Karl Marx and Marxism

Conservatism

• monarchy
• aristocracy
• established church
• landowning class

Liberalism

• representation
• equality before law
• religious tolerance
• "bourgeoisie"

Classical Economists

• markets
• maximize economic growth

Socialism

• exploitation in the wage system
• ownership of wealth--cooperative or collective
• fair distribution of wealth

Karl Marx 1818-1883

Trier

Berlin--1836

G. W. F. Hegel 1770-1831

• Philosophy of History

The Dialectic

• Thesis
• Antithesis
• Synthesis

Paris--1840s

• Atheism
• Socialism: many varieties
• Cooperation rather than competition
• Cooperative ownership
• Friedrich Engels
• The Communist Manifesto 1848

The Dialectic in History

• Thesis--capitalist class
• Antithesis--proletariat
• Synthesis--communist society

London--1850s link link British Library

• Das Kapital 1867ff

How to define stages of history

Hegel: ideas define a stage of history

• "spirit of the age"/zeitgeist

Marx: economics defines a stage of history

• Look for the "material base"
• Look for ownership of the "means of production", i.e. land, capital, factories, ships
• Follow the money: who does the work, and who receives "unearned income"?

Stages of History

1. Prehistoric

• Equal Sharing of Resources
• Relative Equality of Men and Women
• Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State 1884
• Confiscation of Property for Agriculture
• "bourgeois" marriage as exploitation of women

2. Feudal (Conservatism)

• The Old Regime
• Wealth to agricultural owners
• Exploitation of Dependent Labor
• Role of Religion: Sustain Feudal Social Order
• Christian Marriage

3. Bourgeois (Liberalism/Capitalism)

• Bourgeois Revolutions (1776, 1789, 1830, 1848, Civil War)
• Bourgeois Society
• Wealth to Owners of Capital, not Land
• End of Slavery, Serfdom
• Exploitation of Wage Labor

4. Proletarian (Socialism)

• Working Class Revolution
• Proletarian Society
• End of Capitalist Exploitation: class struggle
• Wealth shared by workers
• End of Scarcity: Wealth for All
• "The Withering Away of the State"
• Historical Inevitability

The Communist Dream: Marx: "In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic." The German Ideology, sect 1.

What Marx got right:

How capitalism works

• rise of bourgeois, liberal society

What Marx got wrong, even in the short run:

Impoverishment thesis

Theory of the state

Karl Marx 1818-1883

Marx's legacy

 Twentieth Century Communism

• Soviet Union
• China

Questions for Review:

What were the most important influences on Karl Marx's ideas?

In what fundamental ways did Marx differ from the "classical economists"?

What were the stages of history according to Marx?

How did the exploitation of labor differ in the feudal and bourgeois stages?

Why would exploitation disappear in the last stage of history?