Marxism Flashcards
Marxism
> see our behaviour as entirely shaped by society institutions
top-down approach is taken by marxists
Karl Marx
> agree with Durkheim that it is possible to study society scientifically (positivist).
Marx sees progression of society as full of conflict, pain and misery - rejecting functionalist views that its peaceful.
radical change is inevitable to happen in the future - once Proletariat realise their “false class consciousness”
capitalist society forces people to depend on money - bourgeoisie have most control of money, exploiting proletariat - ensuring wealth remains in the hands of few.
a wage helps to keep people “sweet”, but is no where near the profit that rich accumulate.
technology such as robots are “de-skilling the low-paid people” as the robots will slowly take their jobs - accept lower wages
primary socialisation makes people believe inequality is normal - no challenge to capitalism - “false class consciousness”
once working class realise - they will become “class conscious”
this will cause “capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction” - world wide revolution will occur, bringing down capitalism replacing it with a communist utopia.
EVAL - Marx focus on the wrong form of inequality, says inequality is inevitably linked to social class - feminists say claim that power-relation ships based upon gender are more important.
EVAL - Marx two class model is complicated by the middle class - he assumes that class polarisation (bourgeoisie and proletariat gap increases) was occuring, however some disagree due to the growing middle class.
Structural Marxism
Louis Althusser
> he agreed with Marx, in seeing the state as powerful in using two types of force in order to keep the proletariat in their place:
“REPRESSIVE STATE APPARATUS” - military, police, prisons etc.
“IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS” - education system, media, religion
Althusser claims that people are very much “sucked in” by ideology and are victims of “false class consciousness” - for example very few people see how there is a “myth of meritocracy” in the education system and how some students will inevitably under-achieve.
he says change will occur in society whebn capitalism collapses it self.
EVAL - Gramsci accuses Althusser of ignoring how people can change their lives through rebliion and action
EVAL - theory is no different from Marx’s - Althusser merely adds two elements to Marx theory.
