KARL MARX Flashcards
Introduction to Socialism Theories
- Industrial Revolution and Socialism’s Emergence:
- Response to profound changes in society due to the industrial revolution, marked by rapid urbanization and industrialization.
- Various socialist doctrines share the goal of constructing an alternative socio-economic and political order in response to perceived inequalities.
- Common Elements of Socialism:
- Rejection of fixed human nature and “natural” hierarchical social orders.
- Viewed as tools to maintain power differentials and prevent societal equality.
Non-Marxist Socialist Theories
- Utopian Socialism (Owen, Fourier):
- Robert Owen’s Model:
- Implemented practical reforms in New Lanark, Scotland, focusing on workers’ welfare.
- Advocated for workers-managed cooperatives as a model for industrial organization.
- Charles Fourier’s Dream:
- Idealized small, isolated communities where workers lived happily.
- Presented a vision of perfect communities to escape industrial city misery.
- Anarchist Socialism (Proudhon):
- Cooperative ownership by workers emphasized, rejecting both capitalist and state ownership.
- Coined the phrase “Property is theft!” to denote opposition to oppressive forms of property.
- Advocated for democratically managed cooperatives owned by individual workers.
Marxist Theories - Life & Times of Karl Marx
- Biographical Overview:
- Born in Trier, Germany (1818-1883), into a middle-class family.
- Early studies in philosophy influenced by Georg Wilhelm Hegel’s idealism.
- Transition to socialism, co-authoring the Communist Manifesto (1848).
- Settled in London, dedicated to completing the ambitious work “Das Kapital.”
- Influence of Hegelian Philosophy:
- Early alignment with the “young Hegelians” critical of religion and the Prussian state.
- Critically engaged with Hegelian idealism while adopting the dialectical method.
Marxist Philosophical Theories
- Evolution of Marx’s Thought:
- Two phases: “young Marx” (philosophical) and mature Marx (scientific political economy).
- Common commitment to historical materialism in both phases.
- Concepts of Alienation:
- Products and Labor:
- Workers estranged from the products of their labor.
- Alienation from the labor process itself.
- Species-Being:
- Human nature as creative and free.
- Return to the concept of human nature, emphasizing creativity and freedom.
- Social Alienation:
- Competition among workers leading to social estrangement.
- Hegelian Influence and Historical Materialism:
- Adoption of Hegel’s dialectical method applied to socio-economic history.
- Historical materialism as the foundation: economic structure shaping legal, political, and intellectual superstructure.
Marxist Critique of Society - Alienation Theories
- Broader Concept of Alienation:
- Shared by conservative romantics critical of industrialization (e.g., Wordsworth) and progressive environmentalists.
- Conservative romantics, e.g., William Wordsworth, critiqued industrialization and longed for simpler agrarian societies.
- Leftist Environmental Critique:
- Progressive environmentalists linked the industrial age to alienation from the natural environment.
- Connection to the advocacy of “degrowth” for both environmental sustainability and social justice.
alienation”: modern economic conditions create convergent/overlapping forms of estrangement that workers are said to experience in relation to their natural and social environment, as well as from their own human nature:
➢Alienation from the product
➢Alienation from the activity of labour
➢Alienation from species-being [Marx pretended that “human nature” is not fixed but here he returns to it: by nature humans are creative and “free.”]
➢Alienation of man from man (workers are competing among each other)
More on the left of the ideological spectrum, we find non-Marxist environments who argue that the industrial age has alienated human beings from our natural environment–in fact, we’re ruining it!
Hence the advocacy of “degrowth.” Difference here with the previous group is that progressive environmentalists combine this critique w/ the advocacy of social justice (“climate justice,” etc.)
Marxist Political Economy Theories
- Roots in Ricardo’s Labor Theory of Value:
- Labor as the true source of value, extending David Ricardo’s ideas.
- Marx’s formulation of “abstract labor” as a metaphysical concept.
- Surplus Value:
- Components of capital: fixed (c) and variable (v).
- Production process yielding surplus value (s), representing profits for the capitalist.
- Critiques and Transformation Problem:
- Challenges to Marxist theories, including the entrepreneurial contribution, the “transformation problem,” and the non-occurrence of capitalism’s predicted downfall.
- Exploration of the hypothetical nature of surplus value and its relation to actual prices and profits.
- Marx’s Labor Theory of Value and Surplus-Value:
- Marx’s economics rooted in David Ricardo’s labor theory of value.
- Surplus value emerges from the difference between what the worker is paid (variable capital) and the value they produce.
political economy” as a science rather than on speculative philosophy, Marx was concerned with “exploitation.” But to understand this concept, I must first turn to his concept of “value.”
•Marx’s economics was rooted in David Ricardo’s works. Ricardo was more insistent than Smith on the idea that labour embodied in a commodity is the true source of value.
•Marx took that to an even higher level of metaphysical theorizing by formulating the notion of “abstract labour.”
From value to “surplus value”:
Surplus Value:
Let’s start with the capital that the capitalist owns: C. It can be decomposed into two parts: fixed (physical) and variable capital (labour) , thus
C = c + v.
Marx assumed that c enters and exits the production process (almost) unchanged—it acts like a catalyst that allows v (labour) to realize its creative potential (only labour creates
At time 0 (beginning of the day, we have C0 = c +v
but at time 1, we have C1 = c + v + s.
Surplus-value: s which the capitalist pockets.
•More concretely, if a worker works a 12 hrs. shift, and it takes him 6 hrs. to produce the value of his labour force (to allow him to sustain himself and his family), then he has also worked for an additional 6 hrs. producing s which the capitalist appropriates—presumably unfairly, according to Marx although he refrains from making explicit ethical judgments.
Marxist Theories on the State and Ethics
- State as Instrument of Dominant Class:
- The state aligned with the interests of the dominant class.
- Transformation under the “dictatorship of the proletariat” during revolutionary times.
- Ethics and Moral Perspective:
- Absence of explicit ethical stance in Marx’s critique.
- Focus on the objective contradiction of exploitation with the working class’s interests rather than moral judgments.
Transformation Problem
The “transformation problem” has to do w/ the fact that the “surplus value” (s) is an abstraction: it is not measured in actual prices. A “value” is the price that supposedly ought to be charged b/c it represents spent labour—the true measure of value—but not the actual price.
Problem is that Marx wanted to prove that the downfall of capitalism is brought about by the capitalists’ greed which entices them to constantly increase s (in roughly the same % in all industries) by substituting machines for workers a crisis of overproduction (too many goods, but too little income to buy them) and a falling rate of
The first difficulty is that empirically profits vary considerably from one industry to the next (higher in hi-tech than in retail); that doesn’t match Marx’s idea that the rate of surplus-value will become even across all sectors. And since he insisted that profits are based on the rate of surplus value, they will all rise more or less uniformly before they eventually collapse. Not likely!
•Most important problem: actual profits are measured in $. But do prices/profits exactly match surplus-value? Not at all clear b/c “value” is an abstract/theoretical concept corresponding to the
So that’s the “transformation problem”: can the hypothetical concept of surplus-value (referring to labour content) be translated into prices/profits based on what people are prepared to pay (consumers care little for the supposed “labour value” of an item)?
