Karl Marx

&

Marxism

biography Born 1818 in French/German town of Trier

Jewish extraction Studied philosophy and economics in Berlin Married Jenny von Westphalen

Largely lived off of her inheritance Earned his living (badly) as a journalist Died 1883 in London having only written 3

of the planned 8 volumes of Das Kapital.

PoliticsMarx was a communist.He wrote The Communist

Manifesto with his friend, Friedrich Engels in 1848.

He had three kinds of writing: Journalism Political polemic Analysis of society and culture.

Marxism Socialism states that the resources

should be in the hands of the workforce, not the few rich people there are The true duty of the government is to place

the ‘national property’ under the control of the “common” person.

Communism is a political philosophy which argues that men should have equal rights to wealth

Marxism is a way of understanding and analysing the organisation and structure of society It is also a way of understanding how

societies develop and change.

Theory of Dialectical Materialism

Social and economic change through conflict

Emerging classes associated with economic innovations come into conflict with the old

Replacement of an old economic order with a superior one Capitalism is a qualitative leap over

feudalism Socialism is a qualitative leap over

capitalism

Material, or physical, conditions are what historical changes are made of.

All history is history of the class All history is history of the class strugglestruggle.

Everything depends upon historical circumstances and material conditions of the time.

Dialectical materialism

Marx’s role in history

When Marx died, he was not well known except in revolutionary circles.

After his death, his writing prompted a number of politicians to lead revolutions in his name.

Many of these societies were totalitarian.

His philosophy underlies the thinking of many political parties

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”

Conflict theoryAll societies are divided into two

groups: Owners Workers

Our society is capitalist Owners are bourgeoisie Workers are proletarians

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.”

Owners and workers Owners exploit workers and live off the

money which the workers earn Workers put up with this inequality

because: They are oppressed wage slaves and cannot

fight the system They are indoctrinated by ideology and

religion into believing what they are told by the powerful

“In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality”

Capitalism Inefficient feudalism replaced by far

more efficient capitalism As capitalism emerges, there is an

accumulation of capital (wealth) by the bourgeoisie (the capitalists) and the creation of a free (i.e., not serf) labor force, the proletariat

Extreme dichotomy between capital and labor

Sets up two classes which must eventually conflict

Cut-Throat Capitalism and the Internal Contradiction

Each firm in cut-throat competition for each other’s business

Driven to gain temporary competitive advantage over others

The way to do this is to introduce labor saving innovations that is, replace labor with capital

But innovation diffuses quickly through economy, dissipating innovator’s advantage

Thus, throughout the economy, capitalists are driven to accumulate capital in order to replace labor with capital

But as labor is replaced with capital, the organic composition of capital rises

As the organic composition of capital rises, the rate of profit falls

Capitalists try to keep up rate of profit by exploiting labor more and more

More and more firms fall behind and fail bankrupt capitalists lose their capital and

join the swelling ranks of the proletariat

Value Theory of LaborMarx models an internal

contradiction which sets up the conflict between classes

Proposes a “labor theory of value” Long run value determined by three

things amount of labor used to produce the

good indirect embodiment of labor through

capital and intermediate inputs the capitalist’s surplus

Surplus ValueWhere does this surplus value

come from? Workers are paid a subsistence wage Employers compel workers to produce

a value above that needed to generate subsistence wage

The workers get the subsistence wage, the capitalist gets the surplus

the “Reserve Army of the Unemployed” keeps wages at subsistence level

exploitation of labor

Overproduction

Tendency toward overproduction workers too poor to buy much capitalists too busy saving

(accumulating capital) economic depressions become more

and more severe

RevolutionThe stage is set for revolution

proletariat swelling and becoming increasingly exploited

bourgeoisie shrinking and becoming increasingly cut-throat

the proletariat rises up in revolt, replacing the bourgeoisie as the dominant class and creating the new socialist order

Marx and The RevolutionMarx predicted that wealth would

belong to fewer and fewer people.The workers would eventually

realise their position and overthrow the bourgeoisie

There would be an armed revolution which would begin in Britain.

It would happen in the very near future.

Implication of the Model

Revolution will occur in most advanced (i.e., ripest) capitalist economy Germany UK

Did it? NONORevolution occurs in Russia

hardly a mature capitalist economy