented to satisfaction of needs
- Capitalist circulation of commodities: begin with money, buy commodity to exchange it for more money
- Oriented to pursuit of profit
Exploitation
- Capitalist profit relies on systematically paying workers less than the value that they produce
- After covering costs of reproduction (price of labourer), the capitalist profits by ensuring labourer makes value over and above their cost of reproduction
- This generates surplus value which is reinvested into the means of production to make more profit
Class Structure
- Capitalist formula contains a social
relation: those who own the means
of production, and those who must
sell their labour-power - Basis of capitalism’s two primary
classes: - Bourgeoisie: owners of capital and
means of production - Proletariat: wage-workers who must
sell their labour power in order to
survive
The Bourgeoisie as Progressive Class
The bourgeoisie is a driving force in moving society forward through economic, social, cultural innovations but progress also contains dynamics for social transformations and conflict.
- Colonial expansion & feudal origins
- Cosmopolitan, urban class, centralization of authority
Class Conflict
- Conflict between upper class (bourgeoisie) and lower class (proletariat) creates material contradiction (in capitalism) that Marx thought would be resolved through revolution (resulting in communism)
- This is not the case since capitalist countries avert communist revolution through: expansion of welfare states, rise of middle class, dynamic capitalist markets
- So, revolutions take place where the proletariat is underdeveloped
