POT2002 Marx

Views on History

history is class struggle

• ancient → feudal → capitalist → communism → the end of history

  • the tension between the forces and relations of production will drive history to communism

Theory of the communists

simply put, abolition of private property

Materialist Conception of Society

• if you transform what is below, then you will transform the state

• social relations of production:

  • immediate social arrangements in which production takes place

  • changes over time:

    • ancient world - household

    • feudal - manor

    • capitalist - private property ownership

  • the factory that makes the textbook

• forces of production:

  • people with skills to use

  • capitalism = the proletariat

social relations of production

• immediate social arrangements in which production takes place

• changes over time:

  • ancient world - household

  • feudal - manor

  • capitalist - private property ownership

• the factory that makes the textbook

forces of production

• people with skills to use

• (capitalism - the proletariat)

Marx’s critique on capitalism (beyond the economy and working conditions)

• humans are species beings

  • free conscious productivtiy is the essence of human beings as opposed to human life

  • ex: architects vs. bees

    • bees produce by instinct, humans can produce freely

• capitalism is a social relationship of domination and oppression

• capitalism and alienation

  • 1) in the process

  • 2) from the product

  • 3) from our species being

  • 4) from one another

4 types of alienation

1) in the process

• appendages of machines, one monotonous task all day

2) from the product

• you don’t own the product at the end

3) from our species being

• from the thing that makes us more human - now we are like insects producing out of necessity

4) from one another

• zero-sum competition

capitalism reduces our human essence to a mere means of survival (reduced to animals)

human nature

the capacity for free conscious productivity makes us most human

the communist manifesto

• aimed at an audience of workers, and tries to convince them of the desirability of a revolution

• not an extended defense of communism

labor power

• the ability to labor

• commodity that is bought and sold

• wage slave = sells himself or herself by the hour and is owned by the capitalist class as a whole

the wage minimum

• the cost of maintaining and reproducing the worker

• (minimum wage)

the relationship between the private and public sphere

thinks they are entwined, but prioritizes the centrality of the private sphere

• bottom up - emphasizes the centrality of what is going on economically in the private sphere

Politics as natural or artificial?

politics as artificial

Ideals on Economic Inequality

political equality cannot exist with economic inequality

• private ownership of the means of production (private property) must therefore be abolished

• believes all liberals (classical and welfare) are fundamentally mistaken