Marx's Ideas

• Marxism

  • Based on Karl Marx's work
  • The Communist Manifesto claimed history was based on class struggle
  • Workers would rise up
• Marx

  • Agreed with Durkheim that it is possible to understand society scientifically
  • Believed this knowledge would lead to a better society
  • Did not think that progress would be smooth though (unlike Durkheim)- thought it would be contradictory
  • Was revolutionary- wanted to inspire action
  • Formed the basis of communism
• Society

  Based on the economy
• Historical materialism

  • Humans have material needs
  • In order to meet these needs, they must use forces of production
• Social relations of production

  • As the means of production change, so too do the relations of production (ways of organising production)
  • Two classes emerge: owners and workers
• Mode of production

  • The forces and relations of production
  • We have a capitalist mode of production
• Economic base

  Determines all other features in society
• Exploitation

  • Primitive communism- classless society where everything is shared
  • When one class owns the means of production, they can control the surplus product
• Capitalism

  • Proletariat are legally free
  • Concentration of ownership
  • Forces of production are constantly expanded
  • Based on a division between owners and workers (like other societies)
• Class consciousness

  • Polarisation means that the proletariat begin to develop a class consciousness
  • Class in itself to a class for itself
• Marx: '"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force."'
• Alienation

  • Refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together
  • In capitalism, workers have absolutely no power over their labour
• State

  Used to protect the interests of the ruling class
• Revolution

  1. Marx ultimately predicted that the proletariat would rise up and revolt against bourgeois oppression

  2. Capitalism would be abolished and replaced by a classless society, as people regain control over their labour

  3. He did not specify how the revolution would come about
• Ideology

  The dominant ideas in society are the ideas of the economically dominant class

  Ideology fosters a false consciousness in the subordinate class to help sustain class inequality

  HOWEVER - as capitalism impoverishes workers, they gain class consciousness (become conscious of their true position)