Marxism Flashcards
What is the definition of “social labor” in Marxism?
The socially pattern ways humans relate to the environment to obtain energy to reproduce society.
What is a setback of the wage worker compared to that of a Subsistence worker in a kinship economy
The wage worker works for cash which has a monopoly over exchange and is the measure of all things, and since he does not produce his own subsistence and nor can he attain the capital necessary to create a livable housing he is relegated to become homeless if he is not under employment.
What are three general types of modes production?
Capitalist tributary and kinship
What characterizes tributary models of production
Workers in tributary models of production have direct access to the means of production but their activities are directed through political domination. the threat of violence force underlies the control by overload elites of serf peasants
What are the two versions of tributary modes of production
Centralized or Aziatic which has an all powerful ruling elite where the ultimate source of power is control over some important resource of production such as large scale waterworks or command over uniquely powerful force such as the largest army. Then there is the dispersed or fragmented mode of production (called feudal by Marx
) which denotes a relatively weak central power and correspondingly strong local overlords.
Why did the Capitalist mode of production did not originally developed in most part of Asia
 infidel societies were they were sometimes weak central rulers they were deals with merchants to bolster power and the long-distance trade relied on the investments and activities of these merchants. on the other hand in Asiatic modes of production the centralized tributary mode of production characteristic of the region did not allow merchants the same opportunities to create alliances with political parties.
What are the two types of kinship Modes of production identified by Wolf (1981)
simpler ones where resources are widely available to anyone with necessary skills and a more complex one we’re access to resources a structured by organized kinship groups
What defines a peasant and how does this conflict with Marxist Analysis?
Peasants do not fit neatly into Marxist conceptual scheme when they own their own land, sell their produce on a capitalist market and higher labor to work on their firms as well as hire household members out as wage laborers to Capitalist firms. Because the only and higher laborers and engaging manufacture Where they only means of production they look like Kabbalists but since they are often desperately poor, household based subject to the whim of prices set by large scale heavily capitalized firms and at times work for wages they look like a proletariat.
Since the peasant does not fit neatly into Marxist analysis what is another mode of production that has been added to the Marxist lens
The concept of a petty Commodity form of production. This refers to a production situation within a capitalist mode of production where competitive markets exist and where specialized producers who control their own means of production compete with each other to sell product and are able to hire free labor but do not extract significant surplus value from wage labor
Why have small scale cloth weavers of Totonicapan, Guatemala, not seen large scale capitalist growth and extreme social class inequality despite them existing in a capitalist mode of production, where wage labor is hired by owners of capital who acquire their capital from large capitalist firms?
There is a difficulty in a mask in capital cars by easy access to craft of weaving and high wage rates limits the potential for capitalist accumulation.
