Marxism

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  • Definition
    • Marxism
      • A conflict perspective based on the ideas of Karl Marx (1818-1883). It sees society as divided into 2 opposing classes- the proletariat and the bourgeoisie
      • Historical materialism
        • Materialism- humans are beings with material needs eg food, clothing, shelter etc, and must work to meet them
          • In the early years of humanity these were unaided human labour- then we developed tools and machines.
            • Eventually develops to create a society with those who have the means of production and those who have their labour.
              • The relationship between these is known as the mode of production.This forms the economic base of society.
      • Class society and exploitation
        • Earliest stage of human history- no classes, no private ownership, everything is shared- primitive communism
        • Marx 3 class societies
          • Ancient society- based on exploitation of slaves legally tied to their owners.
          • Feudal society- based on the exploitation of serfs legally tied to the land.
          • Capitalist society- based on the exploitation of free wage labourers
      • Capitalism
        • Has 3 distinctive features
          • The proletariat are legally free and separated from the means of production. They don't own the MOP so have to sell their labour in return for wages.
          • Ownership of the MOP becomes concentrated in fewer hands through competition
      • Class consciousness
        • Polarisation results in the in the proletariat moving away from being merely a class in itself (one whose members occupy the same economic position) to becoming a class for itself- whose members are class conscious- aware of the need to overthrow capitalism
      • Ideology
        • The class who owns the MOP also owns and controls the mental production.
        • The dominant ideas of society are those of the economically dominant class.
        • The institutions that produce and spread these ideas are religion, education and the media
        • ideologies are sets of beliefs and ideas that legitimise the existing social order as desirable or inevitable.
      • Alienation
        • Alienation is the result of our loss of control over our labour and its products and therefore our separation from our true nature.
        • alienation reaches its peak because workers are completely separated from and have no control over the forces of production. Also, the division of labour is at its most intense and detailed: the worker is reduced to an unskilled labourer mindlessly repeating a meaningless task.
        • Marx also sees religion as originating in the alienation of human labour.
      • The state, revolution and communism
        • The state exists to protect the interests of the class of owners who control it.
        • Any class that wishes to lead a revolution and become the economically dominant class must overthrow the existing ruling class.
        • The ruling class us ethe state as a weapon in the class struggle, to protect their property, suppress opposition and prevent revolution.
        • A revolution will abolish the state and create a classless communist society. Abolish exploitation, replace private ownership with social ownership, and replace production for profit with production to satisfy human needs. End alienation as humans regain control of their labour and its products.
        • Marx expected the revolution to happen in the most advanced capitalist societies first and then expand tot he rest of the world. However Marx wrote very little on how the revolution would come about.
      • Criticisms of Marx
        • Marx's view of class
          • Marx has a simplistic, one dimensional view of inequality- he sees class as the only important division. However Weber argues that status and power differences can also be a source of inequality.
          • Marx's two-class  model is also simplistic. Weber sub-divides the proletariat into skilled and unskilled classes, and includes a white-collar middle class of office worker and the bourgeoisie
          • Class polarisation hasn't occurred. Instead of the middle class shrinking, it has grown in western countries, while th eproletariat is shrinking. however in countries such as India and China the proletariat has grown as a result of gloabalisation.
        • Economic determinism
          • Marx's base-superstructure model is criticised for economic determinism- the view that economic factors are the sole cause of everything in society, including social change- fails to realise that people have free will and can consciously bring about social change
          • The base-superstructure model ignores the role of ideas. Weber argues that it was the emergence of calvinistic protestantism which helped to bring modern capitalism about.
          • Marx's predictions of a revolution have not come true.
          • However he said that a revolution would only happen if the proletariat wanted it too, thus realising the role of free will.
      • The Two Marxisms
        • Humanistic or critical marxism
          • Gramsci and hegemony
            • Draws on Marx's early writings, where he focuses on alienation and people's subjective experience of the world.
            • Marxism is a political critique of capitalism as alienating and inhuman, and a call to to overthrow it.
            • Voluntarism: Humans have free will. They are active agents who make their own history. Their consciousness and ideas are central in changing the world.
            • Socialism will come about when people become conscious of the need to overthrow capitalism. Encourages political action, believing the time is always ripe for revolution.
            • Coercion: it uses the army, police, prisons and courts of the capitalist state to force other classes to accept its rule.
            • Consent (hegemony): it uses ideas and values to persuade the subordinate classes that its rule is legitimate.
          • Evaluation
            • over-emphasises the role of ideas and under-emphasizes the role of both state coercion and economic factors.
            • Paul Willis-describes the working-class lads he studied as 'partially-penetrating' bourgeois ideology- seeing the mytrh iof meritocracy.
            • They're called neo-marxists
        • Scientific or structuralist marxism
          • Althusser's structuralist Marxsim
            • Draws on Marx's later work, where he writes about the laws of capitalist development working with 'iron necessity' towards inevitable results.
            • Marxism is a science. It discovers the laws that govern the workings of capitalism.
            • Determinism: structural factors determine the course of history. individuals are passive puppets- victims of ideology manipulated by forces beyond their control.
            • Socialism will come about only when the contradictions of capitalism ultimately bring about the system's inevitable collapse. Tends to discourage political action.
            • The repressive state apparatuses- these are the armed bodies of men- the army, police, prisons etc-they coerce the working class into complying with the will of the bourgeoisie.
            • The ideological state apparatuses- these include the media, education, family etc. they manipulate the working class into accepting capitalism as legitimate.
          • Evaluation
            • simply replaces economic determinism with structural determinism.
            • E.P. Thompson critices Althusser for ignoring teh fact that it is the active struggles of the working class that can change society.

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