Marxism

Capitalism

An economic system where private owners control property, factories, and trade for personal profit.

Communism

A final, classless society with no money or government, where everyone shares resources equally.

Socialism

A transition system where workers own the tools of production and distribute wealth based on work.

Proleteriat

The working class who must sell their labor for wages to survive.

Bourgeoisie

The wealthy capitalist class who own the factories, land, and tools.

Class Struggle

The constant conflict between the ruling class and the working class over wealth and power.

Revolution

The sudden overthrow of a ruling social class by an oppressed class to change the system.

Exploitation

Paying workers less than the full value of the wealth their labor creates.

Imperialism

Advanced capitalism where rich nations control poorer nations for resources and markets.

Alienation

The feeling of separation and misery workers feel when they have no control over their work.

Ideology

A set of ideas and beliefs spread by the ruling class to make their power look normal and fair.

State

The organization (like police and courts) used by the ruling class to keep control over other classes.

Commodity

Any good or service made by human work that is bought and sold on the market.

Labor Theory of Value

The idea that a product's economic worth is based on the work time needed to make it.

Feudalism

The old economic system where kings and lords owned land and peasants farmed it.

Automation

Replacing human laborers with machines, which cuts production time but threatens profits.

Superstructure

Everything built on top of the economic base, including culture, religion, and laws.

Base

The economic foundation of society, including resources, tools, factories, and worker-boss relations.

Surplus Value

The extra wealth a worker creates that goes to the business owner as profit.

Nationalization

When the government takes ownership of private businesses or industries.

Historical Materialism

The theory that human history is driven forward by economics and tools, not by ideas.

Dialectical Materialism

A way of understanding the world by looking at how real, physical things clash and change.

Class Conciousness

The moment workers realize they belong to a shared class with the same struggles.

False conciousness

When workers are tricked into supporting ideas or leaders that actually harm their economic class.

Socially Necessary Labor Time

The average time a normal worker takes to make a product using common tools.

Ruling Class

The group in society that holds the most wealth and uses it to control laws and government.

Vanguard Party

A highly organized group of dedicated activists who lead and teach the working class during a revolution.

Dictatorship of the Proleteriat

A temporary state where the working class holds political power to protect the revolution.

Commodity Fetishism

Treating bought goods like they have magical value, forgetting they were made by human workers.

Lumpenproleteriat

The lowest social class of people outside the regular workforce, like criminals, who lack political awareness.

Petty Bourgeoisie

Small business owners or self-employed people who hold some wealth but must still work to survive.

Division of Labor

Breaking a big job down into tiny, simple tasks done by different workers.

Utopian Socialism

Early socialist ideas based on moral goodness rather than analyzing real economic history.

Scientific Socialism

The term Marx used for his own theories because they were based on real economic data.

Cultural Hegemony

Gramsci's term for how the ruling class uses media and schools to control a society's cultural beliefs.

Overproduction

A capitalist crisis where factories make way more goods than workers can afford to buy back.

Monopoly Capitalism

stage of economics where a few massive companies eliminate competition.

Reformism

The belief that capitalism can be fixed slowly through laws and votes without a revolution.

Anarcho-Communism

A belief system that wants to abolish the state and capitalism at the exact same moment.

Collectivization

Merging small, private farms or shops into large, group-managed projects run by the community.

Forces of Production

The actual physical tools, machines, factories, and human skills used to make things.

Relations of Production

The social connections and power dynamics between people during work.

Mode of Production

The overall economic system of a time period, combining the tools used and the social setup.

Labor Power

A worker's capacity or ability to do work, which they sell to a boss for a wage.

Use-Value

How useful an item is to someone in real life.

Exchange-Value

What an item can be traded for on the market, usually measured in money.

Primitive Accomulation

The historical process of taking land away from peasants by force to kickstart early capitalism.

Reserve Army of Labor

The pool of unemployed workers kept desperate by capitalism, used by bosses to keep wages low.

Crisis of Capitalism

A regular, built-in economic crash caused by the internal flaws of the profit system.

Constant Capital

Money spent on non-human production materials, like factories, tools, and raw resources.

Variable Capital

Money spent on hiring human workers (wages), which creates new value.

Rate of Profit

The total return a business owner gets on all the money they invested in tools and workers combined.

Law of Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall

The prediction that profit rates drop over time as businesses buy more machines and fewer human hours.

Praxis

Turning political theories and ideas into real-world action to change society.

Withering Away of the State

The gradual disappearance of the government once social classes vanish and no longer need controlling.

Internationalism

The belief that workers worldwide share the same struggle and must unite across country borders.

State-Capitalism

A system where the government owns the companies but runs them like profit-driven capitalist businesses.

Democratic Centralism

A voting rule where members debate freely, but once a decision is made, everyone must follow it strictly.

Permanent Revolution

Trotsky's idea that a revolution must immediately push from a middle-class revolt straight into a worker takeover.

Revisionism

Altering or watering down core Marxist ideas so much that they lose their original revolutionary meaning.

Dialectic

A process of change where a starting idea (thesis) clashes with an opposite idea (antithesis) to form a new result (synthesis).

Contradiction

An internal clash built directly into a system that will eventually force the whole system to break or change.

Ideological State Apparatus

Institutions like schools, churches, and media that brainwash citizens into accepting the government.

Repressive State Apparatus

The physical forces of a government used to crush rebellions, like police, military, and prisons.

Reification

Treating an abstract social relationship (like employment) as if it were a solid, unchangeable physical thing.

Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie

A term describing capitalist democracies, where rich owners secretly hold all the real power.

Class-in-itself

A group of workers who share the same economic position but do not yet realize their collective power.

Class-for-itself

A group of workers who actively unite and fight together for their shared political goals.

Organic Composition of Capital

The ratio between money spent on machinery versus money spent on human wages.

Rate of Surplus Value

The math equation showing the level of exploitation (surplus value divided by variable capital).

Abstract Labor

Human work looked at purely as spent energy over time, ignoring the specific job being done.

Concerted Labor

The specific, physical type of work done to make a unique item.

Necessary Labor

The portion of a workday where a worker creates enough value to pay for their own basic needs.

Surplus Labor

The extra hours a worker spends creating free wealth for the business owner after covering their wage.

Absolute Surplus Value

Profit made by making the workday longer without increasing the worker's pay.

Relative Surplus Value

Profit made by using better machines to make workers faster, cutting the cost of keeping them alive.

Species-Being

The natural human drive to work creatively, cooperate with others, and improve the world.

Idealism

The philosophical belief that human ideas and thoughts are what change history, which Marxists reject.

Peasantry

Rural agricultural workers who farm land but do not traditionally own large factories.

Social Stratification

The way society is divided into layers based on wealth, power, and status.

Determinism

The belief that economic conditions completely lock in and dictate the exact future of human society.

Overdetermination

When an event or social shift is caused by many different economic and cultural factors at the same time.

Interpellation

The way society's institutions trick individuals into accepting their pre-assigned social roles without questioning them.

Historicity

Looking at ideas and institutions as temporary products of history rather than permanent human truths.

Estrangement

Marx's term for how capitalism forces humans away from their natural, creative social instincts.

Unity of Opposites

The rule that two clashing forces (like bosses and workers) cannot exist without each other inside the system.

Quantity into Quality

The idea that tiny, slow changes build up until they cause a sudden, massive transformation.

Negation of the Negation

A philosophical law where a new system replaces an old one, only to be replaced by something even better later.

Uneven Development

The way capitalism makes some regions or countries highly advanced while keeping others poor and backward.

Subsumption of Labor

The process of capitalism wrapping itself around traditional work habits and turning them into profit-driven tasks.

Expropriation

Taking property away from its private owner, usually done by a revolutionary government.

Mercantilism

An early economic system focused on government-regulated trade and hoarding gold through colonies.

Teleology

The idea that history is moving toward a final, pre-planned destination or goal.

Intellegentsia

Educated people like writers and professors who think about society and often shape political ideas.

Aristocracy of Labor

Well-paid workers who feel comfortable under capitalism and are less likely to join a revolution.

Polarization of Class

The widening gap over time that splits society into two extreme groups: the super-rich and the very poor.

Proleterianization

The process of middle-class or self-employed people losing their status and becoming regular wage workers.

Interclass Friction

Smaller arguments that happen between different layers of the same social class.

Spontaneity

A sudden, unplanned uprising by workers without direction from a political party.

Industrial Reserve

Another economic name for the unemployed population waiting to be hired during economic booms.