Marx

Question 1

1859 Preface

Answer 1

suggests history would follow certain “objective laws”, class struggles are crucial to revolution. The economic infrastructure shapes the social superstructure.

Question 2

Dialectical materialist

Answer 2

his method of studying society and sociology. Drew from Hegel’s dialectic (negation and transcendence), then drew on the insights of political economy, emphasizing the central importance of labour and production, which turned it into a materialist perspective.

Question 3

Sources

Answer 3

French political thought, German philosophy (German idealism), and British political economy.

Question 4

Superstructure

Answer 4

Legal and political superstructure; determinate forms of consciousness.

Question 5

Base

Answer 5

Economic structure of society; totality of the relations of production. The Mode of production; the social relations of production and the material forces of production. How we met basic needs of food and shelter.

Question 6

Technological determinism

Answer 6

The social relations of production in capitalist society facilitate, encourage and require production for profit, the key focus is the role of machinery.

Question 7

Economic Determinism

Answer 7

Not machinery or technology that drives history and social change, but the economy as a whole.

Question 8

Labour power, consciousness and political action

Answer 8

Material forces of production break down into the means or production (raw material and machinery), the spaces where production takes place (factories) and the human labour power required.

Question 9

Proletariat

Answer 9

Working class, labour

Question 10

Bourgeoisie

Answer 10

owning class, capital

Question 11

Reserve army of labour

Answer 11

unemployed willing to work for less

Question 12

Mode of production

Answer 12

The way in which people meet their basic needs

Question 13

Social Relations of production

Answer 13

Relations between people with respect to ownership and access to the productive forces

Question 14

Material forces of production

Answer 14

productive forces and material forces

Question 15

Means of production

Answer 15

machines, tools, materials, expertise

Question 16

Labour power

Answer 16

mental/physical ability

Question 17

Class Consciousness

Answer 17

Consciousness of one’s social class in society; a class in itself becomes a class for itself

Question 18

False consciousness

Answer 18

Workers who do not see their class interest and believe the ideology that division between bosses and workers is right, natural, or inevitable.

Question 19

Exploitation

Answer 19

pay subsistence wages to labour that is not equal to the value of the product

Question 20

Alienation

Answer 20

Occurs when humans are separated from direct enjoyment of and ownership over their labour and the products of that labour

Question 21

Opiate of the masses

Answer 21

religious ideologies that tell workers that they will receive their reward in heaven

Question 22

How did bourgeoisie transform society?

Answer 22

transformed feudal society into a market based society and constantly revolutionized modes of production, thereby relations of production