Marx Key Terms Study

Capitalism -

A specific way of organizing commodity production (such as factories, land, and oil wells) based on inequality between capitalists and wage laborers, where workers' labor is used to generate profit for capitalists.

Mode of Production -

The way a society organizes its material and social existence, including how goods and resources are produced and distributed.

Historical Materialism -

The theory that a society's economic system shapes its laws, culture, politics, and history.

Class Relations -

The social, economic, and political interactions and power dynamics between different social classes, based on unequal access to rights, authority, and resources.

Dialectical Materialism -

A way of understanding society by looking at the real world and how change occurs through conflicts between opposing forces.

Communism -

Marx's final stage of social development, where capitalism is overthrown and replaced by a classless society in which resources are collectively owned rather than privately owned.

Capital -

Money and other resources used to produce goods and services in order to generate more wealth or profit.

Use Value -

The usefulness of an item and how well it satisfies a human want or need.

Commodification of Labor -

The process of treating human time, energy, and physical or mental skills as a commodity that can be bought and sold in the market.

False Consciousness -

A situation in which members of the working class hold beliefs that go against their own class interests.

The Proletariat -

The working class, or wage workers, who must sell their labor to the capitalist class in order to survive.

Surplus Value -

The value produced by workers beyond what they are paid in wages, which becomes profit for the capitalist.

Commodity Fetishism -

The idea that people in capitalist societies view commodities as having value on their own while forgetting the human labor and social relationships involved in producing them.

Superstructure -

The cultural, political, and legal institutions of society that develop from and reflect its economic foundation.

Base

The economic foundation of society, including the means of production and the relationships involved in producing goods and services.

Bourgeoisie =

capitalist/owners of the means of production

Proletariat =

working class that sells its labor

Means of production =

land, capital, tools, factories, etc.

Labor power =

a worker's capacity to work

Surplus value =

value created by workers but taken by capitalists

Alienation =

workers becoming separated from their work, products, human potential, and others

Exploitation =

capitalists obtaining surplus value from workers

Historical materialism =

understanding history through material conditions and production

Dialectical materialism =

material conditions + contradictions/change

Class consciousness =

workers recognizing their shared class interests

Communism =

envisioned classless society with collective control and no capitalist private property

Species-being =

uniquely human qualities/potential expressed through productive activity