Lecture 3

Karl Marx II

The way people provide for their material needs determines their cultural, political, and social institutions

What is historical materialism?

• Base: mode of production, economy

• Superstructure: religion, culture, political institutions, ideologies, false consciousness

  → Reflection of the base, legitimizes the economic structure

  → Less important

According to Marx, what’s the difference between the base and the superstructure?

• Relations of production: associations between people, who controls the production…

• Productive forces: tools, materials, raw resources

The base (mode of production) consists of what 2 sections?

relations, revolution

As productive forces develop, they can outgrow old _____ of production and eventually lead to ______

modes, class, internal

Marx’s theory of history unfolds through different stages of ______ of production structured by internal ______ conflicts and changing ______ of labour

• power

• own

In the capitalist society:

• Workers sell their labour _____ to capitalists

• Workers don’t ______ the means of production

To a communist revolution where the proletariat overcomes the bourgeoisie and it becomes a classless society

According to Marx, class conflict in capitalism would ultimately lead to what?

human, exchange

Commodity: any good or service produced by ______ labour and offered as a product for ______ on the market

• Use-value: directly using an object to satisfy needs (qualitative differences)

• Exchange-value: an object’s relative value to other objects on the market (quantitative differences)

What’s the difference between an object’s use-value and exchange-value?

separation

→ mystical

→ subservient

According to Marx, capitalism creates a _____ between a commodity’s use-value and exchange-value

→ Commodities acquire a ______ quality that have a life of their own

→ We become ______ to these commodities and they become symbols

special, ignorant

Commodity fetishism: capitalist process by which we inject commodities with ______ properties beyond what they really are, while remaining ______ of the exploited labor that underlies the production

labour

Marx argues that beneath commodities’ use-value and exchange-value, it’s _____ that is the real source of value

Petty commodity production	Capitalist circulation of commodities
Commodity → sell this commodity for money → purchase another commodity (C → $ → C)	Money → buy commodity → exchange it for more money ($ → C → $)
For the satisfaction of needs	For the pursuit of profits

What’s the difference between petty commodity production and capitalist circulation of commodities?

• higher

• labour, surplus

Capitalists:

• Buy commodities which can produce _____ than original value when consumed

• Buy _____ power that can produce more than its costs → make profits and _____ value

less, survive

The capitalist formula ($ → C → $) is fundamentally exploitative because it relies on paying workers _____ than the value that they produce, and workers have no choice to accept because they need their wages to ______

• Proletariat: workers who must sell their labour power to survive

• Bourgeoisie: owners of capital and means of production

What’s the main social relation in the capitalist system?

• expansion

• destroying

• life

• production, consumption

• urban

• centralization

• proletariat

The bourgeoisie:

• Are a product of colonial _______

• Are responsible for _______ aristocratic order

• Revolutionizes all aspects of ______ constantly

• Is cosmopolitan/international in its _______ and _______

• Comes from the _____ class → centralization of people in cities

• Contributed to the _______ of authority → concentration of wealth + rise of the nation-state

• Creates the conditions for the rise of the ______

communist

Because the proletariat has nothing, they have everything to gain from a revolution and a _____ society

• welfare

• middle

• dynamic

In reality, capitalist countries averted a communist revolution and it led to:

• The expansion of the ______ state and nationalism

• The rise of white-collar _____-class

• Capitalist markets remaining _____ → always new desires → new needs → always changing

underdeveloped

In reality, communist revolutions took place in countries where the proletariat was _______ (Russia, China)