Marx and ModernitySII Lecture 7

Marx’s Basic Concepts

• ‘Mode of production’ = HOW people interact with nature and with one another to subsist

• Different ‘modes of production’, e.g. food gathering/hunting; feudal agriculture; mercantile trade; manufacturing, these determine social relationships within the respective societies

• For Modernity, the key change was from Feudal to Capitalist production

To Marx Modernity meant Capitalism

Change from Feudalism to Capitalism represented a new ‘mode of production’ of Modernity, in that:

• Feudal society was not basically an exchange economy:

what was produced were not ‘commodities’ for exchange

• Because products (food, handicrafts) retained their ‘use’ value

• And ‘use value’ controlled how much was produced

• Much of the ‘means of production’ remained in the hands of the serfs (producers) – land, common grazing, animals, tools – providing means of subsistence

The Feudal Manor

Each ‘Mode of Production has two features

1. The ‘forces of production’ = the labour power of workers + their form of co-operation (division of labour) + ‘means of production’ (tools, machinery, technology)

2. The ‘relations of production’ = the organization of productive activities, especially property relations. E.g. Master-Slave (Antiquity); Lord-Serf (Feudalism); Owner-Worker (Capitalism)

Capitalism and Class

• Production for ‘exchange’ value not ‘use’ value

• Class domination: was based on ‘relations of production’ that enabled surplus production (beyond bare subsistence) to be expropriate by a minority – owners of the ‘means of production’

• Class is about ‘relations of production’ NOT earnings

• Hence the 3 great classes of early Capitalism:

landowners, entrepreneurs, property-less workers

Image of the Capitalist Social Structure

Capitalism and Class become simplified

• Expropriation of workers from land left them with only their ‘labour-power’ to sell

• Made market relations central to productive activity, without any other relations generating solidarity (unlike Durkheim’s view)

• Polarization of the class structure as: - Repeal of Corn Laws (1846) subordinated

agriculture to industry - Capital concentration meant small shop-keepers

etc. swallowed into proletariat• The ‘marginals’ (Lumpenproletariat) were used as a

‘reserve army of the unemployed’ to drive wages down

Capitalism and Commodification

• The worker also becomes a commodity, exchanging ‘labour power’, valued at the price of subsistence.

• But workers produce more than the costs of their subsistence - the remainder is ‘surplus value’ = profit after subtracting costs (raw materials, machinery etc. known as ‘constant capital’)

• Capitalists are in competition with one another and hence the tendency for profits to fall

• Offset by (a) cheaper raw materials → imperialism, (b) lengthening working day → more surplus value, (c) bring in the ‘reserve army of the unemployed’

• Thus, wages are never far above subsistence level

Hence increasing differentials in social stratification

Capitalism and Alienation:its 4 different forms

• From workers’ products, which they cannot afford at ‘exchange value’ (coal or cars)

• From fellow workers as they are set in competition with each other (piece-work)

• From the (creative) act of production by

de-skilling (unlike the craftsman)

• From their ‘species-being’ i.e. human creativity, as capitalist conditions of production ‘alienate him from the spiritual potentialities of the labour-process.’

Why don’t Workers of the World Unite?

Capitalism and Ideology

Conflict is seen as intrinsic to capitalism in Modernity, but it need not become revolutionary because of

• Ideologies legitimating the status quo in the interests of the Ruling Class, who can spread their ideas (through State, education & Law)

• This prevents ‘class consciousness’ from transforming an (objective) ‘class in itself’ into a ‘class for itself’ (objectively & subjectively)

Comparison with Durkheim and Weber

Like Durkheim, Marx sees social stratification as economically based. They differ about:

• The number of classes; decreasing in M but increasing in D.• Fairness; class is exploitative and alienating to M, but

acceptable to D if based on ‘natural inequalities’• Class conflict is endemic (though not always overt) to M in

Modernity, but re-integration can be engineered in D’s view

Weber sees class in terms of ‘market opportunities’, but differs from M in regarding ‘status’ and ‘power’ as two other (potentially cross-cutting) sources of stratification

All agree that Modernity is inherently STRATIFIED