SOC 168 Test Two (Marx)

• Two Traditions of Conflict 

• For Marx, science is part of the superstructure

  • Super meaning outside

    • For Marx, this is the mode of production inside

    • Science is on the outside; it depends on when and who is doing the science

      • He thinks science is ideological; findings, interpretations depend on who the scientists are and what their social location is— when and where are they doing this research

      • All science is BIASED for Marx

    • For Weber, we have biases, however that does not mean that we cannot be as objective/neutral/transparent as possible about what we are doing 

    • This is Weber’s idea of objectivity!

      • EX: 

        • Prof did a study on debt; ensure that biases towards feelings about debt are not biased

        • Examine data, triangulation, consider questions asked

• Karl Marx: Environment

  • The time at which Marx was writing is important to understand if we really want to make sense of this work

    • Very exploitative capitalism

      • Subsistence wages

      • Little labor protection 

  • Marx gives us an immense amount of material; not only is he beloved/hated— he gives us much of the critical analysis of the world 

  • The ideas of those who refute Marx are just as important as his

    • He sets the stage for sociology!

      • Durkheim is the soul of sociology

        • Basis

      • Weber is the brain of sociology

        • Terminology 

      • Marx is the heart/gut of sociology 

        • Passion 

  • In the U.S., marxism and communism are “bad words”

  • Germany was uniform, then split 

  • Prussia was one of the most advanced, bureaucratic countries at the time

    • Had a very powerful, strong military— hierarchal, efficient 

    • Bureaucratic civil service; working for the government

      • Quite advanced in these ways 

    • Was undergoing industrialization— at the same time as Britain (peak industrial nation) 

    • Emperors, but also state leaders

      • Power concentrated at the top 

    • Very restrictive state

      • Political elites one and the same with capitalistic elites

      • Little freedom for the average person

  • Very defined class structure of the few “haves” and the many “have nots”

  • Enlightenment was dominant ideology: reason and science, creating liberty and freedom 

    • The individual is bad; impure 

  • Marx is pro-individual; they are not born impure— inherently good and capable of cooperation 

    • “Philosophical individualist”

      • Without being corrupted by social institutions, they do the best thing for themselves and their communities

• Karl Marx (1818-1883) 

  • Jewish Father, educated middle class; Mother uneducated, focused on family and was apparently a “congenital worrier”

  • Father faces anti-Semitism changes name and converts to Lutheranism. Relatively politically conservative

  • Young Marx sees oppressiveness of German state early on as Father/friends/family are treated as troublemakers by the state

  • When Marx leaves home; he leaves father’s political conservatism and mother’s concern behind him (in a very grandiose way!) 

• Marx: University and Marriage

  • Good student but not easy to get along with

  • Stubborn streak: doesn’t get along with advisors. He actually sends a dissertation to another university and gets Ph.D. from there.

  • Marries Jenny von Westphalen, adolescent sweetheart

    • Daughter of a Prussian feudal family. She gave up her aspirations to follow him..

• Marx: Family Man

  • Despite stubbornness in a public sphere; he appeared to be a “loving, gentle, and indulgent father.” Known to say that “children should educate their parents not the reverse” 

  • Despite loving attitude, he lived most of his life in complete poverty, and chronic illnesses

  • His three daughters and wife all die before him

  • An honorable but difficult life…

• Marx: After College

  • After receiving hisPhD, he gets offered a job as editor in chief of a radical newspaper in Cologne.

  • Gets involved with practical debates of the day 

  • Doesn’t last long- too much government censorship

  • With the help of wife's money, takes time and steers himself in readings of political and social history, and theory. Moves to Paris in 1843 

• Marx in Paris

  • Paris was a center of social and political activity and gatherings of radicals and revolutionaries from all around Europe

  • Marx meets Friedrich Engels, becomes socialist and writes the early works that sever his ties with the Young Hegelians (The German Ideology (1845) & The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844))

  • Socialism in the past was simply a criticism of capitalism

    • Ranges from extreme to less extreme

      • Go vote, go back to past, critique the system

    • Marx would laugh at Bernie Sanders; modern day “socialists” rhetoric 

      • Putting a band-aid on the issue 

  • Gets kicked out of Paris by the government in 1845. Moved to Brussels in Belgium…

    • Once there, Marx reaches out to the London based Communist League

    • They are looking to rework their mission statement and goals, and commissions Marx to write something. So, he and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848. 

• Marx in London

  • In London, to make money, he takes job as correspondent for the New York Daily tribune (at the time the world’s best-selling newspaper) 

  • In 1852, he got an admission card to the Reading Room of the British Museum, starts spending all day every day reading obscure papers to that he uses to help explain the inequalities of the Capitalist system

  • Begins work on Das Capital in 1859, First volume appeared in 1867, but total work remained unfinished. Second volume in 1885 (prepared by Engels) 

• Marx Death

  • Dies in 1883 

  • Marx ideas about worker movements, thinking of ourselves as workers rather than just consumers, developing a sense of class consciousness to gain power 

  • Issues for those suffering in poverty are blamed on themselves 

    • Always different stories of how the underclass are the primary people responsible for their own failings in class

  • Marx says it is the people at the top!

• Hegel

  • Politically conservative and religious 

  • History progresses as ideas become more complete and more rational over time

  • Determined by people and groups with differing points of views engaging in reasoned discourse in order to realize truth

  • Dialectical process of history

    • Thesis

    • Antithesis 

    • Synthesis 

      • Resolution of thesis and antithesis 

    • Thesis 2

    • Antithesis 2

    • Synthesis 2 

  • The assumption is that cracks are always there in our dominant system; in the right conditions they become worse

    • Potential of a problem, that eventually becomes a problem

  • Needs resolution to competing ideas; this is how society progresses through Thesis 1, Antithesis 1, Synthesis 1 to Thesis 2, Antithesis 2 , Synthesis 2 

  • We evolve through ideas— main ideas, conflicting ideas, evolution, etc. 

  • Marx says Hegel was right but wrong— he says materials matter more than ideas

    • Who has what?

    • Some groups have more stuff, some have less stuff 

    • Ideas are outside of this, as part of the superstructure 

  • Marx rejects the idealism of the conservative political quality of Hegel

    • Picture of Hegel on his head

  • But embraces the dialectic methodology of evaluating social change

• Young Hegelians

  • The Young Hegelians did not like the political conservatism in Hegel’s thought. Part of this was because Prussia at the time was a very repressive state

  • They were willing to critique status quo, and recognized the ideological nature of religion (ideologies are integrated ideas aligned with people who have vested interests in those ideas) 

  • Hegelians believed that the church’s emphasis on the sanctity of tradition, authority, and the renunciation of worldly pleasures helped to prop up an oppressive government apparatuses 

  • Marx agrees with the young Hegelians that Prussia is repressive and the idea that religion is ideological in nature

    • He disagrees with their insistence on an idealist dialectic

• Feuerbach

  • Young Hegelian

    • Religion came from our unconscious deification of ourselves

  • “Humans have taken what we believe is good about ourselves and projected these on to God” 

  • Religion is therefore socially constructed and will change from place to place and time to time

  • At this time, religion is on decline and being questioned 

    • Freud tells us it is all one big delusion

  • So too is the state; States are created by humans and change when humans change 

  • Marx agrees with Feuerbach that the state and religion are ideological constructions

    • But breaks from him in that Marx felt that Feuerbach did not go so far as to say that there is a dialectic that is based entirely on material relationships 

• Adam Smith, David Ricardo, David Hume, David Mill

  • Marx had two fundamental problems with the political economists of the day:

Lecture Eight (1/30/25)

• Marx

  • We make our institutions, he gives us language about how we might critique these…

  • Wants to pull away from the Hegelian/idealistic side

    • Brings philosophy and materialism together back into his theory

    • Dabbles in both of those traditions and forges a unique path outside of that 

  • Engages with the ghost of Adam Smith

• Adam Smith (1723-1790) 

  • Adam Smith, David Ricardo, David Hume, David Hume

    • Marx had two fundamental problems with the political economists of the day: 

      • 1) They assumed that there were “irrefutable” natural laws of society (positivism). Therefore, alienation and exploitation as products of the economy were historical facts, and not changeable. 

      • 2) They looked at each part of society separately as if they were not connected to each other or anything else. For these political economists, the economy could be examined as a discrete entity, being influences by natural, unchanging laws of supply and demand

        • Marx says how are these unconnected

      • Norms, values, morals that we might apply to an educational system or to a religious, political, etc. situation

        • Embedded system

          • Institutions that are infused by the moral values/beliefs of society 

      • For early capitalist thinkers, pulling the economic institution was to exist as its own independent realm 

        • If everyone did what is best for them, the end result is best for everyone

        • Laws of supply and demand are inherent, natural

          • The lifeblood of this system

          • Any attempt to impose governmental regulations on this was not to be allowed 

      • In the 1920’s unrestrained, unregulated capitalism created its own disaster at the global scale

        • There was an attempt to regulate this now, bring in protections for the environment, living wages, no more monopolies 

          • Re-imbed capital back into the fold 

      • Then we have neoliberalism

        • We need to go back to Adam Smith, we need to pull out capital 

          • Financial collapse of 2007 

• Adam Smith continued…

  • Laws of the market: We act out of self-interest when we produce commodities for others. Our selfish motives serve to regulate the market— serving as a kind of invisible hand

  • This is not the manifest goal, rather the latent effect of selfish motives leading to harmony. Basically, wages can’t be too low, and prices can’t be too high.

  • In defense of Capitalism: Leave the market alone. Consumption and production will regulate each other just fine. This applies so long as business is not protected by the government and businesses did not form monopolies. Spencer

  • Law of capital accumulation: Capitalists take their money and reinvest. This reinvestment produces services and jobs- its good for everyone. Utilitarianism

  • Law of population: High wages create more workers; low wages create fewer workers. This was meant literally so that low wages meant people can’t feed themselves and die. Without workers Capitalism can’t expand.

  • Marx did not approve: Any good political economy theory needs a stronger statement about how parts of society are connected and what actual (empirical) self-interests are.

• Still, Marx borrows from Smith and others…

  • Labor Theory of Value

  • Surplus Value

  • Unpaid Labor 

  • Subsistence Wages

• Key Theoretical Elements

  • Material Dialectics 

  • Class Structure 

  • Base & Superstructure 

  • The critique of capital: Exploitation & Alienation

• Dialectical Idealism

  • The cyclical process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. For Hegel, the force that moved history forward was the metaphysical spirit of “geist.” Hegel often referred to this spirit as reason.

  • Reason, therefore, determined the course of history. For Hegel and the Young Hegelians, history moved on the basis of ideas.

  • Ideas were what were real. Objects had no meanings or purpose without ideas. What is the glass of water without knowing that it is a glass and there is something called water inside? Reality is based on knowing, on ideas.

    • What matters is the meaning we make of them!

• Dialectical Materialism

  • Marx strongly disliked spiritual philosophical arguments as “intoxicated speculation” whereas his arguments were more of a “sober philosophy.”

  • Marx saw the unfolding of history as a product of material forces. Only empirical phenomena are real.

  • If you’re thirsty, what good is the idea of the glass of water? You either have the glass of water or you do not.

  • Marx felt that Hegel was standing on his head. He saw ideas as the driving force of history when in fact it is material conditions.. 

  • So, Marx develops a material dialectic 

  • A development of history, not based on ideas, rather material forces- specifically class position

• Class

  • Classes are those who share a common position in relation to the forces of production

    • The materials of labor

    • Technology

    • Machines

    • Factories

    • Land

    • Labor

  • All that is possible for the capitalistic endeavor 

  • Highest level/owners of the forces of production: 

    • Keep more of the profit for “ourselves”

    • Inequality 

    • Grey area for who owns what

    • Before that, we had slaves, nobles, aristocrats, philosophers, peasants, workers

      • Through capitalism, the idea is that over time we morph into two big classes

        • Large amount of people who own virtually nothing (proletariat)

        • Small amount of people who own virtually everything (bourgeoisie)

  • Those who own or have access to the forces of production are called bourgeoisie

    • Europeans “discover” the “new world”

      • Begin colonization and exploitation 

      • Jolt into the old feudal system

        • A new economic thing happening in Europe 

        • Closure of the commons

          • Take this land, and instead of letting those people live there and produce what they wanted

            • They will produce what WE want

            • Turn this whole land into “wool production”

            • Not a tribute process, used to make money 

            • All the serfs that are kicked off go to cities and begin contributing to the new economic system 

              • Living on small towns called bourgs 

            • Selling commodities to make more money to make more commodities ⇄

        • This ends up destroying and taking over feudalism

        • People who don’t have access to capital become the workers, the sellers of commodities/producers/owners of land become the bourgeoisie

          • If you don’t have enough access to the forces of production you will become proletariat 

        • Forced into essentially a form of prostitution— selling bodies and efforts for a wage; and its never worth the while 

  • Those who do not have access to these forces are forced to sell their labor in order to make ends meet. These persons are called the proletariat

  • This fundamental antagonistic relationship is the catalyst for the downfall of capitalism. BUT the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles…

    • History is constantly unfolding as a set of contradictions

      • Cracks in the concrete that become dangerous over time 

      • Might be minor, can be altered in small ways to be sustained

        • But given the right conditions, they will burst asunder; and they must 

          • Had to happen for feudalism because of the development of capitalism 

            • This is the story of the communist manifesto

  • Compared to serfs and slaves

    • The proletarian works with instruments someone else owns

    • Serfs possess and use a piece of land in exchange for which he gives up a part of his product or his labor. The serf is outside competition, the proletarian in it. Therefore, the serf has a more assured existence

      • Must constantly be in competition 

        • Existence is unstable 

      • Workers are replaceable 

      • Repressive system 

    • The slave is sold once and for all, the proletariat must sell himself daily and hourly

      • Day-to-day work, could be replaced the next day 

    • The slave owner has a strong vested interest in keeping the slave alive (even if it’s a bad life). The bourgeoisie only needs the proletariat as a class, not an individual. There is no secure existence for the individual proletariat.

• Base and Superstructure 

  • Base: The primary economic relationships revolving around the forces of production. This is the determinative element of every society 

    • The mode of production

      • Bourgeoisie, proletariat, forces of production 

    • Foundation of every society 

  • Superstructure: everything else in society. All the other institutions, the stratification structure, and ideas all stem from the base. 

    • Structure on top of and around the base 

    • Don’t lose track of the idea of cracks

      • They’re here— just not collapsing yet 

  • EX: Think of a classroom

    • Professor is the boss/owner, students are workers

      • A few people hold all of the power, most of us hold virtually none 

    • Grades (incentive) are given based on performance

      • Competition between each other 

      • Between ourselves as individuals 

    • Work as assignment 

    • This is a factory 

      • Unequal distribution of quality 

      • Depending on area, better funded schools have better education 

      • Wealthy schools

        • Taught about autonomy, creativity, projects working with each other, leadership responsibilities that tend to fit more with the bourgeoisie

      • Poorer schools

        • Taught to obey, raise your hand, be a good worker that fit more in line with the proletariat 

      • (Not always accurate; but you don’t have to go back that far to see these patterns) 

    • Even the idea of schooling legitimizes the base 

      • Convinces people that the base is a normal and happy place to be…

        • Religious systems tell you to pay attention to the next life rather than this one…

          • Do good things in this one, then you will get into the kingdom of heaven

            • Keep your head down, obey the ten commandments, etc. 

          • Marx thinks of this as a blanket to keep us comforted

            • The opiate of the masses— the sigh of the oppressed creature 

      • Ideological stance: your successes and failures in life are yours and yours alone; no one else is responsible for you

        • Competition with self and others

        • You can get the best accolades, and succeed

      • IF you don’t succeed— that burden falls on you

  • The superstructure is all protecting the base! This is all clouding our eyes from the real answers…

    • We must go back to the base

Lecture Nine (1/4/25)

• The Critique of Capitalism: what’s the problem? 

  • Two reasons: one is economic, the second is philosophical

  • Economic: the labor theory of value. The value of a commodity is equal to the amount of labor (originally measured as labor time) put into creating a commodity.

    • Smith uses it for values of commodities, Marx will use it for labor

    • The worker sells his or her labor just like one sells a commodity- the price of labor is the wage. How is this price determined?

      • If I make a shoe and it takes x amount of labor time to make. The shoe’s value is therefore x. The more time spent on it = the more valuable it is!

    • The question then becomes, how much capital ($) is necessary to keep a worker on the job –what is their value? The answer is that, like a shoe, it is measured by the time it takes to make him or herself ready for work the next day.

      • The value of the worker is in the labor

      • What does it take to get workers ready and able to work— what does the worker need to go back the next day?

        • Think food, sleep…

  • Use values vs. Exchange values 

    • Water bottle example

      • Use value 

        • Professor’s water bottle is useful to him— not to anyone else 

      • Exchange value 

        • Would need to convince someone of the value; pretend its gold— a difficult task 

  • These days, a human’s worth is measured by use and exchange values 

    • Marx’s dream

      • Capitalism that allows us to “engage in the potential quality of labor for labor’s sake” 

        • We want to build something because it is meaningful for us

• Labor Theory of Value

  • The value of labor power must depend on the number of labor hours it takes society, on average, to feed, clothe, and shelter a worker so that he or she has the capacity to work.

  • Suppose five hours of labor are needed to feed, clothe, and protect a worker each day so that the worker is fit for work the following morning.

  • If one labor hour equaled one dollar, the correct wage would be five dollars per day

• Labor Theory of Value Impact 

  • Workers then, are paid only as what is necessary to replenish them and get them back to work. Subsistence wages.

  • But if everything’s value is simply the time to make them, how do capitalists make a profit?

  • Surplus Value: What the capitalist makes as profit.

  •  It is the value that is being made based on the difference between how much the laborer is working and producing more than he or she is earning. It is exploited and unpaid labor. The capitalists make profit off of unpaid labor time.

  • Mark sees money as a symbolic manifestation of alienation, exploitation, and an unfair system!

  • However, there will still different classes during this period of time

    • For instance, merchants had a bit more power 

    • Consider Marx’s agenda…

    • Most exploitative 50 years after his death

      • Note: Spencer was living during this same period of time and was happy about capitalism!

• Surplus Value 

  • Surplus value can be increased by extending the working day (absolute surplus value) or making work more efficient (relative surplus value).

  • What does the capitalist do with surplus values? Invest in relative surplus value (efficiency/mechanization)

    • More people desperate for fewer jobs, more willing to work lower wages 

      • Surplus value keeps going up 

    • Potential problem in the system; egoistic drive for surplus value will crash the system 

      • Where do the consumers go if they all become workers?

  • As production expands, the capitalists get rich, and everyone else gets poorer by comparison (the laborers, the middle classes, and even the smaller bourgeoisie. They all fold into the proletariat.

  • The bourgeoisie get smaller and smaller (but richer and richer), while the proletariat continues to grow.

  • A contradiction waiting to become a problem…

    • Things may start to change now!

• The second problem: alienation!

  • Alienation is a necessary and inherent feature of capitalism

  • For the wage earner, work provides just enough for the maintenance of existence. It does not provide an end in and of itself- that is, it is not an activity that shapes our lives and our relationships with others.

  • The worker is essentially a “cog in a machine.” 

    • Marx says if you are selling your labor like a commodity, you cannot enjoy it— no subjectivity for Marx; this is alienated and exploitative labor.

  • If you are not working for the creative potential in labor itself, you are selling your soul. It is a betrayal of our species being.

    • Modern labor is more complicated… however maybe not to Marx; he would still say we are selling our soul

  • Capitalist scheme: 

    • Will raise wages; but have no say in the productive process 

      • Labor unions said yes

    • Will raise wages; but will raise the prices of everything you buy 

    • They want you to work longer hours for more surplus value

      • Say workers will only work 6. What will capital do?

        • Will hire 10% more workers to cover 2 hours…

        • Tightens up the labor market

          • In the short run, workers will make less money

          • But now, capital would not be able to pay workers less and less because there would not be enough people to replace them

          • Over time, wages will go up and working hours will stay down 

    • Marx says we gave up too easily!

  • Now, labor unions are asking for more benefits and less working hours

  • Workers are alienated in three important ways 

    • process & product

    • ourselves

    • the rest of society

• Alienation: Product and Process

  • We become removed from our human connection to how and what is produced 

    • If it was labor for the sake of labor; this would be the opposite 

  • If we’re not in touch with that essence of ourselves; our relationships with others are similarly weak

    • We are alienated

    • We become like our products 

  • The wage earner has little control over the production process and therefore product.

    • The materials used

    • How to use them

    • What to make

    • How fast or slow to make them

    • How to divide up tasks...etc

  • The process of labor therefore confronts the individual laborer as an alienating power that controls him or her.

• Alienation: Self & Humanity

  • Because the worker is alienated from both the process and product of labor, we are alienated from ourselves

  • The worker cannot reach their species being (inherent creative nature) through their work.

  • The worker is also alienated from society and the rest of humanity.

  • We are just another commodity that is bought or sold.

  • Marx is fully confident that capitalism will implode eventually 

• What about commodity fetishism?

  • Relationships between people become mediated by commodities and money. We tend to see all things through the lens of exchange-value rather than use-value.

  • We have an urge to consume the newest thing- always.

• Smartphones are a good example

  • Smart phones have a “magical” quality for us in that we have forgotten how it was made.

    • Marx wants us to remember that everything we see and use was made by human hands getting wages in a place

      • It was made by workers, and part of a global commodity chain.

      • These workers are alienated and exploited

• Parts made in various different countries

  • All these parts are assembled by 2 companies

    • Foxconn (70%) and Pegatron (30%)

• Socialism or Communism

  • Marx and Engels never speculated on the detailed organization of a future socialist or communist society. 

  • They were much more focused on getting there. That is, building a movement to overthrow capitalism.

  • Once that was accomplished, it would be up to members of the new society to decide democratically (idea of everyone gets a say) how it was to be organized in the “concrete historical circumstances in which they found themselves.”

• Communism in Marx’s Other Works

  • From the Critique of the Gotha Program (1875) 

    • Since communism will emerge from capitalism, it will “in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, [be] stamped with the birthmarks of the old society...”

      • Would be a gradual transition

        • Proletariat would become a dictatorship; seize the mode of production

    • In this early stage, some things would be provided to everyone- healthcare and housing, and no one would get rich at the expense of others.

    • Moreover, work would be rewarded in proportion to a person’s contribution.

    • Over time though, work will be converted to “life’s prime want,” that is, truly fulfilling.

    • This will occur when production has increased to the point beyond market incentives, and people can be “rewarded” not in accordance with their individual contributions, but rather in accordance with what they need to flourish.

      • We stop worrying about essential needs

      • People work in conjunction with what will make the world a better place 

  • Communism for Marx is not what exists today in countries like Russia, China, etc.

• Is Marxism in Conflict with Human Nature?

  • Assumes the basic idea that humans are by nature competitive, selfish, and aggressive.

    • Life is nasty, brutish, and short - Thomas Hobbes

    • Tocqueville, Spencer, though humans were inherently selfish and egotistical

  • In more recent years sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists have gotten involved. 

    • Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species - E.G. Wilson 

  • But, the most distinctive feature of humanity is our large flexible brain. We have, as humans, amazing capability for change.

  • Capitalism encourages competitive, selfish, and aggressive behavior.

  • But even in capitalism we see cooperation, solidarity and passion.

  • Marx and Engels argued that we would see“the alteration of men on a mass scale”

  • This would be the result of the activity of workers themselves, fighting collectively to improve their lives.

  • Nothing in our physical or biological “nature” suggests this is impossible.

  • “Violence, sexism, and general nastiness are biological since they represent one subset of a possible range of behaviors. But peacefulness, equality and kindness are just as biological—and we may see their influence increase if we can create social structures that permit them to flourish.” 

    • Stephen Jay Gould

Lecture Ten (2/6/25)

• Review of Marx

  • We think of ourselves as consumers, passive, but we should be workers, active

    • EX: 

      • Students should have a say in shaping the school as we want it as WORKERS as opposed to individuals 

      • We might start seeing different norms from students and teachers 

        • In mutually beneficial ways 

  • Class consciousness and false consciousness

    • Marx would say we are under a false consciousness

      • This keeps us from working together and being an aware proletariat

  • Base and Superstructure

    • Is education just promoting capitalism?