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Marxism theory - Coggle Diagram
Marxism theory
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Class & exploitation
Marxism and prehistoric man:
- private property and ownership of land not yet established
- Marx called it 'primitive communism', everything shared, no means of production
- no class conflict / exploitation
- ownership of production happened & privitisation caused class system
History:
- one class always owns the means of production which allows them to exploit the rest in a class based society
- ancient society, exploit slaves
- feudal society, exploit peasants
- capitalist society, exploit free wage labourers
Surplus value:
- proletariat dont get fair wage, only enough to well enough to work
- bourgeoise take profit rather than giving to work profit
- what they make from selling products minus proletariat wage = surplus value
- Marx sees this as exploitation
Bourgeoise and proletariat:
- proletariat have to sell labour to survive, exploited
- bourgeoisie own means of production, exploit
Ideology:
- dominant in society, ruling class ideology justifies exploiting proletariat
Criticisms
Over simplistic view, ignores many power imbalances such as sexist, racism etc
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two class system is too simplistic, there are more than 2
marxists respond saying, even if someone appears middle class if they have to sell their labour they are a proletariat
the only places where revolution has taken place have not led to the proletariat being truly free but instead more oppression has happened e.g. Russia, Cuba, China
marxists respond that these countries did not follow the steps predicted, we need the tech etc first to have communism
too deterministic
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Economic determinism:
- non-structural theories say too much attention to economy & superstructure
- treats humans like puppets without free will
- he ignores that ideas themselves can change society
- Weber argues new ideas brought about capitalism
Revolution
Why no revolution yet?
- ideology
- owns means of production also owns ideology
- bourgeoise use state as a weapon to prevent revolution
- police, education, laws, family, church etc legitimises position of ruling
Capitalism will eventually be so exploitative that the proletariat gain class consciousness & come together to overthrow capitalism
Uphold capitalism & ideology:
- education, socialises in hierarchy, promotes capitalism
- religion, "gods plan", dont complain, rewarded in heaven
- family, socialises in hierarchy, work to support family, workers take out frustration
Communism:
1) private & social property owned by all
2) production not for profit but need
3) end alienation as humans gain power labour
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Alienation
Human nature:
- Marx never said false class consciousness
- we are alienated as we cannot fulfil our species being
- human nature different to animals as we product environment in a planned way
- when we dont immediately need something, we still create, beyond survival need
Species being:
- alienated as our species being (purposeful production) has been taken away
- dont own what we produce
- dont own labour or productivity
- dont have say over production
- productivity specialised and we lose our skills
- alienated from each other and see them as competition
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Historical materialism
Marx's idea, sometimes called dialectical materialism
Key idea:
- all of history/change is a result of matter/material conditions, not ideas
- scientific mythological way of analysing society
- rests on foundation of metaphysical materialism, matter primary and ideas secondary
- ideas come from the material conditions in which we live
Engels, Socialism: Utopia & Scientific (1980):
- the production & exchange of things is the basis of all social structure - how wealth is distributed & society divided into classes
- historical materialism : means of production + social relations of production = modes of production, economic infrastructure -> super structure