Marx is not the antichrist--in fact his
system of thought is not inconsistent with the teachings of Christianity and
other universal religions. When reading Marx you often have to separate his
social theory from his writings as a socialist organizer. As a social theorist,
his writings have had an enormous impact on all of the social sciences. His most
significant contribution is in establishing a conflict model of social systems.
Rather than conceiving of society as being based on consensus, Marx's theory
posits the domination of a powerful class over a subordinate class. The engine
of sociocultural change, according to Marx, is class struggle. Social conflict
is at the core of the historical process.
A second significant contribution is that Marx locates the origin of social
power in the ownership or control of the forces of production. It was Marx's
contention that the production of economic goods--what is produced, how it is
produced, and how it is exchanged--has a profound effect on the rest of the
society. A third contribution to the social sciences lies in Marx's analysis of
capitalism and its effects on workers, on capitalists themselves, and on entire
sociocultural systems. Marx brilliantly grasped the origin, structure, and
workings of capitalism. Much of his thought is essential in understanding
sociocultural systems and thus human behavior. Pay special attention to his
materialism, his theories of class, and of alienation all of which are central
in determining social change. His theory (as opposed to Marxist theory) is more
evolutionary than revolutionary in nature.
Address the following questions fully and completely in your own
words and voice; save your answers electronically. You will see at least
one of these questions on your next unit exam in which you will be asked
to demonstrate that you have read and mastered the material. Prepare
your answers now.
Explain Marx's view on sociocultural evolution.
(Remember, according to your instructor, Karl Marx is an
evolutionary theorist--not a revolutionary).
What are the three most important contributions Karl
Marx made to social theory?
How do elites exercise control over mental production
(institutions, techniques)?
What is alienation? How does it fit into Marx's theory?
Marx argues that technology can potentially enhance
human freedom. However, he also states that this technology is
dehumanizing. Explain.
"The first historical act is. . . the
production of material life itself. This is indeed a historical act,
a fundamental condition of all of history" (1964, p. 60).
"Legal relations as well as form
of state are to be grasped neither from themselves nor from the so-called
general development of the human mind, but rather have their roots in the
material conditions of life, the sum total of which Hegel . . . combines
under the name of 'civil society.' . . . The anatomy of civil society is
to be sought in political economy" (1962, vol. 1, p. 362).
"The political, legal, philosophical, literary,
and artistic development rests on the economic. But they all react
upon one another and upon the economic base. It is not the case that
the economic situation is the sole active cause and that everything else
is merely a passive effect. There is, rather, a reciprocity within
a field of economic necessity which in the last instance always asserts
itself" (1962, vol. II, p. 304).
"In the social production which men carry
on as they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent
of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage
of development of their material powers of production. The totality
of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of
society--the real foundation, on which legal and political superstructures
arise and to which definite forms of social consciousness correspond.
The mode of production of material life determines the general character
of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It is not
the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary,
their social being determines their consciousness" (1964, p. 51).
"According to the materialist conception
of history, the ultimately determinant element in history is the production
and reproduction of real life. . . . Hence if somebody twists this into
saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms
that proposition into a meaningless, abstract and senseless phrase.
The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure.
. . also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggle
and in many cases preponderate in determining their form" (1962, II, p.
488).
On elites
"The ideas of the ruling class are, in
every age, the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the dominant
material force in society is at the same time its dominant intellectual
force. The class which has the means of production at its disposal,
has control at the same time over the means of mental production"
(1964, p. 78).
[We go astray] "if . . . we detach the
ideas of the ruling class from the ruling class itself and attribute to
them an independent existence, if we confine ourselves to saying that in
a particular age these or those ideas were dominant, without paying attention
to the conditions of production and the producers of these ideas, and if
we thus ignore the individuals and the world conditions which are the source
of these ideas" (1964, p.p. 79-80).
On social evolution
"The economic structure of capitalist society
has grown out of the economic structure of feudal society. The dissolution
of the latter sets free the elements of the former" (1964, p. 133).
"No social order ever disappears before
all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed;
and new higher relations of production never appear before the material
conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society"
(1964, p. 52).
On class
"The history of all hitherto existing society
is the history of class struggles" (1962, vol 1, p. 34).
"The separate individuals form a class
only in so far as they have to carry on a common battle against another
class; otherwise they are on hostile terms with each other as competitors"
(1930, pp. 48-49).
[The major modern classes are] "the owners
merely of labor-power, owners of capital, and landowners, whose respective
sources of income are wages, profit and ground rent" (1964, p. 178).
"The State is the form in which the individuals
of a ruling class assert their common interests" (1964, p. 78).
On alienation and
religion
"Objectification is the practice of alienation.
Just as man, so long as he is engrossed in religion, can only objectify
his essence by an alien and fantastic being; so under the sway of egoistic
need, he can only affirm himself and produce objects in practice by subordinating
his products and his own activity to the domination of an alien entity,
and by attributing to them the significance of an alien entity, namely
money" (1964b, p. 39).
"The commodity form and the value relation
between the products of labor which stamps them as commodities, have absolutely
no connection with their physical properties and with the material relations
arising there from. It is simply a definite relationship between men,
that assumes in their eyes the fantastic form of a relations between things.
To find an analogy, we must have recourse to the nebulous regions of the
religious world. In that world the productions of the human brain
appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation
both with one another and with the human race. So it is in the world
of commodities, with the products of men's hands. This I call the
fetishism which attaches itself tot he products of labor, as soon as they
are produced as commodities" (1964, pp. 175-176).
"Religious distress is at the same time
the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress.
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless
world, just as it is the spirit of an unspiritual situation. It is the
opium of the people" (1959, p. 263).
On the sanctity of work
" The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got
the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations.
It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man
to his "natural superiors", and has left no other nexus between people than
naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned out the
most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine
sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has
resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless
indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable
freedom -- Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by
religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct,
brutal exploitation (1846/1954)
"The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo
every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It
has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man
of science, into its paid wage laborers (1848/1954)
On
alienation
"Money is the alienated essence of man's
work and existence; the essence dominates him and he worships it" (1964b,
p. 37).
"The state is the intermediary between
men and human liberty. Just as Christ is the intermediary to whom
man attributes all his own divinity and all his religious bonds, so the
state is the intermediary to which man confides all his non divinity and
human freedom" (1964b, p. II).
"Religious alienation as such occurs only
in the sphere of consciousness, in the inner life of man, but economic
alienation is that of real life. . . . It therefore affects both aspects"
(1964b, p. 156).
"The object produced by labor, its product,
now stands opposed to it as an alien being, as a power independent of the
producer. . . . The more the worker expends himself in work the more powerful
becomes the world of objects which he creates in face of himself, the poorer
he becomes in his inner life, and the less he belongs to himself"
(1964b, p. 122).
"However, alienation appears not merely
in the result but also in the process of production, within productive
activity itself. . . . If the product of labor is alienation, production
itself must be active alienation. . . . The alienation of the object of
labor merely summarizes the alienation in the work activity itself"
(1964b, p. 124).
"Work is external to the worker. . . .
It is not part of his nature; consequently he does not fulfill himself
in his work but denies himself. . . . The worker therefore feels himself
at home only during his leisure time, whereas at work he feels homeless"
(1964b, pp. 124-125).
"This is the relationship of the worker
to his own activity as something alien, not belonging to him, activity
as suffering (passivity), strength as powerlessness, creation as emasculation,
the personal physical and mental energy of the worker, his personal life.
. . . as an activity which is directed against himself, independent of
him and not belonging to him" (1964b, p. 125).
"What is true of man's relationship to
his work, to the product of his work and to himself, is also true of his
relationship to other men. . . . Each man is alienated from others . .
.each of the others is likewise alienated from human life" (1964b, p. 129).
"The bourgeoisie has torn away from the
family its sentimental veil, and
has reduced the family relation into a
mere money relation" (1848/1954).
Bibliography:
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