Week 9- The ideologies of the left

Question 1

What is an ideology

Answer 1

It is “a relatively coherent set of ideas and beliefs that organize the thought and behaviour of individuals in society.”

“Political ideologies […. ] represent sets of principles that serve to organize beliefs, doctrines, values or interests into a coherent system of thinking about society’s past and future.”

Question 2

Left vs. right

What is the diffrence of left and right wing ideals?

Answer 2

dates back to the time of the French revolution. Nowadays, it makes it possible to distinguish between political ideologies.

Generally, right wing ideologies are conservative in the sense that they support traditional norms and values and tend to value order, effort and discipline.

Left rejects the norms and behaviors dictated by religious teaching** regarding the role of women (therefore in favor of abortion because the voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) is considered a purely personal decision by women

Question 3

Marxism:

What is Marxism?

Answer 3

In contrast to liberalism, which places the individual at the center of its pattern of analysis, Marxism is primarily concerned with the economic relationships between social classes and the power relationship that flows from this relationship. This tension is called the class struggle.

Question 4

Marxism:

The two social classes that Marxism noticed

Answer 4

**The Capitalists: **Social class holding the means of production and taking advantage of the exploitation of the labour

The Proletariat (also called the working class): having to sell its labor power in order to survive **
*
the role that ideology plays in any situation of subordination.*

Question 5

What is sueplus value?

Answer 5

The surplus value: The capitalist, who uses the labor power of a worker, derives more value from it than he has paid in the form of a wage.

Question 6

MArx’s solution

Answer 6

For Marx, the price of a commodity should be equal to its cost of production. Abolish private ownership of the means of production, which would allow workers to own the entire fruit of their labor.

The problem: capitalists who act as parasites

Question 7

Historical materialism:

How to get rid of capitalists and capitalism?

Answer 7

Through a proletarian revolution (workers’ revolution) which would necessarily result in the victory of the workers

Question 8

5 stages of history acording to Marxism:

Salvery

Answer 8

Slavery (Antiquity) - a mode of production characterized by the forced labor of people for the benefit of others, allowing the accumulation of a goodwill on their work.

Question 9

5 stages of history acording to Marxism:

Primitive Communism

Answer 9

The first mode of production known to humanity, it is defined by the absence of social classes that characterize the first human societies until the Neolithic.

Question 10

5 stages of history acording to Marxism:

Feudalism (Middle Ages)

Answer 10

Mode of production characterized by the fact that the peasants work the land freely, but must pay part of the fruit of their labor to the nobility who owns these lands.

Question 11

5 stages of history acording to Marxism:

Capitalism (present)

Answer 11

Mode of production born with the Industrial Revolution, characterized by the separation between the holders of the means of production (bourgeoisie) and those who must sell their labor force (proletariat).

Question 12

5 stages of history acording to Marxism:

Communism (future) -

Answer 12

Mode of production characterized by the **collectivization of the means of production **and the disappearance of social classes.
**
In short, historical materialism says that conflict is the engine of human development. **

Question 13

The causes of class conflict:

What is the main conflict of class

Answer 13

distribution of wealth. Who will benefit from the work of the other, who will enrich at the expense of the other?

Free men vs slaves

Question 14

Utopian socialism

What is Utopian socialism

Answer 14

The victory of the proletariat, the largest social class, leads to the birth of a classless society in which all people are equal. For Marx, it is the end of history, because the triumph of the proletariat puts an end to the cycle of class conflicts.

Question 15

Charles Fourier:

What ideal did Charles Fourier come up with?

Answer 15

the idea of the phalanstera

a residential, industrial and agricultural complex supposed to accommodate 500 to 2000 people working together for the common good

successful in the United States,

Question 16

Charles Fourier:

What ideal did Charles Fourier come up with?

Answer 16

the idea of the phalanstera

a residential, industrial and agricultural complex supposed to accommodate 500 to 2000 people working together for the common good

successful in the United States,

Question 17

Social democracy:

What is Social democracy?

Answer 17

Social democracy, like all the other currents of socialism, finds its origin in a set of so-called socialist ideas which oppose the principles of individual liberty and private property proper to liberalism
**

The term socialism, in its general sense, is an ideology that aims to create a more cohesive and just society.

Question 18

The backwardness of Russia

WHat is one way Rissia was behind?

Answer 18

Russia would only emerge from the Middle Ages at the end of the… 19th century!

Political backwardness of the country: In Russia, the power of the Tsar and the aristocracy is absolute. There is a fierce repression against any form of dissent

Question 19

Who/What is the bolesheviks

Answer 19

The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, refuse to wait for history to take its course. Their solution to the problem of the historical backwardness of the country: even if the conditions did not lend themselves to it, it was necessary to make a revolution against the feudal and autocratic system of the Tsars, with the help of a political party led by the Bolsheviks who would thus play the role of “the vanguard of the proletariat.” Necessity of «burning» the bourgeois stage to arrive at socialism.
Lenin seeks to push Russia towards a rapid industrialization in which the citizens will have control over the means of production.