Accessible Theory: Marx(ism)
- deflorezine9
- Mar 13, 2023
- 2 min read
German philosopher and lifelong sugar baby of Frederick Engels, Karl Marx dedicated his life and work to the critique of the Western capitalist society in the 19th century. Focusing on the class struggle, he conceptualised 'labour' to be at the centre of the human experience. The organisation of economic activity, for Marx, determines all other aspects of social life.
Capitalism (being an economic system based on private ownership), he argued, has alienated (Entfremdet) the worker from the labour they are performing, the final product they are producing, as well as the means of production (the machinery, the factories and tools). What is produced no longer holds personal value.
In addition to this dissonance, Marx argues that capitalism operates in a dichotomy between capital and labour, where ‘Capital’ is accumulated objectified labour, yet labour itself is considered to be expendable. The workers' dependency on employment, therefore, drives the potential for exploitation. It creates a system in which the ‘capitalists’ (owners of the means of production) are able to make a profit from the surplus labour for which they aren’t paying their workers, as products are sold at higher margins than the wages paid to produce them.
“the class of modern wage-labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour-power in order to live.”
With labour being the only thing a person is valued and rewarded for, this ultimately generates a ‘wage slavery’ in which a person's livelihood is at the whim of their employer. Those who do not contribute are cast out by the social system, which in its entirety is built to benefit a capitalist economy. The state itself consists of laws and regulations which protect private property and secures the benefits of Capitalists through tax code manipulations and the subverting of unions, regulating workers ability to resist.
Capitalism, says Marx, will be its own downfall. Being built on the basis of exploiting workers and resources, it eats away at its own foundation until it inevitably will collapse. Yet as it's self-induced downfall takes the form of total societal and environmental demise, Marx calls for revolution. Outlined in the ‘Communist manifesto’ this process, which Marx believes should be gradual, includes:
Free education
Abolishing private property and inheritance
Introducing heavy income tax
Centralising Credit in the hands of the state
State ownership of means of communication and transport.
All this being said, Marxism to date is truly a multifaceted multiverse full of disagreement and this introduction has merely scratched the surface.
Introductions to Marxist Feminism, the Frankfurt School of Thought and Gramsci to follow.....
Some more helpful resources and further readings
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