Marxism Flashcards
(30 cards)
What are conflict theories?
Theories that see society as being made up of two or more groups with competing and incompatible interests. The two main conflict theories are Marxism and Feminism, looking at the divisions of social class and gender respectively. Interactionism, another theory, recognizes conflict in society but does not view society as being fundamentally based on one conflict.
Who was Karl Marx?
A German philosopher, economist, journalist, sociologist and communist who developed one of the most influential theoretical frameworks of social sciences - it was based on his critique of capitalism, the economic system of the industrialized Western world. Not only did he analyze and describe the capitalist society, he also was a political activist and wanted a proletariat (communist) revolution against the bourgeoisie. He believed that society was in a constant state of conflict between the bourgeoisie (the rich) and the proletariat (the poor)
Why did he critique capitalism?
- Despite the huge industrial development during Marx’s life, he observed that it was also creating unprecedented poverty and a society divided with a fundamental conflict based on social class. He believed this conflict would eventually destroy the thing that created it with a Communist Revolution. it showed the exploitation of the proletariat, the working class, by the bourgeoisie, the ruling class.
The exploitive nature of work in a Capitalist society
- For Marx, the bourgeoisie, the ruling class, who owned the means of production, employed the proletariat, the working class to produce the items the bourgeoisie then sold. Because the purpose of a capitalist enterprise is to make a profit, the workers are never paid for the real value of their work. Marx believed this surplus value of profit was essentially theft, and this created what was to him and exploitative relationship that left most people poor.
Marxism and conflict
- Marx believed that there is little consensus in society; two main classes in a capitalist society have entirely opposing interests. It is in the interest of the bourgeoisie to pay their workers as little as possible in order to make maximum profit. It is in the interest of the proletariat to earn as much as possible.
- Contradiction also exists in a capitalist society, as the workers are also the customers, and so by making them poor a ‘crisis’ is created where the economy collapses (recessions and depressions). A particularly deep version of this would create a final crisis to trigger a communist revolution and there is continued debate on what extent Marx thought this to be inevitable.
Traditional Marxists and their thoughts
They note that the proletariat, despite being exploited by the upper class, mostly accept the bourgeois rule, considering it to be normal, unavoidable and sometimes desirable. They argue this happens because the bourgeoisie transmit their ideology through ideological state apparatuses which lead to workers not having class consciousness, and instead taking on the bourgeoisie ideology. This leads to them having a false view of their own position in society (false class consciousness) as a revolution from the proletariat due to class consciousness would be controlled by the repressive state apparatus (military or police)
Key Marxist concepts - Bourgeoisie and Proletariat
Bourgeoisie - Ruling class eg: Factory owners
Proletariat - Workers
Key Marxist concepts - Means and Modes of production
Means of production - factories, mines etc
Mode of production - workers skills
Key Marxist concepts - Ideology and State Apparatuses
Ideology - belief
Ideological state apparatuses - the methods used to make us think in a particular way eg: media
Repressive state apparatuses - police or army
Key Marxist Concepts - Class consciousness
Class consciousness - being aware of one’s own class (becoming conscious of one’s own social class and how it is treated in the class system.)
False class consciousness - misguided view of one’s own class
Marxism - the basics
Believe that different groups within society have very different interests - conflict is common and persistent as a feature of society, with the powerful imposing group being the bourgeoisie, the upper class who own the means of production, marginalizing the modes of production provided by the proletariat. Social institutions work to maintain the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system, and to keep the proletariat as poor workers unable to socially mobilize.
The Marxist ideology
Despises capitalism as it is believed to create conflict in society between the competing interests of the two main classes - as a structural approach, the main focus is on how the social institutions and agents of socialization create the negative society to keep the people in their ascribed status and position.
Louis Althusser
- Termed the idea of the bourgeoisie using ideological state apparatuses such as education and media to transmit the bourgeois ideology and therefore create a false class consciousness for the proletariat, where they consider it to be normal, unavoidable or even desirable; this helps the bourgeoisie to protect and maintain the systems that benefit them, with the proletariat unknowingly maintaining the systems that trap them.
- Repressive state apparatuses are used to enforce the systems in society when revolution is hinted at, such as use of police force to control the proletariat. Without true class consciousness, the crisis cycle of capitalism won’t be broken and the communist revolution Marx advocated will not come about.
Key terms in Marxism
- Means of production - All the things needed to produce goods eg: land, factories, labour power
- Relations of production - The class system - relationships between those in control and workers
- Superstructure - Society’s social institutions eg: family, education etc. This is determined by the economic base
- Economic base - This includes the means and relations of production - these are the foundation of all modern capitalist societies
- Dominant ideology - The main beliefs of a society eg: capitalism is right and fair
- False consciousness - Lack of awareness that one is being exploited
- Epochs - periods in history relating to different means of production in society
- Ideology - a set of beliefs
- Alienation -
- Polarisation -
- Pauperisation -
- Proletarianisation -
Types of Marxism:
- Karl Marx -> Historical / materialist/ traditional Marxism
The theories of Karl Marx - a summary
- Believed capitalism has serious flaws, and in pursuit of profit they would push an ideology of materialism making people happy, and condemning leisure and saying work was for the best - this created inequality in the class system, depriving them of job satisfaction (alienation of working class) and exploiting the working class
- Laid out a vision of Marxist society with public ownership of property, free education and equal distribution of wealth
- Basis for communism in an equal and stateless society - impoverished people and was not beneficial because it was too idealistic
- Relevance - his predictions about capitalism have been proven correct, in widening wealth gaps (poorest half of the world have less wealth than 42 of the richest people), leading to globalisation (handful of firms dominating the market) and creating boom and bust economics (Great Depression, Hyperinflation, 2008 Financial Crisis), with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer
- However, he underestimate the ability of capitalism to make people richer by making products cheaper, with the amount of people in absolute poverty decreasing by 1 billion people since 1980
- He also did not realise the capabilities of capitalism to create welfare states and institutions such as the NHS as a way to distribute wealth to the people in other ways
- His solution was worse than the issue, but he was correct about the issue
The superstructure and the economic base - How did Marx explain society?
- The superstructure and economic base act in a cyclic relationship; the superstructure, consisting of institutions such as religion, mass media, family, education and politics and the economic base consisting of relations of production (bourgeoisie exploits the proletariat) and means of production (the things you need to produce; machines, factories, lands and materials owned by the bourgeoisie)
- The economic base helps to shape the superstructure as the production establishes the institution and the bourgeoisie builds on the economic base they create through the proletariat
- The superstructure in turns maintains and legitimises the economic base, by creating a series of ISA’s and RSA’s that create a false class consciousness using the bourgeois ideology which allows the proletariat to continually be exploited and alienated from their work without any way of correcting the power of the ruling class
The traditional Marxist explanation of society - Karl Marx; How he explained society through the model through epochs and the development of classes
- Marx identified history could be divided into 5 periods or epochs, distinguished by more complex economic arrangements.
- All societies are said to have begun with ‘primitive communism’ - simple societies, with no concept of private property and engaging in sharing (1). It then passes through ancient societies (2), feudalist systems of the medieval times (3) until it reaches the crucial stage of capitalism (4) and finally reaching the communist epoch in history (5); the current society reflects the 4th epoch.
- A theoretical model was developed by Marx which assigned a particular mode of production to each epoch; a mode of production refers to a complete economic and social system with each epoch being characterised by and based on a different way of organising production of goods
- In the epoch of primitive communism, production is based on hunting and gathering and without surplus, there is no class system
- In all other modes of production, until modern communism is established, sees society based around the exploitation of one class by another (e.g. feudal system exploits serfs who have to surrender some of their produce to their masters, and in capitalism it is the bourgeoisie exploiting the working class
- Classes develop because some people are able to gain ownership and control over the means of production; these are what is needed to produce goods and use the modes of production which wealth comes from, including land, raw materials, machinery, labour power and in capitalism the money needed to finance production (capital). In non-communist society, one class owns or controls the means of production and the other class is forced to work for them as they cannot create the wealth themselves
The traditional Marxist view of society - Karl Marx; the foundations of society and the economic theory
- The foundations of society is the economic system or economic base, which consists of the means of production and the class system or the relations of production.
- The ruling class owns the means of production and this ruling class constructs a whole set of social relationships that benefit them and allow them to exploit all others who do not share in the ownership of the means of production.
- Economic theory - The means of production are always advancing, becoming more complex and capable of producing greater wealth, as nothing can stop this outward march of technology
- The values created by the ruling class allow benefits to themselves and slow this march, and at the start of each epoch the ruling class help technology progress, but they then get in the way of its progress and impede it.
- This causes a rise in a new, challenging group with values and ideas that would help means of production advance, and after conflict, they gain control of society and begin to create new relations of production. This causes a new epoch to begin and the process starts once more.
The traditional Marxist view of society - Karl Marx; The capitalist belief system
- Marx believed society had reached the stage of capitalism, and the majority of his work was about the capitalist stage and the factors that would lead to a communist epoch. Within capitalism exists a bourgeoisie (ruling class) that owns property, industry and commerce, and the proletariat work for a wage and no matter their pay, they are considered in this working class.
- The petite bourgeoisie, who consist of the self-employed and those with small businesses, who have enough capital to have their own business but not enough to exploit and employ others on a large scale.
- The petite bourgeoisie do find it hard to compete with big businesses of the bourgeoisie, and they are often forced out of business eventually becoming wage workers in the proletariat. This process is known as proletarianisation.
- The bourgeoisie promotes a set of distorted beliefs that support their interests by helping to maintain their wealth and power, and these self-interested and distorted beliefs are the ideology of capitalism, which supports the view that enormous inequalities in society between the rich and poor are fair and reasonable
- Marxists argue this is unfair, unreasonable and derive from the exploitation of workers
How did Marx explain society - traditional Marxism and the false class consciousness
- The owners of the economic structure are able to control society and construct values and social relationships that reflect their own interests, and as others in society who are less powerful generally accept these values and relationships even if they are not in their interests.
- The majority of the population accept the inequalities of the system because of dominant institutions legitimising and justifying the economic and social situation Marx called this majority as suffering a false class consciousness as they do not realise their interests as a class lie in changing society rather than allowing continued class dominance
- Over time, Marx argued that capitalism will enter periods of crises which will progressively get worse, which have a range of causes - capitalists will drive down wages to increase profit, causing the W/C to become poor; known as pauperisation - the rich will continue to accumulate wealth, causing a polarisation between the poor masses and the bourgeoisie making class divisions stark and obvious
- Some members of the proletariat begin to realise that they are being exploited and believe that it is necessary to overthrow capitalism to end their own exploitation and so they develop ‘class consciousness’ to see through the distorted bourgeois ideology
- Class consciousness manifests itself through strikes and political protest, examples of class conflict, and eventually a small minority of very rich capitalists and a huge majority of relatively poor people, radical or revolutionary change is inevitable and this will cause the final epoch of communism to arrive
Historic Marxism - Epochs and proletarianisation
What evidence is there for the theory of epochs?
- Primitive communism -> slavery / ancient societies -> feudalism -> capitalism -> communism
What evidence is there for currently being in the capitalist state?
- Capitalism now because -> false class consciousness, proletariat and bourgeoisie, in which social control enforces the class gap, and the bourgeoisie create minimum wages and the richest 11 people have more wealth than the poorest half of the world illustrate a wealth gap from industrialization
What evidence is there for proletarianisation?
- Proletarianisation -> COVID-19 and highstreet decrease, and this shows how small businesses cannot compete with big businesses as the petite bourgeoisie are forced to become proletariats as they cannot grow their business to bourgeoisie level
Historic Marxism - Pauperisation
What evidence is there for pauperisation?
- Pauperisation is a process in capitalist society in which the rich manipulate taxes and wages in order to accumulate wealth from the proletariat, resulting in a bourgeoisie that increases their wealth further and a proletariat who become steadily poorer. This reinforces the social imbalance between the social classes.
- Evidence of this can be seen in periods of hyperinflation and high levels of unemployment, such as in the recent cost of living crisis, in which wages fail to match the price of goods and services, leading to groups in precarious socio-economic conditions to become even more impoverished. However, the bourgeoisie remain largely unaffected, as taxes are usually of an equal nature and so the rich are taxed the same as the poor (£400 package
and 2% increase is the same for all classes) resulting in a disproportionately affected and unsupported lower class.
Evidence for alienation:
- 9-5 job gives no satisfaction
Why are there no revolutions?
- Repressive state apparatus and ideological state apparatus
How Marx explained society - a summary (traditional marxists = money)
- According to Historic Marxist theory, all humans have material needs such as food, clothing, shelter and they must work to meet these. The ‘economic base’ is what determines all of society because it consists of the means and relations of production. The means of production are elements such as land, factories and raw materials. The relations of production describes how those who work in society operate eg: as slaves or paid.
- The economic base determines the ‘superstructure’ or our institutions. The role of the superstructure is to justify and reproduce the inequality that exists within the capitalist system through the promotion of false consciousness.
- Marx argued the only way to escape the exploitation by the bourgeoisie was for a revolution to overthrow the bourgeoisie leading to a fairer system: communism. This could occur through a class consciousness whereby the proletariat ‘wake up’ to their exploitation because of the constant driving down of wages or ‘pauperisation’ showing how different the rich and poor have become.
Strengths of Marx’s explanation
- Economy - recognises its importance in modern society
- Focus on ownership - explains inequalities in wealth
- Importance of social structure
- Still influential
