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Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels Revolutionary Socialists - Coggle Diagram
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
Revolutionary Socialists
Their Analysis
Marx used the term ‘
surplus value
’ to describe
how workers are paid less than the true value of their labour
in order to generate profit
Workers get no satisfaction from what they produce as they
are
merely part of the process
Often do not see the end product and cannot afford it either - Marx described this as
alienation
In recent years, workers in garment factories (e.g: in China or Bangladesh) can be seen as an example of this
THEIR ANALYSIS:
argued that capitalism contains the
seeds of its own destruction
within capitalism, society is
split between two opposing classes
interests of these two groups are fundamentally at odds with each other
bourgeoisie’s aim of making profit
depends
on the exploitation of the proletariat
Background + Works
German exiles living in the UK in the 1870s
In 'The Communist Manifesto' (1848), Marx and Engels argued that
revolution was inevitable
as there was
a contradiction at the heart of capitalism
In 'The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State' (1884), Engels
examined the role of the family within capitalism
He argued that the
nuclear family was essential to profit-making
and that the
subjugation of women was part of the capitalist structure
Main Ideas
Marx argued that
his form
of socialism
avoided the utopian idealism of earlier forms
He
claimed that historical materialism involved a scientific analysis of human society
The inevitability of socialism could be proved, rather than just being a desirable aim
Idea of Dialectics
Marx developed the idea to
create an economics/materialist-based argument
that
within each society, there are opposing forces
(e.g. the bourgeoisie and the proletariat)
Once class consciousness develops among the proletariat, these
two forces will eventually clash
= leading to a new stage of history
Marx saw class conflict as the driving force in history, be it bourgeoisie and proletariat or slave and slave owner.
He argued this was scientific analysis as it
was proven and factually based
> wishful thinking
Revolution was therefore
inevitable
and would lead to the abolition of capitalism
SUMMARY:
For Marxists,
capitalism must be overthrown
and replaced with
common ownership
and substantial
economic equality
M&E argued that after the inevitable revolution, a
classless and stateless society would emerge
, with no poverty and genuine equality of outcome = resulting in emancipation
HOWEVER
, before this, there would need to be a
temporary dictatorship of the proletariat
(to prevent counter-revolution)
Once the revolution was safe and secure, the
state
itself
would ‘wither away’
- a theory that seems more like anarchism (and not the result of any 20th century socialist revolutions)