1.2 Power and Marx Flashcards
(17 cards)
What is capitalism?
System in which private property is the dominant type of property.
Private property of means of production (owner possesses machines not workers).
Most do not have access to means of production: cannot possess means that make our own life => need to buy it through income
Historical different: usually people can grow/produce what they need
Wage labour: need income to survive (dependency on job)
Increasingly dependent on markets (to find job, goods, get profit): on both owners and workers.
What are Marx’s objections to capitalism?
Critique on wage labour: wages are unfair under capitalism (capitalist want to keep only at the necessary level for consumption and workers cannot argue for more since they are at a disadvantage)
Critique of the “freedom” of the labour market: we are not free under capitalism (economic power propels us to act a certain way)
Explain Marx’s critique on wage labour
In capitalist societies the dominant social relations lead to wage-labour. Proletariat controls production which they sell (at a disadvantage) to the bourgeoisie (who control means of production).
Bourgeoisie (or capitalists) will maintain wages at a level enough to keep workers alive and raise children. This can be raised through collective actions but will always remain lower than needs.
According to Marx, why are the proletariat at a disadvantage?
Less money, and more need to get that specific job than the bourgeoisie need to get that specific worker.
Harder to collaborate with other employees than for companies to collaborate (tacit agreements) when it comes to wages.
Bourgeoisie can use technology to decrease employee need => proletariat as no other choice but to work.
What is Marx’s view of capitalism?
Conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat shape political and cultural institutions + the economy.
Will capitalism last forever? => What builds capitalism will destroy it:
constant expansion by capitalist => reach limit of growth => workers are increasingly victimized + education advancements (required by capitalism growth) => collective awareness => collective resistance
Explain Marx’s critique of the freedom of the labour market
Commodification of labour/labourer: people depend on market laws and are reduced to resources (de-humanization) => Need to sell yourself to survive
Unequal exposure to market laws (supply and demand). For capitalists changes in market are just changes in accountancy but for workers it can mean life changes
If capitalists win, labour can also win. But if capitalists lose, labour always loses => imbalanced
Wage as outcome of unequal struggle: economy is a struggle between groups of different interests (not just supply and demand) => most powerful win => wage
Wage is not the outcome of an economy struggle but political (unequal power)
Not a neutral process.
Unequal distribution of freedom: Wage is just another form of slavery
Form of structural compulsion: workers have little rights and long hours. They are not directly told they must work but the conditions force you => mute compulsion
Authoritarian space: relations of power that are often not very democratic (less freedom of speech)
What constitutes as economic value?
Labour theory of value: Labour (interaction with raw materials) is what adds value to objects.
Value =/= price of commodity
Capitalists take advantage of proletariat lower bargaining power
Historical justification: growth, expansion, cooperative tendencies
Value = Production
With the labour theory of value in mind, how do capitalists become rich?
Based on the Theory of exploitation: surplus value (unpaid labour) leads to profit. Capitalists can gain surplus by reducing wages (baseline of liveable), increasing working hours or workloud or through productivity (e.g., atomization). This leads to exploitation which leads to profit
According to Marx why is contracted labour not free?
Proletariat are not slaves: they have choice, no person is forcing them to work => why is it still forced?
Proletariat is forced to work under capitalists by their circumstances: some by nature, but others by coercive power (no control over production means)
No escape: no upwards mobility.
Individually free to choose what to do, but unfree as a class (small productors cannot grown under capitalism
How can you related the forced character of the system of contracted labor to kantian relationships?
Based on Marx, contracted labour is unethical since it removes freedom of choice from the proletariat (coerced to work). According to Kant, it is unethical since the bourgeoise uses the proletariat as a means to an end.
What are the characteristics of exploitation?
Unpaid labour
Capitalism cornerstone: wage paid is worth less than the worker’s production => part of labour is “unpaid”
The benefits of capitalism depend on unpaid labour and could balance it
Unfairness
Differences in control of means of production are unfair
But not very mentioned in Marx’s work.
Inequality
Unequal control over production means => disadvantages from proletarians => not sufficient cause of exploitation
Alienated labour: Capitalists take advantage of imposed disadvantages on workers imposing work-lives until they are alienated from themselves => exploitation.
What are the types of alienation?
Alienation from product of labour: don’t own what you produce so you become separate from it.
Alienation from the activity of labour itself: instrumentalization of labour (Labour becomes an instrument (for income) and not a way to get satisfaction) + Forced character of labour (need it to survive) + deskilling.
Alienation from who we are as specie: what is fundamental for us is that we build things together (cooperation, social activity) and distinguishes from animal. “Free conscious activity is the species-characteristic of man”. This disappears in capitalism conditions (standardized, low skilled production) => become alienated
Alienation from each other: always competing, And your needs are a strategic of others => others are obstacles to own self-advancement => alienation
Ultimately they result in alienation from yourself (from your own nature)
Bargaining weakness might not lead to death by starvation but a life endured as sacrifice (like is not satisfaction, but a way to satisfy need for survival)
What is non-alienated labour, according to Marx?
Marx was used to communal production, and his ideals for non-alienated labour stem from there. Non-alienated labour happens under non capitalists’ conditions, i.e., as human beings. Working is objectifying yourself (you make something, an externalization of you) => proud of it
By making a product you also satisfy others needs => make yourself proud + fulfil social needs (where people can come together and be proud of each other.
Work should be moulded around people aspirations to allow them to express their humanity.
What is historical materialism?
Historical materialism: economic structures determine the rest of society
How does Marx say society is shaped?
Relations of production shape the economic structures of society (foundation) which shape legal and political superstructure which shape societal consciousness,
Thus, economic structure is the foundation of society from which the rest of society is built on (social being determines consciousness)
This is a form of economic determinism (economic relations determine societal relations)
Mode of production => social political and intellectual life progress
What causes shifts in society, according to Marx?
Shifts in relations with productions
Material productive forces (production means) clash with existing relations of production => shifts in society (e.g., feudalism from capitalism)
So, Marx believes that at some point, production will develop and clash with capitalism => new relations of production => fall of capitalism
What does Marx propose for after capitalism? How does he describe it?
Communism:
Abundance
The abolishment of private property and collective ownership of the means of production
Abolition of wage labor
End of alienation amd of exploitation
Withering away of the nation state
Freedom and autonomy
