Strat 3: Karl Marx Flashcards
D: Who are the two social groups in society, according to Marx?
E: What decided which social class you belong to?
C: How does each group make money?
D: The proletariat (working class) and the bourgeoisie (the upper class).
E: The family you are born into either owns the means of production (things that make money, like land and resources)= the bourgeoisie or you don’t own any means of production= the proletariat.
C: The bourgeoise make money from profit. They pay workers less than their labour is worth and keep the difference.
The proletariat have to sell their labour to the bourgeoisie. They work for a wage if they want to survive.
D: What are the means of production?
E: What is capitalism?
C: What is false class consciousness?
D: Resources that create money/ profit= land, factories, natural resources.
E: An economic system in which people/ companies own resources and things can be bought and sold for profit.
C: the proletariat are not aware that they belong to a group of people who are all being oppressed by the bourgeoisie.
D: How do schools teach children not to go against capitalism when they are older?
E: How do families support capitalism?
C: How does religion support capitalism?
D: Through the correspondence principle (Bowles and Gintis). Working class children are taught that it is their own fault that they fail at school and that they must behave for people in authority.
E: They are a unit of consumption- families are forced to work to buy the things they need. Advertising targets this. The family also cushions the effects of capitalism, to keep people working.
C: By teaching people that if they are ‘good’ and ‘poor’ in this life, they will go to heaven in the next.
D: How would feminists criticise Marx?
E: How would functionalists criticise Marx?
C: How does Weber’s position on class differ from Marx?
D: He only focuses on capitalism, he doesn’t recognise other factors that cause inequality, eg gender.
E: He over-states the conflict in society. Schools put time, money and effort into increasing working class achievement in schools.
C: Weber thinks it is more complex- he includes status and power as well as social class when thinking about a person’s life chances.
D: What did Marx think would happen when the proletariat understood what was/ is happening to them?
E: Why has this not happened?
C: Name 3 other Marxist thinkers.
D: That there would be a revolution, that would overthrow the bourgeoisie.
E: Because the institutions (education, family, media, religion, criminal justice) have been too effective in teaching ruling class ideology.
C: Eli Zaretsky, Bowles and Gintis, Paul Willis.
