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Making the familiar strange > MARXISM > Flashcards

MARXISM Flashcards

1
Q

What are Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) 3 main focuses?

A

1) Economic base and superstructure
2) Class Struggle
3) Alienation (related to communism)

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2
Q

Marx emphasises _______ in society?

A

Conflict

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3
Q

How does this differ from positivism/ naturalism?

A

He didn’t see the world as objective ‘facts’ independent of social actors.
He was a REVOLUTIONARY he wanted to understand social reality in order to change it.

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4
Q

A new era was dawning…

A

COMMUNISM

Society has the potential to be RESTRUCTURED, and human beings had the potential to be LIBERATED.

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5
Q

2 essential components of communism?

A

1) Superstructure
(maintains and LEGITIMISES the base)

2) Economic base
(shapes the superstructure)

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6
Q

SUPERSTRUCTURE

A
  • Everything not directly to do with production eg

ideology, culture, religion, law, politics, media

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7
Q

Example of superstructure? (ideology)

A

IDEOLOGY
- Is produced by necessary relations
- Example of FEUDALISM = highly hierarchical
- Needs ideology to justify this inequality
- RELIGION
- King/ nobility have been appointed by god, and the
peasants likewise

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8
Q

Example of superstructure? (law)

A
  • Capitalism thrives through the licensing of private
    property
  • This LEGALLY enforces the ownership of the means of
    production (eg a factory)
  • Law ENABLES the exploitative relationships to exist
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9
Q

ECONOMIC BASE

A

(more than just money)
- MEANS OF PRODUCTION
eg factories, land (modern day = technology)

  • RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION
    bourgeoisie exploits proletariat

(basically = stuff that you need for life to carry on)
(if the base changes, so does the superstructure

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10
Q

What makes up the ‘mode of prodction’?

A

Each society has a dominant class relationship based on exploitation (minus hunter gatherers)
- FORCES of production = (WHAT we need to produce to
survive)
- RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION (HOW we produce what
we need to survive)

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11
Q

Examples of FORCES of production?

A
  • Raw materials

- Land, labour and capital

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12
Q

Examples of RELATIONS of production?

A

Roles occupied (how people are organised to carry out productive tasks)

1) Division of Labour
2) Hierarchy of command
3) Relations between owners and non owners

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13
Q

What is HISTORICAL MATERIALISM?

A

Focuses on human societies and their development throughout history
Societies change as industry develops (people begin to own property & people (slaves))

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14
Q

EXAMPLE of historical materialism

Hunter gatherers

A

‘Primitive communism’

  • Egalitarian approach, less hierarchy of relationships
  • No one person controlled the means of production
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15
Q

Hunter gatherers vs CAPITALISM

A

Bourgeoisie - owns the means of production

Proletariat - only have one thing to sell and this is labour

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16
Q

Is this still an issue today? 2 class struggle?

A

Still exists on a global scale. East and West.
Worker exploitation. Primark factory collapse in 2014 Bangladesh. 1,400 killed - poor working conditions for cheap consumer products in the West.

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17
Q

COMMODITY PRODUCTION

A
  • Marx distinguishes between an objects USE value and
    it’s EXCHANGE VALUE
  • All commodities are produced for their EXCHANGE value
    as the USE value decreases
  • All production = production for the MARKET not for
    personal use
18
Q

LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE

A
  • Labour power becomes a commodity
    (something to be bought and sold on the market)
  • The commodity form comes to dominate over the life of
    the worker
    (those who don’t own means of production are FORCED to sell their labour in order to survive)
19
Q

ALIENATION from? (4 things)

A

1) PRODUCT
(Doesn’t belong to you, as it not produced for it’s used
value. It become appropriated by consumers)
2) WORK PROCESS
(Division of labour, meaningful work becomes
meaningless/ toil)
3) OURSELVES
(Humanity is not expressed through work, opposite of
creative and meaningful)
4) OTHER HUMANS
(Humans reduced to market, contract and money.
Capitalism quenches the creative potential of humans)

20
Q

What is the further reading on EMOTIONAL LABOUR?

A

The managed heart: The commercialisation of human feeling.

Arlie Hochschild 1983

21
Q

What does the ‘commercialisation of human feeling’ (1983) argue?

A

That even human feelings have become commodified.
- The management of human feeling to create a publicly
observable facial or bodily display
(we are selling our emotions through politeness)

22
Q

What do Marxist studies today centre around?

A

1) CRISIS IN CAPITALISM
2) GLOBALISATION
3) IMMIGRATION

23
Q

Paul Willis 1977

A

‘Learning to Labour - How working class kids get working class jobs’
- No equal opportunities under capitalism
- No matter how hard they worked their chances of
success remain far lower than those of the middle class
pupils
- Manual labour (rejecting institution of school training
those for mental labour)
- ‘acceptance of subordinate roles in western capitalism.’

24
Q

Terry Eagleton 2011

A

‘Why Marx was right’
- He took the 10 most common objections to Marxism
(eg it leads to political tyranny (one individual holding
power), reduces everything to the economic, historic
determinism)
- and then ‘tried to refuse them one by one’

25
Q

Terry Eagleton 2011 - Capitalism in Crisis?

A

‘the system has ceased to be as natural as the air we breathe’

‘constantly growing number of middle classes’
(long way away from dichotomy of proletariat and bourgeoisie)

26
Q

Growing middle class furthered by BOB CARTER 2014

A

‘Capitalism, class conflict and the new middle class’
- Above it is the class of great capitalists; below it the
proletariat.
- Labor power is of a highly developed quality; that,
therefore, it receives comparatively high wages.
- New intellectual middle class, more people going to uni

27
Q

CRISIS IN CAPITALISM - Marx quote

A

‘Rise in organic consumption of capitalism = tendency for profit to fall’

28
Q

What book did VICKERS write in 2012

A

‘Refugees, Capitalism and the British state’

29
Q

How does capitalism operate on a GLOBAL scale

A

Division of the world into oppressed and oppressor nations

30
Q

How does capitalism operate on a DOMESTIC scale?

A

Subprime mortgage crisis 2007
‘shadow banking system’
= led to rising net debt to the rest of the world

31
Q

What were BAIL OUTS during the mortgage crisis in 2007?

A 
Consequences for working/ middle class
Money paid from the state = Public sector cuts/ austerity to help the banks
32
Q

How does these bail outs/ banking crisis link to Marx?

A

It is the DOMINANT class exploiting the SUBORDINATE through a class struggle. Austerity affects those who are already suffering more.

33
Q

NATIONAL OPPRESSION quote (Vickers 2012)

A

Imperialism in not an option, but a necessity for capital

34
Q

What is the history behind this national oppression?

A

Established of capitalism in 19th century // colonisation saw the extraction of wealth from countries (legitimised by racism)

Economic base and superstructure.
- Ideology of racism to justify the economic exploitation of
these countries to gain the means of production.

INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOUR

35
Q

‘oppressed impoverished countries whose economic development is held back and whose labour and resources are systematically plundered to the benefit of imperialistic countries’

A

LENIN 1916

36
Q

What remained after decolonisation?

A
  • The control of economic resources remained
    (eg mines in Congo, Oil in Iraq)
    This oil in Iraq was the economic interest for the invasion
    in 2003 (privatised and bought by multi national
    corporations)
    EXPLOITATIVE AND PARASITIC RELATIONSHIP REMAINED
    (West sucking all wealth from the East)
37
Q

GLOBALISATION (Vickers 2012)

key feature?

A

‘Increasingly rapid international movements of capital in search of new sources of profit’

38
Q

What is CENTRALISED OWNERSHIP?

A
  • Control of capital in a handful of advanced capitalist
    countries (owning the means of production, links to
    bourgeoisie
39
Q

What is meant by a ‘monopolistic finance capital?’

A

Combination of banking and manufacturing capital

40
Q

Neoliberal policies?

A

= deregulation of international movements of capital

DESTROYED COUNTRIES

Making the familiar strange (4 decks)

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