Marxism Flashcards
Name the two reasons why Marxism is having a renaissance.
1) For many Marxists the communist experiment in the Soviet Union had long been a major embarrassment. The break-up of the Soviet bloc opened the possibility of arguing in favour of Mrax’s ideas without having to defend the actions of governments that justify their behaviour with reference to them. Moreover, the disapperance of the Soviet Union has encouraged an appreciation of Marx’s work less encumbered by the baggage of Marxism-Leninism.
2) Marx’s social theory retains formidable analytical purchase on the world we inhabit.
All marxist theories contend that the world should be analysed as a totality. What does this mean?
The academic division of the social world into different areas of enquiry - history, philosophy, economics, political science, etc. - is both arbitrary and unhelpful. None can be understood without knowledge of the others: the social world has to be studied as a whole.
All marxist theories agrees on the materialist conception of history. Expand.
Processes of historical change are ultimately a reflection of the economic development of society. The central dynamic is the tension between means of production (include labour as well as the tools and technology available) and relations of production (link and organize the means of production in the production process) that together form the economic base of a given society.
As the means of production develop, for example through technological advancement, precious relations of production become outmoded. This in turn leads to a process of social change whereby relations of production are transformed in order to better accommodate the new configuration of means. Development in the economic base act as a catalyst for broader transformation of society as a whole.
What is the relationship between the base and the superstructure?
The legal, political, and cultural institutions and practices of a given society reflect and reinforce - in a more or less mediated form - the pattern of power and control in the economy. Change in the economic base ultimately leads to change in the ‘legal and political superstructure’.
What does marxism say about class?
Society is systematically prone to class conflict. The point is not only to describe it, but to change it.
What is Wallerstein’s world-system theory?
Global history has been marked by the rise and demise of a series of world systems. The driving force behind this seemingly relentless process of expansion and incorporation, of current system, has been capitalism. However, this system had a beginning, has a middle, and will have an end.
In addition to a core-periphery distinction, Wallerstein added an intermediate semi-perhiphery. It provides a source of labour that counteracts any upward pressure on wages in the core. It also offers a new home for those industries that can no longer function profitably in the core.
this system will have an end, resulting in a new world order.
What was Gramsci’s key question in his theoretical work?
Why had it proven to be so difficult to promote revolution in Western Europe?
What did Gramsci conclude in his analysis of coercion and consent?
Marxists had concentrated almost exclusively on the coercive practices and capabilities of the state. It was the fear of coercion that kept the exploited and alienated majority in society from rising up and overthrowing the system that was the cause of their suffering.
However, in more advanced societies the system was also maintained through consent. Consent is created and recreated by the hegemony of the ruling class in society. It is this hegemony that allows the moral, political, and cultural values of the dominant group to become widely dispersed throughout society and to be accepted by subordinate groups and classes as their own. (through inst. like media, church, education)
What was Gramsci’s solution to the coercion and consent problem?
Society can only be transformed if that hegemonic position is successfully challenged. THis entails a counter-hegemonic struggle in civil society, in which the prevailing hegemony is undermined, allowing an alternative historic bloc to be constructed.
