Marxism: Marx (Lexicon)

Question 1

Commodity

Answer 1

something that is produced for the purpose of exchanging for something else, and as such, is the material form given to a fundamental social relation — the exchange of labour

an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another

In general, commodities are exchanged at their value, i.e., at their “exchange-value”

Question 2

Use-value

Answer 2

“The utility of a thing”
“Being limited by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity” (Capital ch. 1)

the qualitative aspect of value, i.e., the concrete way in which a thing meets human needs

Question 3

Exchange-value

Answer 3

the quantitative aspect of value, as opposed to “use-value” which is the qualitative aspect of value, and constitutes the substratum of the price of a commodity

Question 4

Labor

Answer 4

“Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature.” (Marx)

Question 5

Alienation

Answer 5

the process whereby the worker is made to feel foreign to the products of his/her own labor

In capitalism, the worker is exploited insofar as he does not work to create a product that he then sells to a real person; instead, the proletariat works in order to live, in order to obtain the very means of life, which he can only achieve by selling his labor to a capitalist for a wage (as if his labor were itself a property that can be bought and sold). The worker is alienated from his/her product precisely because s/he no longer owns that product, which now belongs to the capitalist who has purchased the proletariat’s labor-power in exchange for exclusive ownership over the proletariat’s products and all profit accrued by the sale of those products.

Question 6

Reification

Answer 6

people’s ‘own activity, [their] own labour becomes something objective and independent of [them]’ (Lukacs)

Question 7

Capital

Answer 7

an accumulation of money that is used to buy something only in order to sell it again; characterized by its circulation

exists only within the process of buying and selling, as money advanced only in order to get it back again.

money is only capital if it buys a good whose consumption brings about an increase in the value of the commodity, realized in selling it for a profit

C - M - C (Commodity - Money - Commodity)

Question 8

Time

Answer 8

what creates surplus-value

Hegelian theories of history see time as the mode of existence (Dasein) of the concept (Begriff). There is therefore a unique linear time in which the totality of historical possibilities unfolds.

Question 9

History

Answer 9

The Marxist study of history seeks both the elucidate the conditions, and first and foremost the material conditions under which historical struggles are fought, and then to identify the agents who make history

Question 10

Means of production

Answer 10

The tools (instruments) and the raw material (subject) you use to create something

Question 11

Valorization

Answer 11

the creation of value

Capitalists do not produce use-values for their own sake. Rather, they are produced only insofar as they have an exchange-value. Furthermore, the capitalist wants a commodity greater in value than the sum of the values of the commodities he used to produce it—he wants surplus value. Thus, let us now look at the production of commodities as a process of creating values.

Question 12

Constant vs. variable capital

Answer 12

constant capital is the value of goods and materials required to produce a commodity, while variable capital is the wages paid for the production of a commodity

Question 13

Constant vs. variable capital

Answer 13

constant capital is the value of goods and materials required to produce a commodity

variable capital is the wages paid for the production of a commodity

Question 14

Base

Answer 14

Base refers to the forces and relations of production—to all the people, relationships between them, the roles that they play, and the materials and resources involved in producing the things needed by society

Question 15

Superstructure

Answer 15

Refers to all other aspects of society

It includes culture, ideology (world views, ideas, values, and beliefs), norms and expectations, identities that people inhabit, social institutions (education, religion, media, family, among others), the political structure, and the state (the political apparatus that governs society)

Question 16

Ideology

Answer 16

a system of concepts and views which serves to make sense of the world while obscuring the social interests that are expressed therein, and by its completeness and relative internal consistency tends to form a closed system and maintain itself in the face of contradictory or inconsistent experience

Question 17

Bourgeoisie

Answer 17

the class of people in bourgeois society who own the social means of production as their Private Property, i.e., as capital

Question 18

Bourgeois society

Answer 18

capitalism

the social formation in which the commodity relation – the relation of buying and selling – has spread into every corner of life

The ruling class in bourgeois society is the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production as Private Property

Question 19

Proletariat

Answer 19

The producing class in bourgeois society

a class of people who have nothing to sell but their capacity to work; since all the means of production belong to the bourgeoisie, workers have no choice but to offer their labour-power for sale to the bourgeoisie.

Question 20

Exploitation

Answer 20

making use of some vulnerability in another person in order to use them to attain one’s own ends at their expense

In particular, wage labour is a form of exploitation in which the working class is exploited by capital.

Question 21

Class

Answer 21

A group of people sharing common relations to labor and the means of production

Question 22

Communism

Answer 22

“Communism is the positive supersession of private property as human self-estrangement [alienation], and hence the true appropriation of the human essence through and for man. It is the complete restoration of man to himself as a social — i.e., human — being, a restoration which has become conscious and which takes place within the entire wealth of previous periods of development.” (Marx)

Question 23

Socialism

Answer 23

a post-commodity economic system, meaning that production is carried out to directly produce use-value (to directly satisfy human needs, or economic demands) as opposed to being produced with a view to generating a profit