Marxism Flashcards
Bourgeoise
private business owners
Proletariat
workers
False class consciousness
blinded to exploitation
Key features of capitalism according to Marx
- Owners of a business must create surplus value (e.g., profit) from the work of the poor in order to maintain their power
- Owners of factories and companies are in an exploitative relationship with the poor
- The poor do not realise they are being exploited by the rich because they are taught to accept the status quo
Relationship between the capitalist and the worker
Bourgeoise own the means of production (any means of creating wealth and profit e.g., factories) The workers (proletariat) sell their labour to the bourgeoise who pay little to maximise profit (achieve surplus value)
False class consciousness – advertising promotes consumerism Marcuse – gives the w/c false needs Miliband – media – opium of the masses
Conflict theory
there is competition between the bourgeoise and proletariat over resources, wealth, money and
Epochs
Marx = western society has passed through stages/’epochs’, gradually developing into the next form of society:
1) Primitive consumerism = where people hunted, most things were owned in common
2) Ancient society = slaves and peasants carried out the work
Feudal society = warlords owned land, but peasants worked on it for their masters
Capitalism = which is based on industrialisation and the need to create wealth through the manufacture and sale of goods
substructure (base) and superstructure
Cause of inequality – structure of society
Substructure = materials/social control used by society to create products and services, includes land, machinery and a labour force of workers
Owners control the superstructure or base because they own all the resources, we need
Workers must sell their labour in order to survive and in doing so give bosses the power to tell them what to do
The owners of the base – become the ruling class because they then control the superstructure (consisting of beliefs/ideologies of society)
The Marxist concept of alienation
Alienated from the product as it earns money for capitalism
They are alienated from the product itself
They are alienated from each other/coworkers as they are in competition
They are alienated from themselves and their own happiness
The reserve army of labour
Lumpenproletariat
Marxists claim capitalism goes through periods of slumps and peaks
These are poor, old, migrants, women or the long term unemployed
Willing to work for very little money
Crisis kept low - hold wages down
Polarisation of the classes
believed certain factors in the natural development of capitalism would hasten it’s downfall
Factors would result in polarisation of 2 main classes
Meaning they would grow further apart
Competition between business
Increase in machinery
Difference in wealth
Key points about polarisation
Bourgeoise class owns the means of production while the proletariat sells their labour to the bourgeoise The bourgeoise have power and status, maintained through societies superstructure – it’s values, ideologies and norms Ideal Marxist communist society, everyone would share access to the means of production and social stratification would not exist
Strengths
+ There are still very clear and obvious examples today of social inequality and the unfair position of those in power compared to those in the w/c
+ Considers conflict which exists in society (unlike functionalists)
+ Works of Karl Marx influenced many sociological debates/key writers (Weber to Neo-Marxists)
Weaknesses
X Feminists – malestream, class exploitation ignores issues of gender, race, criticised for being reductionist (focusing on social class) therefore, is too economically deterministic X Development of capitalism has not confirmed polarisation and dichotomization but sub-division and splitting up of classes that Weber predicted X Postmodernists – death of class in society, highly critical of meta-narratives X Social mobility does not exist in capitalist societies X Contradictory, if the bourgeoise are controlling
