Marxist + Neo-Marxist Explanation

• What did the RC develop to benefit themselves + help exploit the proletariat?


  Relations of production
• Who agreed with Marx and said that the RC use h_______ to justify ≠?

  Neo-Marxist Gramsci - hegemony
• What is it called when the proletariat accept their inequality + exploitation?

  Adopting a false class consciousness
• How is the proletariat's false class consciousness encouraged?

  Ideological apparatuses - media, religion, the family etc.
• Why did Marx see Communism as inevitable?

  Society would become unbalanced/class gap would widen (polarisation) bc the bourgeoisie take surplus profits whilst proletariat had low wages
• Define 'polarisation'?


  When society becomes unbalanced + gap between rich and poor widens
• What did Marx say would happen to the proletariat after 'polarisation'?

  • Become alienated
  • Rise up against oppressors
  • Become 'class-for-itself'
• Who said - in support of Marx's s. class ≠ ideas - that there's little evidence of class divisions disappearing?

  Westergaard & Resler
• During the 1970's, Functionalist writers claimed that changes in occupations were going to benefit workers, e.g. machines taking over difficult and dangerous tasks in factories - what is this process called?

  Automatisation
• Which US Marxist/political economist argued that automatisation would alienate + de-skill workers?

  Harry Braverman
• What is the mechanism of 'de-skilling', something that Braverman said would happen to workers as a consequence of automatisation?


  Owners of the means of production can inc. profits by dec. labour costs
• Who argued that the MC as well as the WC have experienced de-skilling?

  Harry Braverman - MC jobs have been broken down into smaller, easier-to-do tasks
• Why are deksilled worker's beneficial for the owners of the means of production?

  • They have less control over their working conditions
  • Easier to fire + replace
• What is 'proletariatisation'?


  When MC workers find themselves in the same powerless situation as WC workers
• What leads to 'proletariatisation'?

  De-skilling of workers
• AO3: Marx's ideas are d____________ - all major ideas are based on the economic relationships between RC-WC

  Deterministic
• AO3: What social class does Marx underestimate the importance of?

  Middle class
• AO3: Marx ignores 'embourgeoisement' which directly opposes proletarianisation - what does 'embourgeoisiement' mean? 


  Refers to how the WC are becoming the MC
• Who argued that society controls the WC by using the Ideological + Repressive State Apparatuses?

  Louis Althusser
• What was the most significant ideological apparatus to Marx?

  Religion
• What did Marx refer to religion as?


  ''The opium of the ppl''
• Neo-Marxists focus on the relationship between the -structure and the -stucture

  Infrastructure and the superstructure
• What change did Gramsci observe among the RC?


  Evolved from a group of aristocrats/factory owners → a hegemony of ppl who wanted capitalism to keep going
• What did Gramsci develop 'hegemony' to explain?

  How RC control WC w/o force or coercion
• Gramsci states that hegemony m___________ consent through the ideological apparatuses of e________ + m____.

  Manufactures consent - education + media
• What are the differences in how Marx and Gramsci wanted to change society?

  Marx - revolution to overthrow capitalism

  Gramsci - changing ppl's ideas via 'consciousness-raising'
• Who proposed 'Correspondance Theory'?

  Bowles & Gintis
• What was Bowles & Gintis' 'Correspondence Theory'?

  Skl mimicks patterns of the workplace + reinforces how workers should act
• How is skl like the workplace?

  • Hierarchical structures + subservience
  • External rewards
• How does Althusser argue that skl controls us?

  We attribute failure to ourselves, not the system
• AO3: How is the idea that education is an ideological apparatus critised?

  • The hidden curriculum may be there to help us, not hinder
  • Many skl leavers are unemployed
  • Subjects like sociology wouldn't be allowed in skl was meant to keep the proletariat in their place
• Who argued that religion has been replaced as the 'opium of the ppl' (Marx) by mass media? (HINT: Fried XY)


  Freidman
• What did Marcuse argue ab. media? (HINT: distraction, false needs)

  It acts as a constant distraction - by constantly repeating the same values, we're socialised into pursuing 'false needs'
• AO3: How does Saunders criticise Marxists?


  They assume they're the only ones clever enough to notice anything
• AO3: How does Parkin criticise Marxists?


  He says that Marxists seem to think all the WC are collectively suffering from brain damage