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Pros and Cons of Marxism

• Post author: Amos Gikunda
• Post published: December 20, 2020
• Post category: Government
• Post comments: 3 Comments

Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, journalist, and sociologist. He is regarded historically as the father of Marxism. He was the most influential socialist thinker and an advocate for human rights. He envisioned an equal materialistic society in which everyone contributes their time, resources, and labor to a common pool and alternatively receives enough rewards to satisfy their needs. His theory condemns the exploitation of social classes and articulates the disadvantages of capitalism that prevent individuals from being free. He suggests a solution of socialism in that property should not only benefit the wealthy but the public at large.

Despite these ideologies, some people depict Marx’s philosophy to be absurd as the flaws outweigh the benefits and have no place in today’s world. Here are the pros and cons of Marxism that depicts to us a legitimate picture of the theory.

Pros of Marxism

1. It creates equality: Many injustices and inequalities happen because of the divide in social classes within a society. Marxism creates a system of true equality, whereby everyone shares abundantly in society’s wealth. In his vision of a classless world, there are equal gender roles, ethnicity, racism, and discrimination. The theory holds a compelling image for the exploited groups in society as it calls for low-interest rates to almost zero to spur economic development, equitable health care access, and education.

2. Helps with capitalism: Even though capitalism is significant as it encourages competition and innovativeness, it creates a monopoly. A monopoly happens when a company dominates the market and controls prices. Marxism believed that to eliminate monopoly; companies should be state-owned. His philosophy has made it possible to reevaluate capitalism hence a beneficial impact on today’s world.

It points out the social difference between those who own productive products and those who sell their labor. Marx points out the unfairness of ordinary workers’ exploitation by holders of means of production. His discovery led to the inception and formation of trade unions and protective labor laws that are still influential today.

Through Marx’s ideologies, people have become more educated on the existing and increasing gap between the wealthy and the poor, globalization, and liberalization of markets.

3. Reduces debt: The Marxist philosophy points towards a reduction in debt tendency as communities will be harmoniously working together to build their society. People would provide for each other while the government helps by distributing the required resources.

4. Benefits society: Under the Marxist, the society is grouped as a whole as all social classes are involved as differing power interest groups are equal. Profit maximization and resource utilization are equitable hence benefiting the whole society when it comes to growth.

5. Offers protection to the unions: Marxism encourages unions to stand up for personal rights and prevent the exploitation of workers by management to achieve maximum production levels.

Cons of Marxism

1. It abolishes religion: One of the downsides of Marxism is its attempt to discredit religion. His principle of equality faces a challenge of religion as some people will automatically be placed in superior or inferior positions over others within the religion. People are allowed the freedom to choose their faith though it does not support organized religion like Christianity, Hinduism, or Judaism as it will be used to control people. Therefore, the theory does not allow freedom of worship.

2. It negatively affects the education system

• According to Marxism, the education system should be state-controlled, meaning that the government is in full control of the school curriculum and teaching modules. It is negative as the state can manipulate the curriculum and teach students substandard information regarding their county. Such teachings will not take into consideration democratic principles hence interfering with students’ free intellectual development. Brainwashing would also create a surplus of misplaced nationalism and uninformed students.
• The role of a teacher in the Marxist is insignificant as he enjoys no academic freedom.
• Without constant critics from other agencies, the state may decide to concentrate more on economics studies that are advocated for by Marxism to sharpen productive skills. This would lead to the creative faculties of the child in music, arts, and drama being neglected.

3. It eliminates the private ownership concept: Under the constitution, there is an emphasis on human rights, one of them being the right to own property. Marxism’s socialist vision limits ownership of private property. Everyone contributes to the greater good by living in a given place within the community. There is a lack of control over choosing where to live; hence there is no privacy.

4. It does not encourage entrepreneurship opportunities: Business under Marxism is basically for the government as everything runs through it. There is no self-employment. Income sharing reduces individual incentives to work and be creative. Innovativeness will be hard due to a lack of motivation and individualism hence leading to skills and economic stagnation within a society.

5. It can lead to communism: Communism is an economic system where the society owns the factors of production while the government controls them. It eliminates the occurrence of a free market as the government sets prices, hence discarding free market will. It is a possible occurrence in Marxism as it does not promote individualism.

It can develop into state tyranny. A state can easily repress individual freedom and misallocate resources as people would be stuck in the normalcy of their life and not advocate for change.

6. It is economically deterministic: Marx argued that economic laws determined the shape of society and history itself. It is not the case as other factors shape history too. For example, under capitalism, countries like America and Britain have been able to push for neo-liberalism.

7. It does not work in the Real world: The major weakness of Marxism is its failure to recognize human nature hence making it hard to be implemented in the real world. It portrays a perfect society and does not take into account the essential weaknesses of human beings like selfishness and greediness. The oppression of personal wealth and comfort for the good of the masses is inefficient and unproductive hence cannot survive in today’s world.

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This post has 3 comments.

so cool fr fr

Pros 😂😂😂 Marxism is a an intellectual and moral disorder. It has literally never created equality, aside from spreading equality via forced labor, torture, secret executions, disappearances of dissidents or perceived dissidents. Persecution is of minorities is just as it was in Nazi Germany, communists and fascists have too many similarities for Marxism to be considered genuinely antagonistic to fascism in its consequences. Go ahead, go to China and see if they give a single shit about anything but maintaining the total supremacy of the current CCP clique and brutal Chinese state Anticommunism is antifascist.

Equality of misery and total subjugation…

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10 Marxism Strengths and Weaknesses

Economist, philosopher, sociologist, revolutionary socialist and journalist Karl Marx is regarded in history as the Father of Marxism, where much of the philosophy has to do with his obsession with the ideas of George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who has been called the “Aristotle” of modern times” and used his system of dialectics to explain the whole of the history of philosophy, art, science, religion and politics. Basically, Marx was a communist, political journalist and an advocate for human rights, but his philosophy—Marxism—is a very important aspect in some of the world’s societies to identify. Here are its strengths and weaknesses:

List of Strengths of Marxism

1. It tends to create a system of true equality. Although Marxism’s system of government is considered as communism, it places an emphasis on human rights, with its foundation encompassing equal gender roles, health care and access to education. As Marx believed, there should be equality before the law and societal services, where everyone has an equal stance and opportunity with no dominant gender. This means that every person would be able to get access to the most important things he needs regardless of whatever he does, wherever he lives or how much he makes to provide a better living for those depending on him.

2. It offers benefits to the society. If you look at the Marxist theory, it considers society as a whole, which means that it acknowledges all the social forces involved, including the power interests of different groups. Stressing the role of class struggle or conflict within society between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, it is effective in explaining change in society. In essence, it organizes society under capitalism, where the bourgeoisie tends to maximize profit with the proletariat.

3. It helps with capitalism. Ironically, when huge multi-nationals dominate the entire world economy, capital advocates would tell us that the future lies with small businesses or always state that “Small is beautiful”. However, we can consider that the youthful phase of capitalism is gone beyond recall. But as far as Marxism is concerned, free competition inevitably begets monopoly, where the struggle between big and small capitals always yields to the same result. In modern times, the vast power of multi-nationals and monopolies seems to exercise a total stranglehold on the world, holding access to economies of scale, staggering sums of money, ability to manipulate commodity prices and even the influence of government policies. Now, Marxism was able to predict the inevitable tendency towards monopolization, where free competition was a standard.

4. It reduces the tendency of debt. Under the Marxist philosophy, communities will be working together to achieve success, where all people would come together to provide for each other, with the help of the government distributing resources as required.

5. It protects the rights of unions. Rather than exploiting managers, Marxism encourages unions to stand up for personal rights, creating a system of checks and balances for a maximum production level to be achieved. As it is believed that this philosophy never exploits workers by management, followers believe that unions are definitely a great idea.

List of Weaknesses of Marxism

1. It tries to abolish religion. Under Marxism, you would have the freedom to have your own faith, but you would not have the freedom to practice it in a way that is organized. As you can see, religion would ultimately place one group in a superior role over the others, which goes against the equality principle of Marxism. This means that there would be no organized religion, which would affect prominent beliefs followed around the world, including Christianity and Judaism. As Marx felt that religion was used to control people, Marxism would not allow people to be free of choosing their spirituality.

2. It negatively affects the educational system. It is important to note that Marxist education implements one that is absolutely state- controlled, which means that it regards too much importance to the role of the state in education, which means that the methodology of teaching, curriculum construction and examination system would be determined by the state and it does not allow other agencies in education—local or regional—to have their say. Marxist philosophy on education sees economics lying at the root of every human activity, though this is not absolutely factual on scientific point of view, as economics occupies the pivotal position in the curriculum is one of the main objectives to acquire productive skills, which would result to creative faculties of children being neglected.

3. It does not value the concept of private ownership. While you are given a place to live as part of a community and contribute to the common good, you will have no private property ownership, which means that you might not have much control over your residence and your contributions. In Marxism, there will be the idea that private properties and businesses should be abolished, which makes it impossible for anyone to take business advantage of someone else, giving him no reward for working.

4. It limits opportunities for entrepreneurs. If you are in doing business under Marxism, then basically, you would be working for the government, which means that are not going to work as an entrepreneur, freelancer or sole business owner because everything would run through the government.

5. It can lead to communism. Communism is a possible occurrence in Marxism, as this philosophy is believed to lead to dictatorship. As you can see, it would not allow anyone to be an individual, which is believed to lead to a dangerous society without anybody being motivated.

In theory, equality sounds great, seeing a lot of examples where people are treated fairly, but keep in mind that an individual is taken out of the scenario under Marxism. The strengths and weaknesses of this philosophy show some sets of benefits and drawbacks, creating a system of government that is prone to abuse, that is why Marx to fix its flaws. But by examining its key strengths and weaknesses, we will be able to decide whether it is best for society or not.

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Pros and Cons of Marxism

Marxism, a socio-economic theory developed by Karl Marx in the 19th century, continues to evoke debate and intrigue even today. With approximately 40% of the world’s population living in countries influenced by Marxism at some point, it’s clear that this ideology has had a significant impact.

This article explores the pros and cons of Marxism, highlighting its potential for economic equality and social justice, as well as its drawbacks such as authoritarian tendencies and economic inefficiency.

Table of Contents

Key Takeaways

• Economic equality and social justice: Marxism aims to promote economic equality by advocating for collective ownership of the means of production. It seeks to eliminate wealth concentration and social hierarchies based on class, race, and gender, and emphasizes fair treatment of workers.
• Redistribution of wealth: Marxism calls for equitable redistribution of wealth to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. It is seen as a way to achieve a fairer distribution of opportunities and resources. However, critics argue that wealth redistribution may discourage hard work and innovation.
• Class struggle and power dynamics: Marxism analyzes power dynamics within society and identifies class struggle as arising from economic inequality. It advocates for a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources, as the ruling class exploits and oppresses the working class.
• Authoritarian tendencies and lack of individual freedom: Marxism’s implementation can lead to the concentration of power in the hands of a few, resulting in the suppression of individual rights and liberties. It emphasizes collective ownership and limits personal economic decisions, potentially leading to a lack of personal freedom and a totalitarian regime.

Economic Equality

One of the main advantages of Marxism is that it promotes economic equality among individuals. Under Marxist ideology, the means of production are owned collectively by the workers, rather than being controlled by a small group of capitalists. This ensures that the wealth and resources are distributed more equally among the members of society. In a capitalist system, wealth tends to concentrate in the hands of a few, leading to income inequality and social divisions. However, Marxism aims to eliminate this disparity by advocating for the redistribution of wealth and resources.

By promoting economic equality, Marxism seeks to create a society where everyone has access to the same opportunities and benefits. This means that individuals aren’t limited or disadvantaged based on their social class or economic background. In a Marxist society, everyone is entitled to the same basic necessities, such as food, shelter, healthcare, and education. This ensures that individuals can pursue their goals and aspirations without being hindered by economic constraints.

Furthermore, economic equality can lead to a more stable and harmonious society. When there’s less inequality, there’s less social unrest and conflict. Marxism argues that by eliminating the vast disparities in wealth, society can achieve a more balanced and fair system. This can help foster a sense of unity and cooperation among individuals, as they no longer have to compete against each other for resources and opportunities.

Social Justice

Two key aspects of social justice that Marxism focuses on are equality and fairness. Marxism advocates for the redistribution of wealth and resources to ensure that all individuals have equal access to basic needs and opportunities. It argues that in a capitalist society, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, leading to social and economic inequalities. Marxism proposes that by eliminating private ownership and implementing a system based on common ownership, society can achieve a more equitable distribution of resources.

• Equal distribution of wealth : Marxism argues that wealth should be distributed equally among all members of society, rather than being concentrated in the hands of a few. This would help to eliminate poverty and provide a fairer society for all.
• Fair treatment of workers : Marxism emphasizes the importance of fair wages, safe working conditions, and workers’ rights. It seeks to address exploitation and promote the well-being of the working class.
• Elimination of social hierarchies : Marxism aims to dismantle social hierarchies based on class, race, gender, and other factors. It seeks to create a society where everyone is treated with equal respect and dignity.

Redistribution of Wealth

Marxism advocates for an equitable redistribution of wealth among members of society to address economic inequalities. According to Marxist ideology, the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few is a fundamental flaw of capitalism. The principle behind wealth redistribution is to ensure that everyone has access to the resources necessary for a decent standard of living. Proponents argue that this approach can alleviate poverty, reduce social tensions, and promote social justice.

One of the main arguments in favor of wealth redistribution is that it can help create a more equal society. By taking from the wealthy and giving to the less fortunate, Marxism aims to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. This, in turn, can lead to a fairer distribution of opportunities and resources, allowing individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds to have a better chance at success.

Critics, on the other hand, argue that wealth redistribution can stifle incentives for hard work and innovation. They contend that taking wealth from the rich and giving it to the poor discourages entrepreneurship and diminishes productivity. Moreover, opponents believe that wealth redistribution can lead to a bloated government and excessive bureaucracy, which could undermine individual freedoms and economic efficiency.

Class Struggle

The concept of class struggle in Marxism focuses on the effects of economic inequality, which can lead to social upheaval and unrest.

By analyzing power dynamics within society, Marxism aims to understand how the ruling class exploits and oppresses the working class.

This understanding of class struggle forms the basis for advocating for a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources.

Economic Inequality Effects

One major consequence of economic inequality is the perpetuation of a divided society. When there’s a significant gap between the rich and the poor, it leads to social unrest and a sense of injustice. This division creates a class struggle, where the working class fights against the wealthy elite for a fairer distribution of resources and opportunities.

The effects of economic inequality are far-reaching and impact various aspects of society, including:

• Limited upward mobility: Economic inequality often hinders social mobility, making it difficult for individuals from lower-income backgrounds to rise above their circumstances and achieve upward social mobility.
• Unequal access to education: Economic inequality can lead to disparities in educational opportunities, as those from disadvantaged backgrounds may struggle to afford quality education or access educational resources necessary for success.
• Health disparities: Economic inequality is linked to health disparities, as those in lower-income brackets may struggle to afford healthcare and have limited access to healthy food, safe housing, and other resources necessary for good health.

These effects of economic inequality highlight the need for policies and systems that promote equality and address the underlying issues contributing to this divide.

Social Upheaval and Unrest

Experiencing social upheaval and unrest, individuals from different social classes engage in a class struggle to fight for their rights and a more equitable society. This class struggle, a key aspect of Marxism, arises from the inherent contradictions and inequalities within capitalist societies. To illustrate the dynamics of this struggle, let’s examine a table showcasing the main actors and their motivations:

Through protests, strikes, and other forms of collective action, the working class aims to challenge the dominance of the bourgeoisie and transform the existing social and economic structures. While social upheaval and unrest can disrupt societal stability, they can also lead to positive changes and the pursuit of a more just society.

Power Dynamics Analysis

Marxism’s power dynamics analysis reveals the inherent struggle between social classes, as they vie for control and influence within society. This analysis offers a unique perspective on understanding the dynamics of power relations and class struggle.

• Economic Exploitation: Marxism highlights how the ruling class, or the bourgeoisie, exploits the working class, or the proletariat, by extracting surplus value from their labor. This exploitation perpetuates a power imbalance in society.
• Alienation: Marxism points out that capitalism alienates the working class from the products of their labor, leading to a loss of control and autonomy. This alienation reinforces the power dynamics between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
• Revolution: Marxism suggests that the only way to challenge and disrupt these power dynamics is through revolution. It argues that the proletariat must overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish a classless society to achieve true equality and justice.

Marxism’s power dynamics analysis provides a framework for understanding the ongoing struggle for power and influence among social classes, highlighting the need for systemic change to address inequality and oppression.

Authoritarian Tendencies

Often, proponents of Marxism argue that its authoritarian tendencies can hinder individual freedoms. While Marxism aims to create a classless society where wealth and resources are shared equally, critics argue that the implementation of such a system often leads to the concentration of power in the hands of a few. This concentration of power can result in the suppression of individual rights and liberties.

One of the main concerns regarding Marxism’s authoritarian tendencies is the potential for a totalitarian regime to emerge. Critics argue that the centralization of power in the hands of the state can lead to an oppressive government that limits personal freedoms and stifles dissent. In such a system, the state has the authority to dictate every aspect of people’s lives, including their thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

Moreover, the emphasis on collective ownership of the means of production in Marxism can also contribute to the erosion of individual freedoms. Critics argue that when the state controls all industries and resources, it can restrict individuals’ ability to make their own economic decisions and pursue their own interests. This can lead to a lack of innovation, entrepreneurial spirit, and individual autonomy.

However, proponents of Marxism argue that its authoritarian tendencies aren’t inherent to the ideology itself but rather a result of its historical implementations. They believe that a true Marxist society would prioritize the well-being and freedom of all individuals. Nonetheless, the potential for authoritarianism remains a valid concern when discussing the pros and cons of Marxism.

Economic Inefficiency

However, critics argue that Marxism’s economic inefficiency can hinder productivity and hinder overall economic growth. They highlight several key points to support their argument:

• Centralized Planning: Marxism advocates for a centrally planned economy, where the government controls all means of production. Critics argue that this system can lead to inefficiencies as the government may not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to efficiently allocate resources. This can result in mismanagement, shortages, and surpluses.
• Lack of Incentives: Marxism’s emphasis on equality and distribution of wealth can create a lack of incentives for individual productivity. Critics argue that without the possibility of personal gain or reward for hard work, people may be less motivated to innovate and excel in their work, leading to decreased productivity overall.
• Limited Competition: Marxism seeks to eliminate competition and establish a classless society. Critics argue that without competition, there’s no driving force for improvement and innovation. They claim that competition fosters efficiency, as businesses strive to offer better products and services in order to attract customers. Without competition, the incentive to improve and increase efficiency diminishes.

Critics argue that these factors contribute to economic inefficiency within the Marxist system, ultimately hindering productivity and overall economic growth.

Lack of Individual Freedom

Under Marxism, individuals often find themselves restricted in terms of personal freedom. One of the key principles of Marxism is the idea of collective ownership and control over the means of production. This means that individuals don’t have the freedom to own private property or make independent economic decisions. Instead, the state or the collective holds ownership and control, and individuals are expected to contribute to the collective good rather than pursue their own interests.

This lack of individual freedom extends beyond just economic decisions. Marxism also advocates for the elimination of social classes, which can lead to limitations on personal choices and opportunities. In a Marxist society, there’s often a strong emphasis on conformity and collective action, which can suppress individuality and limit personal expression. Additionally, Marxism often involves a centralized government that exercises significant control over the lives of its citizens, further restricting individual freedom.

While Marxism aims to create a more equal society, the lack of individual freedom under this ideology is a significant drawback that critics often point out.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does marxism address the issue of innovation and entrepreneurship in a society where wealth is redistributed.

Marxism addresses the issue of innovation and entrepreneurship in a society where wealth is redistributed by promoting collective ownership of means of production, prioritizing societal needs over individual profit, and encouraging cooperation and collaboration for progress.

Are There Any Potential Drawbacks or Negative Consequences Associated With the Pursuit of Economic Equality Under Marxism?

There are potential drawbacks and negative consequences associated with the pursuit of economic equality under Marxism. While it aims to address inequality, it can lead to lack of incentives, stifling innovation and entrepreneurship, and potentially infringe on individual freedoms.

What Are Some Potential Challenges or Criticisms Regarding the Concept of Class Struggle Within a Marxist Framework?

Some potential challenges or criticisms regarding the concept of class struggle within a Marxist framework include concerns about the potential for power consolidation, lack of individual autonomy, and the potential for economic inefficiency.

How Does Marxism Address the Potential Concentration of Power and Authority in the Hands of the Ruling Class?

Marxism addresses the potential concentration of power and authority in the hands of the ruling class through its emphasis on collective ownership and the redistribution of wealth. It aims to create a more egalitarian society.

Are There Any Alternative Economic Systems That Address Social Justice and Equality More Effectively Than Marxism?

There are alternative economic systems that may address social justice and equality more effectively than Marxism. However, they have their own set of pros and cons that need to be carefully considered before making a judgment.

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Historical materialism

• Analysis of society
• Analysis of the economy
• Class struggle
• The contributions of Engels
• The work of Kautsky and Bernstein
• The radicals
• The Austrians
• The dictatorship of the proletariat
• Marxism in Cuba
• Marxism in the developing world
• Marxism in the West

Where did Marxism come from?

Why is marxism important, how is marxism different from other forms of socialism, how does marxism differ from leninism.

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Marxism originated in the thought of the radical philosopher and economist Karl Marx , with important contributions from his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels . Marx and Engels authored  The Communist Manifesto  (1848), a pamphlet outlining their theory of historical materialism and predicting the ultimate overthrow of capitalism by the industrial proletariat . Engels edited the second and third volumes of Marx’s analysis and critique of capitalism,  Das Kapital , both published after Marx’s death. 

In the mid-19th century, Marxism helped to consolidate, inspire, and radicalize elements of the labour and socialist movements in western Europe, and it was later the basis of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism , the revolutionary doctrines developed by Vladimir Lenin in Russia and Mao Zedong in China, respectively. It also inspired a more moderate form of socialism in Germany, the precursor of modern  social democracy .  

Under socialism , the means of production are owned or controlled by the state for the benefit of all, an arrangement that is compatible with democracy and a peaceful transition from capitalism . Marxism justifies and predicts the emergence of a stateless and classless society without private property. That vaguely socialist society, however, would be preceded by the violent seizure of the state and the means of production by the proletariat , who would rule in an interim dictatorship . 

Marxism predicted a spontaneous revolution by the proletariat , but Leninism insisted on the need for leadership by a vanguard party of professional revolutionaries (such as Vladimir Lenin himself). Marxism predicted a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat , whereas Leninism, in practice, established a permanent dictatorship of the Communist Party . Marxism envisioned a revolution of proletarians in industrialized countries, while Leninism also emphasized the revolutionary potential of peasants in primarily agrarian societies (such as Russia).

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Marxism , a body of doctrine developed by Karl Marx and, to a lesser extent, by Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century. It originally consisted of three related ideas: a philosophical anthropology , a theory of history, and an economic and political program. There is also Marxism as it has been understood and practiced by the various socialist movements, particularly before 1914. Then there is Soviet Marxism as worked out by Vladimir Ilich Lenin and modified by Joseph Stalin , which under the name of Marxism-Leninism ( see Leninism ) became the doctrine of the communist parties set up after the Russian Revolution (1917). Offshoots of this included Marxism as interpreted by the anti-Stalinist Leon Trotsky and his followers, Mao Zedong ’s Chinese variant of Marxism-Leninism, and various Marxisms in the developing world. There were also the post-World War II nondogmatic Marxisms that have modified Marx’s thought with borrowings from modern philosophies, principally from those of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger but also from Sigmund Freud and others.

(Read Leon Trotsky’s 1926 Britannica essay on Lenin.)

The thought of Karl Marx

The written work of Marx cannot be reduced to a philosophy , much less to a philosophical system. The whole of his work is a radical critique of philosophy, especially of G.W.F. Hegel ’s idealist system and of the philosophies of the left and right post- Hegelians . It is not, however, a mere denial of those philosophies. Marx declared that philosophy must become reality. One could no longer be content with interpreting the world; one must be concerned with transforming it, which meant transforming both the world itself and human consciousness of it. This, in turn, required a critique of experience together with a critique of ideas. In fact, Marx believed that all knowledge involves a critique of ideas. He was not an empiricist . Rather, his work teems with concepts (appropriation, alienation , praxis, creative labour, value, and so on) that he had inherited from earlier philosophers and economists, including Hegel, Johann Fichte , Immanuel Kant , Adam Smith , David Ricardo , and John Stuart Mill . What uniquely characterizes the thought of Marx is that, instead of making abstract affirmations about a whole group of problems such as human nature , knowledge, and matter , he examines each problem in its dynamic relation to the others and, above all, tries to relate them to historical, social, political, and economic realities.

In 1859, in the preface to his Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie ( Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy ), Marx wrote that the hypothesis that had served him as the basis for his analysis of society could be briefly formulated as follows:

In the social production that men carry on, they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure, and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness . The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and intellectual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men which determines their existence; it is on the contrary their social existence which determines their consciousness.

Raised to the level of historical law, this hypothesis was subsequently called historical materialism. Marx applied it to capitalist society, both in Manifest der kommunistischen Partei (1848; The Communist Manifesto ) and Das Kapital (vol. 1, 1867; “Capital”) and in other writings. Although Marx reflected upon his working hypothesis for many years, he did not formulate it in a very exact manner: different expressions served him for identical realities. If one takes the text literally, social reality is structured in the following way:

1. Underlying everything as the real basis of society is the economic structure. This structure includes (a) the “material forces of production,” that is, the labour and means of production, and (b) the overall “relations of production,” or the social and political arrangements that regulate production and distribution. Although Marx stated that there is a correspondence between the “material forces” of production and the indispensable “relations” of production, he never made himself clear on the nature of the correspondence, a fact that was to be the source of differing interpretations among his later followers.

2. Above the economic structure rises the superstructure, consisting of legal and political “forms of social consciousness” that correspond to the economic structure. Marx says nothing about the nature of this correspondence between ideological forms and economic structure, except that through the ideological forms individuals become conscious of the conflict within the economic structure between the material forces of production and the existing relations of production expressed in the legal property relations. In other words, “The sum total of the forces of production accessible to men determines the condition of society” and is at the base of society. “The social structure and the state issue continually from the life processes of definite individuals . . . as they are in reality , that is acting and materially producing.” The political relations that individuals establish among themselves are dependent on material production, as are the legal relations. This foundation of the social on the economic is not an incidental point: it colours Marx’s whole analysis. It is found in Das Kapital as well as in Die deutsche Ideologie (written 1845–46; The German Ideology ) and the Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844 ( Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 ).

Literary Theory and Criticism

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Marxist Literary Criticism: An Overview

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on January 22, 2018 • ( 2 )

Marx and Engels produced no systematic theory of literature or art. Equally, the subsequent history of Marxist aesthetics has hardly comprised the cumulative unfolding of a coherent perspective. Rather, it has emerged, aptly, as a series of responses to concrete political exigencies. While these responses have sometimes collided at various theoretical planes, they achieve a dynamic and expansive coherence (rather than the static coherence of a closed, finished system) through both a general overlap of political motivation and the persistent reworking of a core of predispositions about literature and art deriving from Marx and Engels themselves. These predispositions include:

(1) The rejection, following Hegel, of the notion of “identity” and a consequent denial of the view that any object, including literature, can somehow exist independently. The aesthetic corollary of this is that literature can only be understood in the fullness of its relations with ideology, class, and economic substructure.

(2) The view that the so-called “objective” world is actually a progressive construction out of collective human subjectivity. What passes as “truth,” then, is not eternal but institutionally created. “Private property,” for example, is a bourgeois reification of an abstract category; it does not necessarily possess eternal validity. Language itself, as Marx said in The German Ideology: Part One, must be understood not as a self-sufficient system but as social practice (GI, 51, 118).

(3) The understanding of art itself as a commodity, sharing with other commodities an entry into material aspects of production. If, as Marx said, human beings produce themselves through labor, artistic production can be viewed as a branch of production in general.

(4) A focus on the connections between class struggle as the inner dynamic of history and literature as the ideologically refracted site of such struggle. This has sometimes gone hand in hand with prescriptions for literature as an ideological ancillary to the aims and results of political revolution.

(5) An insistence that language is not a self-enclosed system of relations but must be understood as social practice, as deeply rooted in material conditions as any other practice (GI, 51).

To these predispositions could be added, for example, Engels’ comments on “typicality,” recommending that art should express what is typical about a class or a peculiar intersection of ideological circumstances. One might also include the problem raised by Engels’ granting a “relative autonomy” to art, his comments that art can transcend its ideological genesis and that superstructural elements are determined only in the “last instance” by economic relations: what exactly is the connection between art and the material base into which its constituting relations extend? Given the inconclusive and sometimes ambiguous nature of Marx’s and Engels’ scattered comments on art, the proposed solutions to such dilemmas have been as various as the political soils on which they were sown.

After Marx’s death in 1883, Engels’ attempt to shed light on his colleague’s aesthetic views was less assiduous than his clarifications of other aspects of Marx’s work. As Europe witnessed a widespread nascence of socialist political parties, together with the impact of Marxism in sociology, anthropology, history, and political science, the first generation of Marxist intellectuals included the Italian Antonio Labriola (1843–1904), who attempted the first effective synthesis of Marx’s thought and popularized the premises of Marxism. His works , translated into all the major European languages, exerted enormous influence and made a particularly striking impression on Georgi Plekhanov , who introduced his work to Russia, as well as on Lenin and Trotsky. In his Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History (1895–1896) Labriola reaffirms Marx’s premise that (material) being determines consciousness rather than vice versa but takes some pains to emphasize that while legal and political systems are “a true and proper projection of economic conditions . . . in artistic or religious production the mediation from the conditions to the products is very complicated.” Hence, although art and ideas can have no independent history, they are themselves a part of history in the sense that they too are a causal agency in subsequent economic and superstructural developments.

Another star in the firmament of early Marxist theory was the Prussian-born Franz Mehring (1846–1919). A one-time follower of Ferdinand Lassalle, Mehring became an outstanding Marxist historian and aesthetician who, along with Rosa Luxemburg and others, founded the German Communist Party in 1918. His writings included the first authoritative biography of Marx, Karl Marx: The Story of His Life (1918), and The Lessing-Legend (1892–1893), which both applied Marxist categories to the analysis of major German literary figures and brought these within the reach of working-class readers. Mehring attempted to situate Marxist aesthetics, and Marxist thought in general, in necessary relation to the German classical philosophy and aesthetics which had preceded it. This elicited censure from such figures as Paul Reimann and F. P. Schiller, and later from György Lukács, who saw Mehring as a reactionary ideologue. There is much in Mehring which might justify such a response. One of the central questions he confronts is: how are objective aesthetic judgments possible, given the subjectivity of taste? Mehring urges that a “scientific aesthetics” must demonstrate, as Kant did, that art is “a peculiar and aboriginal capacity of mankind.” But Lukács somewhat overlooks Mehring’s account of Kant’s weaknesses: Kant’s inability, for example, to recognize that his aesthetic laws were historically conditioned and that a “pure” aesthetic judgment, dirempted from logical and moral considerations, was impossible. Moreover, Mehring’s analyses of specific literary texts bear out his view that, like all ideology, literary criticism must ultimately be determined by economic infrastructure.

German Marxist theory found a further advocate in Karl Kautsky (1854–1938), whose preeminence endured till around 1915. A propagandist for the Social Democratic Party, he founded in 1883 a prestigious Marxist journal, Die Neue Zeit , which offered a forum for the elaboration of Marx’s economic and political thought. His works included Karl Marx’s Economic Teachings (1887) and The Foundations of Christianity  (1908). In the 1880s he produced a number of reflections on art such as “Development in Art,” “Art and Society,” and “Artist and Worker.” In The Foundations of Christianity Kautsky, typifying his method, showed how religious ideas are tied to the levels of artistic and industrial maturity allowed by a particular economic substructure. He developed the thesis that the major monotheistic religions arose in nations bound by a nomadic way of life; they had not developed the industry or art necessary to construct the localized human images of deities which facilitated polytheism. Ironically, these more backward cultures could make a leap beyond polytheism to a higher form of religion whose progress was retarded in more advanced societies.

Georgi Plekhanov (1856–1918), the “father of Russian Marxism,” was a founder of the Russian Social Democratic Party. His writings include Socialism and the Political Struggle (1883) and Fundamental Problems of Marxism (1908), as well as his highly influential Art and Social Life (1912) and some shorter pieces such as The Role of the Individual in History (1898). In the last of these he argues that the role of gifted individuals, such as Napoleon, in history has been exaggerated. Plekhanov’s own position is that such persons appear “wherever and whenever” social conditions facilitate their development: “every talent which becomes a social force, is the fruit of social relations.” Moreover, individuals can change only the individual character, not the general direction, of events. Hence particular trends in art or literature do not depend exclusively on certain individuals for their expression; if the trend is sufficiently profound, it will compensate the premature death of one individual by giving rise to other talents who might embody it. The depth of a literary trend is determined by its significance for the class whose tastes it expresses, and by the social role of that class. In Art and Social Life Plekhanov raises the crucial question of the relative values of “art for art’s sake” and a “utilitarian” view of art which sees it as instrumental in promoting the improvement of the social order. Plekhanov refuses to approach this question by abstractly asserting the priority of one or the other. Rather, he inquires into the principal social conditions in which each of these attitudes arises and arrives at the thesis that the “art for art’s sake” tendency arises when an artist is “in hopeless disaccord with the social environment.” The utilitarian attitude, which grants art a function in social struggles as well as the power of judgment concerning the real world, “arises and becomes stronger wherever a mutual sympathy exists between the individuals . . . interested in artistic creation and some considerable part of society.”7

Another area in which Plekhanov pioneered a Marxist standpoint was the significance of “play,” whereby human beings pursue an activity not for its usefulness but simply for pleasure. Plekhanov believed that Karl Bucher ’s theory that in primitive cultures play and art preceded labor and the production of useful objects was a test case for the materialist explanation of history. If Bucher were right, the Marxist explanation would be turned upside down. As against Bucher , Plekhanov, following Herbert Spencer, maintains that play is a dramatization and imitation of labor or useful activity. Hence utilitarian activity precedes play and is what determines its content. The implications of Plekhanov’s comments on play were not taken up systematically by a Marxist until Herbert Marcuse ’s Eros and Civilization appeared in 1955.

One of the most striking figures in the Marxist canon was Rosa Luxemburg (1870– 1919). Born into a Jewish business background in Poland, she migrated to Germany where she joined the Social Democratic Party, rising to a lofty prominence until her assassination in 1919. Her most renowned contribution was The Accumulation of Capital (1913). Centrally concerned with the reasons behind the stagnation and lack of development of Marxist theory, she was also anxious to preserve an aesthetic dimension for art, a recalcitrance to what she saw as reductive analysis. While acknowledging that both Dostoyevsky’s and Tolstoy’s doctrines were reactionary and mystical, she nevertheless praised their liberating effects on the reader and their profound response to social injustice. Luxemburg justified this by urging that the “social formula” recommended by an artist was secondary to the source or animating spirit of the art. The starting points of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, she affirmed, were not reactionary. She urged that a working-class culture could not be produced within a bourgeois economic framework, and that the workers could only advance if they created for themselves the necessary intellectual weapons in their struggle for liberation. Luxemburg believed that Marx provided much more than was directly essential for practically conducting the class war and that the theoretical fruits of his system could only be realized more gradually. Evident here is the implication that, in Luxemburg’s eyes, the superstructural world of art, law, and ethics cannot be appropriated by the revolutionary class in a manner consonant with the general displacement of the bourgeois political apparatus but must evolve, lagging slowly behind those more prosaic shifts in economic substructure.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924) occupied a central role not only in the revolution of 1917 but also in the unfolding of Marxist aesthetics toward a more politically interventionist stance. In the latter respect, Lenin’s most celebrated and controversial piece is his Party Organization and Party Literature  (1905), which, along with certain comments of Marx and Engels, was later misleadingly claimed to authorize “socialist realism,” adopted in 1934 as the official party aesthetic. But hostile, non-Marxist critics have also misinterpreted Lenin’s essay, viewing it as an attempt to repress free creativity in literature. Such a view overlooks both the context in which the essay was conceived and its actual arguments. Written shortly after the general strike of October 1905, it belongs to a politically volatile period in which the work of revolution was far from complete, as Lenin emphasizes: “While tsarism is no longer strong enough to defeat the revolution, the revolution is not yet strong enough to defeat tsarism.”8 Moreover, free speech and a free press, as Lenin points out, did not in any case exist. It can come as no surprise, then, that Lenin insists that literature “must become part of the common cause of the proletariat, ‘a cog and screw’ of one single great Social-Democratic mechanism.” Lenin is well aware that art cannot be “subject to mechanical adjustment or levelling, to the rule of the majority over the minority.” But he is not prescribing partisanship (partinost) for all literature, only literature which claims to be party literature. He grants that freedom “of speech and the press must be complete.” What he is suggesting is that “freedom of association” must also be complete: the party reserves the right to circumscribe the ideological boundaries of writing conducted under its banner. Lenin also points out that in bourgeois society the writer cherishes but an illusory freedom: “The freedom of the bourgeois writer . . . is simply masked . . . dependence on the money-bag, on corruption, on prostitution.” The writers imagine themselves to be free but are actually dependent upon an entire prescriptive network of commercial relations and interests, “prisoners of bourgeois-shopkeeper literary relations.” In contrast, the free literature that Lenin desires “will be openly linked to the proletariat.” Also underscoring Lenin’s arguments is his recognition that literature “cannot . . . be an individual undertaking,” as liberal-bourgeois individualism would have us believe (149–152).

Lenin’s Articles on Tolstoy, produced between 1908 and 1911, exemplify through their detailed analyses both the political urgency informing Lenin’s aesthetic approach and his ability to explain the circumstances limiting the potential partisanship of great writers. According to Lenin, the contradictions in Tolstoy’s works – for example, his “ruthless criticism of capitalist exploitation,” his denunciation of “poverty, degradation and misery among the toiling masses” as against his “crazy preaching of ‘resist not evil’ with violence” and his preaching of a reformed religion – mirror the contradictory conditions of the revolutionary peasantry (9). Tolstoy’s misguided renunciation of politics reflected the “seething hatred, a mature striving for a better lot, a desire to get rid of the past – and also immature dreaming, political ignorance and revolutionary flabbiness” characterizing the peasantry (14). But while Tolstoy’s doctrines are “certainly utopian,” Lenin is able to call them “socialistic” and to hail Tolstoy’s portrayal of the epoch of revolution as “a step forward in the artistic development of the whole of mankind” (16). Lenin’s methodological insights are equally interesting: the contradictions in Tolstoy can only be apprehended from the standpoint of the class which led the struggle for freedom during the revolution (20). This helps to put into perspective some of Lenin’s earlier comments on “Party literature”: not only is it impossible to write as an individual, but equally, “individual” acts of reading and interpreting are conducted within parameters dictated by class interests. At a deeper level, Lenin’s approach to aesthetic value, embracing as it does the totality of historical circumstances including class, preceding literary traditions, and relation to political exigency, can be seen to derive from his acknowledgment of the dialectical character of Marxism. In his Philosophical Notebooks he cites “Dialectics” as the theory of knowledge of both Hegel and Marxism, a theory which focuses on the necessary connection between the individual and the universal, the infinite expansibility through various levels of an individual’s constituting relations, as well as the connections between necessity and contingency.

It can be seen from the foregoing that the early debates on art during and after the revolutionary period in Russia focused on questions such as the degree of party control over the arts, the stance toward the bourgeois cultural legacy, and the imperative to clarify the connections between the political and the aesthetic. A related question was the possibility of creating a proletarian culture. The other major protagonist in the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), played a crucial role in these debates. His works include Lenin (1924), History of the Russian Revolution (1932), and The Revolution Betrayed (1937), as well as his renowned Literature and Revolution (1923). Trotsky, already exiled in 1900 and 1905 for his revolutionary activities, was finally ousted by Joseph Stalin in the struggle for leadership following Lenin’s death in 1904. He continued, in exile, to oppose Stalin’s regime until his murder in 1940. The literary debates were far from academic: they are indices of bitter political alignments. In Literature and Revolution Trotsky stressed that only in some domains can the party offer direct leadership; the “domain of art is not one in which the Party is called upon to command. It can and must protect and help it, but can only lead it indirectly.”9 But, just as Lenin’s views on this topic have been misread, so Trotsky’s claims for freedom of art have been subject to misprision. He states quite clearly that what is needed is “a watchful revolutionary censorship, and a broad and flexible policy in the field of art.” What is important for Trotsky is that the limits of such censorship be defined very clearly: he is against “the liberal principle of laissez faire and laissez passer, even in the field of art” (221).

Hence Trotsky cannot be accused of blatant tolerance of reactionary literature and ideas, although in a 1938 manifesto, Towards a Free Revolutionary Art, drawn up in collaboration with André Breton, Trotsky urges a “complete freedom for art” while acknowledging that all true art is revolutionary in nature. The latter position was adopted in reaction to what Trotsky calls Stalin’s “police patrol spirit.”10 In Literature and Revolution Trotsky also urges that the party should give “its confidence” to what he calls “literary fellow-travelers,” those non-party writers sympathetic to the revolution. What lies behind this is Trotsky’s insistence that the proletariat cannot begin the construction of a new culture without absorbing and assimilating the elements of the old cultures (226). Given the proletariat’s need for a continuity of creative tradition, it currently “realizes this continuity . . . indirectly, through the creative bourgeois intelligentsia which gravitates towards the proletariat” (227). In the same work, Trotsky addresses the question of whether proletarian culture is possible. The question, to Trotsky, is “formless” because not only will the energy of the proletariat be directed primarily toward the acquisition of power but, as it succeeds, it “will be more and more dissolved into a Socialist community and will free itself from its class characteristics and thus cease to be a proletariat . . . The proletariat acquires power for the purpose of doing away forever with class culture and to make way for human culture” (185–186).

Other aspects of Tolstoy’s approach to aesthetics are exemplified in his speech of 1924, Class and Art.  Here, Trotsky suggests that art has “its own laws of development” and that there is no guarantee of an organic link between artistic creativity and class interests. Moreover, such creativity “lags behind” the spirit of a class and is not subject to conscious influence. Trotsky maintains that certain great writers, such as Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe , appeal to us precisely because they transcend the limitations of their class outlook. Throughout his comments on aesthetics, Trotsky seems to travel a fine line between granting art a certain autonomy while viewing it as serving, in a highly mediated fashion, an important social function.

The call to create a proletarian culture was the originating theme of Proletkult, a left-wing group of artists and writers whose foremost ideologist was A. A. Bogdanov . This group, opposed by the Bolshevik leadership, insisted on art as a weapon in class struggle and rejected all bourgeois art. Also active in the debates of this period were the Formalists and the Futurists, notably the critic Osip Brik , whose term “social command” embodied the idea of interventionist art, and the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky , who wrote an influential pamphlet, How Are Verses Made? The Formalists and Futurists found a common platform in the journal LEF (Left Front of Art). The Formalists, focusing on artistic forms and techniques on the basis of linguistic studies, had arisen in pre-revolutionary Russia but now saw their opposition to traditional art as a political gesture, allying them somewhat with the revolution. All of these groups were attacked by the most prominent Soviet theoreticians, such as Trotsky, Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1937), Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875–1933), and Voronsky , who decried the attempt to break completely with the past and what they saw as a reductive denial of the social and cognitive aspects of art. Valentin Voloshinov (Bakhtin) later attempted to harmonize the two sides of the debate, viz., formal linguistic analysis and sociological emphasis, by treating language itself as the supreme ideological phenomenon. A further group was the Association of Proletarian Writers (VAPP; later RAPP), which insisted on communist literary hegemony.

The Communist Party’s attitude toward art in this period was, in general, epiphenomenal of its economic policy. A resolution of 1925 voiced the party’s refusal to sanction any one literary faction. This reflected the New Economic Policy (NEP) of a limited free market economy. The period of the first Five-Year Plan (1928–1932) saw a more or less voluntary return to a more committed artistic posture, and during the second Five-Year Plan (1932–1936) this commitment was crystallized in the formation of a Writers’ Union. The first congress of this union in 1934, featuring speeches by Maxim Gorky and Bukharin, officially adopted socialist realism, as defined primarily by  Andrei Zhdanov (1896–1948). Aptly dubbed by Terry Eagleton as “Stalin’s cultural thug,” it was Zhdanov whose proscriptive shadow thenceforward fell over Soviet cultural affairs. Although Nikolai Bukharin ’s speech at the congress had attempted a synthesis of Formalist and sociological attitudes, premised on his assertion that within “the microcosm of the word is embedded the macrocosm of history,” Bukharin was eventually to fall from his position as leading theoretician of the party: his trial and execution, stemming from his political and economic differences with Stalin, were also symptomatic of the fact that Formalism soon became a sin once more. Bukharin had called for socialist realism to portray not reality “as it is” but rather as it exists in socialist imagination. Zhdanov defined socialist realism as the depiction of “reality in its revolutionary development. The truthfulness . . . of the artistic image must be linked with the task of ideological transformation.”11 But, as several commentators have pointed out, despite the calls for socialist realism to express social values as embodied in the movement of history (rather than embracing a static naturalism), the actual aesthetic adopted was largely a return to nineteenth-century realist techniques infused with a socialist content.

Socialist realism received its most articulate theoretical expression in the work of the Hungarian philosopher György Lukács , the foremost Marxist aesthetician of the twentieth century. Lukács ’ ideas are examined in some detail below; here, it is necessary merely to mention that his notion of realism collided with that of Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956). In some ways this debate can be regarded as a collision between two personalities, or between writer (Brecht) and critic ( Lukács ), since their “definitions” of socialist realism overlap in crucial aspects, a fact which is often ignored. According to Lukács , modern capitalist society is riven by contradictions, by chasms between universal and particular, intelligible and sensible, part and whole. The realist artist expresses a vision of the possible totality embracing these contradictions, a totality achieved by embodying what is “typical” about various historical stages. For example, an individual character might enshrine an entire complex of historical forces. Brecht, in his notebooks, also equates realism with the ability to capture the “typical” or “historically significant.” Realists also identify the contradictions in human relationships, as well as their enabling conditions. Socialist realists, moreover, view reality from the viewpoint of the proletariat. Brecht adds that realist art battles false views of reality, thereby facilitating correct views.12 Perhaps the conflict between the two thinkers is rooted in Lukács ’ (arguably Stalinist-inspired) aversion to modernist and experimental art on the grounds that the ontological image of humanity it portrayed was fragmented, decadent, and politically impotent. In the 1930s Brecht’s work was viewed as tainted, though later he was received into the ranks of Marxist aestheticians. In contrast, Brecht’s experimentalism was crucial to his attempts to combine theory and practice in a Marxist aesthetic. Contrasting dramatic theater (which follows Aristotle’s guidelines) with his own “epic” theater, Brecht avers that the audience’s capacity for action must be roused and, far from undergoing katharsis, it must be forced to take decisions, partly by its standard expectations being disappointed (a procedure Brecht called “the alienation effect”). The action on stage must also implicitly point to other, alternative versions of itself. Far from being sterile, the disputes between Lukács and Brecht display the multidimensional potential of any concept approached from Marxist viewpoints as well as the inevitable grounding of those viewpoints in political circumstances.

Mention should also be made of the Italian Marxist theorist and political activist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), whose main contribution to Marxism is widely thought to lie in his elaboration of the notion of hegemony . Autonomous revolutionary potential on the part of the proletariat could only be realized, argued Gramsci, through political and intellectual autonomy. A mass movement alone was insufficient: also, initiated through a vanguard with working-class roots and sympathies, this class “must train and educate itself in the management of society,” acquiring both the culture and psychology of a dominant class through its own channels: “meetings, congresses, discussions, mutual education.”13 The transformation to a socialist state cannot be successful without the proletariat’s own organic intellectuals forging an alternative hegemony. The notion of hegemony is effectively a metonymic affirmation of the dialectical connection between economic and superstructural spheres, stressing the transformative role of human agency rather than relying on the “inevitability” of economic determinism. Gramsci wrote some thirty-four notebooks while in prison, ranging from literary topics such as Dante and Pirandello to philosophical and political themes. These were not published until after Mussolini’s downfall. Gramsci ’s literary criticism insisted on understanding literary production within its historical and political context (as against Croce’s ahistorical view of art as autonomous) and, following De Sanctis, viewed the critic’s task as one of harmonizing with the general cultural and political struggle toward a socialist order.

Later critics have continued to reinterpret and develop the insights of Marx and Engels. The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, whose leading exponents were Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse, produced a number of philosophical and cultural analyses informed primarily by Hegel’s work and also by Freud. In general, these theorists saw modern mass culture as regimented and reduced to a commercial dimension; and they saw art as embodying a unique critical distance from this social and political world. Walter Benjamin argued in his “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” that modern technology has transformed the work of art, stripping it of the “aura” of uniqueness it possessed in earlier eras. Modern works are reproduced for mass consumption, and are effectively copies which relate to no original form. However, this new status of art, thought Benjamin, also gave it a revived political and subversive potential.

Subsequent Marxist cultural and literary theory, such as that of Louis Althusser , Lucien Goldmann, and Pierre Macherey , turned away from Hegel and was heavily influenced by the structuralist movements of the earlier twentieth century, which stressed the role of larger signifying systems and institutional structures over individual agency and intention. Louis Althusser emphasized the later Marx’s “epistemological break” from his own earlier humanism, and Marx’s scientificity and his departure from, rather than his debt to, Hegel. Althusser ’s structuralist Marxism – as stated in his Pour Marx (For Marx, 1965) and his often cited Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses , rejected earlier humanist and historicist readings of Marx, as well as literary-critical emphases on authorial intention and subjective agency. Goldmann rejected the Romantic–humanist notion of individual creativity and held that texts are productions of larger mental structures representing the mentality of particular social classes. He stressed the operation of larger forces and doctrines in literary texts, and developed the notion of “homology” to register the parallels between artistic and social forms. Pierre Macherey ’s A Theory of Literary Production (1966) saw the literary text as the product of the artist’s reworking of linguistic and ideological raw material, unwittingly exposing, through its lacunae and contradictions, ideological elements which the author had attempted to suppress into a false coherence. In this way, a critique of ideology could emerge through the literary text.

In the Anglo-American world a “cultural materialist” criticism was first revived by Raymond Williams ’ work, notably Culture and Society 1780–1950, which analyzes the cultural critique of capitalism in English literary tradition. Williams rejected a simplistic explanation of culture as the efflux of material conditions, but stressed the contribution of cultural forms to economic and political development. The Long Revolution (1961) continued and refined this project using categories such as dominant, residual, and emergent cultures mediated by what Williams called “structures of feeling.” Williams’ work became overtly Marxist with the publication in 1977 of Marxism and Literature. In this work Williams undertook a critical review of earlier Marxist theories and offered his own analyses of fundamental Marxist notions such as ideology, hegemony, base and superstructure. His own cultural materialism as set forth here attempts to integrate Marxist conceptions of language and literature. Keywords (1976) examines the history of fundamental concepts and categories. In general, Williams’ work analyzed the history of language, the role of the media, mass communications, and the cultural connections between the country and the city.

The major American Marxist critic Fredric Jameson outlined a dialectical theory of literary criticism in his Marxism and Form (1971), drawing on Hegelian categories such as the notion of totality and the connection of abstract and concrete. Such criticism recognizes the need to see its objects of analysis within a broad historical context, acknowledges its own history and perspective, and seeks the profound inner form of a literary text. Jameson’s The Political Unconscious (1981) attempts to integrate this dialectical thinking with insights from structuralism and Freud, using the Freudian notion of repression to analyze the function of ideology, the status of literary texts, and the epistemological function of literary form. In subsequent work such as Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991), Jameson performed the valuable task of extending Marx’s insights into the central role of postmodernism in determining the very form of our artistic and intellectual experience.

In Britain, Terry Eagleton has outlined the categories of a Marxist analysis of literature, and has persistently rearticulated the terms of communication, as well as the differences, between Marxism and much of modern literary theory. We can now undertake a closer examination of two Marxist critics whose ideas have been highly influential: the Hungarian philosopher György Lukács and the aforementioned critic Terry Eagleton , as his work relates to modern literary theory.

Notes 1 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1952; rpt. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973), pp. 11–16. Hereafter cited as MCP. 2 Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (1959; rpt. Moscow and London: Progress Publishers/Lawrence and Wishart, 1981), pp. 127–143. 3 Marx and Engels, On Religion (1957; rpt. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 39. 4 Marx, Capital: Volume I (1954; rpt. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1977), p. 29. Hereafter cited as Capital. 5 “Preface and Introduction,” in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1976), p. 3. Hereafter cited as CPE. 6 Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, introd. Michèle Barrett (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), p. 105. Hereafter cited as OF. 7 George V. Plekhanov, Art and Social Life (New York: Oriole Editions, 1974), pp. 177–178. 8 V. I. Lenin, On Literature and Art (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1967), p. 148. Hereafter citations from this volume are given in the text. 9 Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (New York: Russell and Russell, 1924), p. 218. Hereafter citations are given in the text. 10 Leon Trotsky, Culture and Socialism and a Manifesto: Art and Revolution (London: New Park Publications, 1975), pp. 31–34. 11 A. A. Zhdanov, On Literature, Music and Philosophy (New York and London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1950), p. 15. 12 Berel Lang and Forrest Williams, eds., Marxism and Art: Writings in Aesthetics and Criticism (New York: McKay, 1972), pp. 226–227. 13 Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Political Writings, trans. J. Mathews, ed. Q. Hoare (New York: International Publishers, 1977), p. 171. 14 Terry Eagleton, The Function of Criticism (London: New Left Books, 1984), p. 93. 15 Terry Eagleton, Walter Benjamin or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism (London: New Left Books, 1981), p. 84. Hereafter cited as WB. 16 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Oxford and Minnesota: Blackwell/ University of Minnesota Press, 1983), p. 208. Hereafter cited as LT. 17 Terry Eagleton, Against the Grain: Essays 1975–1985 (London: New Left Books, 1986), pp. 81–82. 18 See Marxism and Literary Criticism (London: New Left Books, 1976), pp. 8–10. 19 Terry Eagleton, Criticism and Ideology (London: New Left Books, 1976), p. 54. Hereafter cited as CI. 20 Jacques Derrida, Positions, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 9. Hereafter cited as POS.

Bibliography Bertolt Brecht, Schriften zum Theater (1957, Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and trans. John Willett, 1964); V. I. Lenin, Collected Works (46 vols., 1960-70,1978), On Literature and Art (1970), Selected Works (1971); Karl Marx, Selected Writings (ed. David McLellan, 1977); Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Correspondence of Marx and Engels, 1846-1895: A Selection with Commentary and Notes (ed. and trans. Dona Torr, n.d.), The Marx-Engels Reader (2d ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker, 1978), On Literature and Art (1978); George V. Plekhanov, Art and Social Life (1970); Maynard Solomon, ed., Marxism and Art: Essays Classic and Contemporary (1973); Leon Trotsky, The Basic Writings of Trotsky (ed. Irving Howe, 1965), Leon Trotsky on Literature and Art (ed. Paul N. Siegel, 1970); A. A. Zhdanov, Essays on Literature, Philosophy, and Music (1950). Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (trans. Ben Brewster, 1971); Chris Bullock and David Peck, Guide to Marxist Literary Criticism (1980); Peter Demetz, Marx, Engels, and the Poets: Origins of Marxist Literary Criticism (trans. J. L. Sammons, 1967); Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976); Dave Laing, The Marxist Theory of Art: An Introductory Survey (1978); Cliff Slaughter, Marxism, Ideology, and Literature (1980); Robert H. Stacy, Russian Literary Criticism: A Short History (1974); Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (1977). Source: Groden, Michael, and Martin Kreiswirth. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

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Is Marxism Still Relevant Today?

Last Updated on August 27, 2021 by

A summary of eight possible ways in which some aspects of Marxist Theory and concepts might still be relevant today…

This is a summary of this more in depth post which goes into much more detail on why we should all be Marxists !

Eight ways in which Marxism is still relevant today

Signposting and related posts.

This material is relevant to any sociology students revising for the social theories part of their A Level Theory and Methods with Crime and Deviance Exam .

Other related posts include:

The Traditional Marxist Perspective on Society  

Eight Criticisms of Traditional Marxism  

Eight Ways in Which Marxism is Still Relevant Today  – the more in-depth version of this post.

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Marxist Theories of History: Pros and Cons Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Marxist theories of history, means and modes of production, historical inevitability – proletarians versus the bourgeois, marx’s inspiration, marxism’s pros and cons, work cited source.

Marxism perspective is concerned with how the production of space and place are implicated in the reproduction of specific social reforms that happen in history. Marx believed that the present order must first be destroyed by revolution before a truly socialist could evolve.

Economic determinism- the idea that the mode through which a society produces and distributes its wealth will determine its social-political structure, laws, and even superstructure like religion.

Here Karl Marx sees history as a series of class struggles as humans evolved through five basic stages of society. For example, man changes from the stage of nomads to the stage of settled living, hunting fruits gathering, and the rearing of sheep giving way to the domestication of plants and animals then comes the urban culture and its rich diversity of vocations. Categorization of people is necessary to handle this diversity which forms the basis of belief systems social hierarchy, codes of behavior, rules of punishment for crime, worship, recreation, family obligations and ties, and the apparatus of ruling authority. However, throughout history, the grouping of people into economies of classes has had the effect of initiating class struggle. (Lazle, 2002)

The five stages in the economic determinism of history can be summarized as follows;

• Primitive hunting and gathering societies had no extra wealth and therefore no private property, social classes, class struggles, or even the need for government.
• Slave societies with a rich rolling class opposed by an oppressed underclass of slaves.
• Feudal society with a noble class of landowning lords opposed by an oppressed class of serfs
• Capitalist society with a rich class of factory owners (bourgeoisie) opposed by an oppressed class of factory workers (the proletariat)
• Socialist societies are run by workers with no private property and thus no social classes or class conflicts.

The labor theory of value – It started that any product was only worth as much the workers were paid to make it. Anything a capitalist charged beyond this amount was called surplus value.

In Karl Marx’s theory of history, he sees this as the beginning of a stage where capitalism is to be destroyed. (Lazle, 2002)

If capitalists charged more for a product than the cost of labor, there would be low sales since the workers are not paid through money to buy the goods. This would with time drive some owners out of business creating a smaller business class – who are richer in the society. To stay cooperative the smaller cartel of rich businessmen would have to invest more inefficient and expensive machines resulting in laying off workers with time. This together with the increased price of commodities would mean that there are even fewer workers to buy them and more owners of the business are the cycle repeated. Each time the above cycle repeats itself, the fabulously rich and desperately poor. This would trigger a revolution that would destroy the capitalistic order.

The triumphant workers would build a society where people as a whole owned everything in common. Private property would disappear and with it social classes, conflicts over property, and any need for government, family, and religion which are all seen in categorical times as instrumentals of the bourgeois oppression. There would be no rich or poor. (Lazle, 2002)

Marx’s analysis of history is based on his destruction of the means of production such as land, technology, and natural resources and social relations of production (modes). Marx observed that in any given society the mode of production changes and that the European societies had progressed from a feudal mode of production to a capitalist mode of production. (Karl and Friedrich, 2004)

The capitalist mode of production is capable of great growth. He considered this to be the most revolutionary in history as it is constantly revolutionizing the means of production is the substructure of history while the mode (ideological arguments, people relations), about that history, constitutes a superstructure.

The proletarians are workers i.e. those who sell labor power to earn income to survive. The bourgeois is a person who buys the labor power i.e. one who owns land and technology to produce. Marx believed that capitalism (is a system where the means of production are owned by a few rich. Individuals were prone to periodic crises. He proposed that over time, the capitalist would invest more and more in new technologies and less and less in labor. This would in turn trigger severe crises. The crisis and conflict would then characterize the collapse of the capitalistic system. He believed that this cycle of growth, collapse, and growth. (Growth in the last phase because of the workers) rising against the bourgeois) is a necessary and thus historical inevitability. The socialism system (where the means of production are owned by all) would encourage social relations and would be less vulnerable to conflicts and crises. (Karl and Friedrich, 2004)

Marx drew inspiration for his ideologies for early socialist communal experiments.

Karl Marx drew inspiration from the 6-year industrial crisis in Europe 1848 – 1853.

The Marxism theory developed against capitalism. He views history based on the perpetual resolution of opposition (rich versus poor, developed versus undeveloped abundance versus scarcity) in which each resolution produces its contradiction. According to him to restore dignity and give individuals full control over self and destiny capitalism must be overthrown and be replaced by communism.

Marx’s thoughts and ideas are valuable for pointing out the importance of economics and class in history. Secondary many countries have had social reforms in history based on Karl Marx’s ideologies.

However, Marx’s theory failed to account for the role of individual genius and stupidity in human affairs assuming that everyone would give up all individual possessions voluntarily for the common good. (Karl and Friedrich, 2004) Other negative effects of Karl Marx’s theories are;

• Industrial production for consumer goods is woefully deficient
• The upper layer of state functionaries enjoys life better than the rich and lords of the past.
• Workers don’t enjoy better standards.
• Marx’s approach to history could not bring desired results. The disintegration of the Soviet Union has proved this beyond a reasonable doubt.

The system of thought developed by Karl Marx propounds that the state through history has been advised for the exploitation of the masses by a dominant class and the main agent of historical change. Economic classes and private property are the main cause of historical change. Marx also believed that society develops in stages by the development in factors of production (materials and instruments of labor).

Karl, M. and Friedrich, E. The Communist Manifesto, London, Broadview Press, 2004.

Karl Marx, Web.

Lazle, E. Introduction to system philosophy, New York, Prentice Hall, 2002.

Marx and historical Materialism. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2022, September 20). Marxist Theories of History: Pros and Cons. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marxist-theories-of-history-pros-and-cons/

"Marxist Theories of History: Pros and Cons." IvyPanda , 20 Sept. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/marxist-theories-of-history-pros-and-cons/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Marxist Theories of History: Pros and Cons'. 20 September.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Marxist Theories of History: Pros and Cons." September 20, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marxist-theories-of-history-pros-and-cons/.

1. IvyPanda . "Marxist Theories of History: Pros and Cons." September 20, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marxist-theories-of-history-pros-and-cons/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Marxist Theories of History: Pros and Cons." September 20, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marxist-theories-of-history-pros-and-cons/.

12.2 The Marxist Solution

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the dialectic method.
• Contrast the Hegelian and Marxian concepts of dialectic.
• Outline the stages of Marx’s proletariat revolution.
• Describe how Maoism reframed Marxism as an anti-imperialist revolution.

Unlike Enlightenment social theory, Marxist theories did not try to solve specific social problems that arose from industrialization and urbanization. Rather, they advocated removing the economic system that they felt caused these problems—capitalism. When German philosophers Karl Marx and Frederick Engels published The Communist Manifesto in 1848, they made a prediction: the workers would overthrow capitalism in the most advanced industrial nation, England. The natural forces of history, they argued, made this revolution inevitable. They derived their views of these historical forces from the work of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) on the dialectic method .

Hegel’s Dialectic Method

Hegel argued that history itself was the movement created by the interaction between a thesis (an original state) and a force countering that original state (antithesis), resulting in a new and higher state (synthesis). This dialectic can be likened to a grade report: based on the original grades (the thesis), a student will ideally reflect on their performance and address areas of weakness (antithesis) to ultimately arrive at a higher understanding of the topics under study (synthesis).

Hegel argued that in various eras of history, Absolute Spirit—which might be understood in many ways, including God or the collective human consciousness—confronts its own essence and transitions to a higher state. Hegel saw this most clearly in the life of Jesus and the birth of Christianity . Hegel presents Jesus as a rational philosopher who reflects on and confronts Judaism—antithesis challenging thesis. The resurrection of Jesus following his crucifixion symbolizes an awakened consciousness both in the individual of Jesus and in humanity. Within this framework, the birth of Christianity following Jesus’s resurrection is viewed as the synthesis, the higher state (Dale 2006).

Marx’s Dialectical Materialism and the Proletariat Revolution

In contrast to Hegel’s idealistic dialectic, Karl Marx (1818–1883) proposed a view of the dialectic called dialectical materialism . Dialectical materialism identities the contradictions within material, real-world phenomena as the driving force of change. Most important to Marx were the economic conflicts between social classes. The Communist Manifesto , written by Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) states, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (Marx and Engels [1969] 2000, ch. 1). Marx and Engels note that in every epoch of history (as understood at the time) society has been divided into social orders and that tensions between these social orders determine the direction of history, rather than the realization of any abstract ideals. Specifically, they identified the colonization of the Americas and the rise of trade with India and China as the revolutionary forces that created and enriched the bourgeois class, ultimately resulting in the death of feudalism. Similarly, Marx regarded the clash of economic interests between the bourgeoisie (owners of the means of production) and the proletariat (workers) as the contradiction that would bring down capitalism and give rise to a classless society (Marx and Engels [1969] 2000).

Connections

For a deeper dive into Marx’s views, visit the chapter on political philosophy .

Marx laid out a detailed plan for how the proletariat revolution would occur. Marx proposed the concept of surplus value as a contradictory force within capitalism. Surplus value was the profit the capitalists made above and beyond the wages of the workers. This profit strengthens the capitalists’ monetarily and so gives them more power over the workers and a greater ability to exploit them. Marx viewed this surplus value as a key part of the “economic law of motion of modern society” that would inevitably lead to revolution (Marx [1954] 1999).

Despite there being competition among workers for jobs, Marx believed that conflict with their employers would bind them. As capitalism advanced, the workers would form into a class of proletariats, which would then form trade unions and political parties to represent its interests. As the revolution advanced, the most resolute members of the working-class political parties, those with the clearest understanding of the movement, would establish the communist party . The proletariat, led by the communists, would then “wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State” (Marx and Engels [1969] 2000, ch. 2). The communist party would need to rule society as “the dictatorship of the proletariat” and enact reforms that would lead to a classless society.

These developments did, in fact, materialize—but in Russia, not in England, as Marx had predicted. Marx had expected the revolution to begin in England, since it was the most industrial society, and to spread to other nations as their capitalist economies advanced to the same degree. The unfolding of actual events in a way contrary to Marx’s predictions led Marxists and others to doubt the reliability of Marx’s system of dialectical materialism. This doubt was compounded by the realizations that the Russian communist party was responsible for killing millions of farmers and dissidents and that some working-class parties and unions were turning to fascism as an alternative to communism. By the early to mid-20th century, opponents of the capitalist system were questioning orthodox Marxism as a method of realizing the ideal of a government by the working class.

Think Like a Philosopher

Watch “ Karl Marx on Alienation ” from the series A History of Ideas . The video examines Marx’s claim that the alienation and oppression created by capitalism would fuel revolution in the working class. He called for the workers to revolt, as “they had nothing to lose but their chains.”

• Was Marx wrong about the marginalization occurring within and through a capitalistic economy? Using at least one credible source, offer an argument (based on your source) that either supports or refutes his claim. Does your argument resonate with your lived experience?
• Where was or is the revolution? Should we dismiss Marx (or at least his claim that alienation occurs through the oppression rendered by privately owned means of production) given the absence of a global revolution?

Revolutionary Movements of the 20th Century

During the first two decades of the 20th century, revolutions swept across the globe. Contrary to Marx’s prediction, these did not occur in the most industrialized countries. Rather, the Ottoman Empire (in Turkey), the Russian Empire, and the Chinese empire all fell to coalitions of different groups, including advocates for representative government who embraced Enlightenment philosophies, socialists and communists implementing their versions of Marxism, and factions within the military that sought to empower their nations through modernization.

Lenin’s Imperialism

In 1917, Russian revolutionary leader and Marxist theorist Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) published a pamphlet proposing to explain why communist revolutions were not occurring in the most advanced industrialized capitalist economies. Lenin suggested that capitalism had morphed into imperialism . Rather than continuing to squeeze their own working classes at home for profits, large national monopolies had gained access to both cheap raw material and labor and new markets in Africa, Asia, and South America. The result, Lenin argued, is that communist revolutions will take place in these subjugated nations rather than in the most industrialized countries (Lenin [1963] 2005).

Mao’s Reframing

The military losses of the once-great Chinese empire to imperialist invasions over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries and the resulting humiliations played a major role in the Chinese revolution of 1911. Imperialist Japan’s conquering of northern China provoked an on-and-off military alliance between Chinese democratic reformers and the Chinese Communist Party, led by Mao Zedong (1893–1976), that eventually deteriorated into civil war. Adopting Lenin and his predecessors’ views of imperialism, Mao reframed the Marxist revolution. Imperialist nations represented capitalists and the semifeudal, colonial, and semicolonial states that they subjugated represented the proletariat. The Chinese revolution , Mao argued, was part of a global revolution against capitalism that would see subjugated nations throw off imperialist chains and establish Marx’s vision (Mao [1966] 2004).

Mao’s reframing of the Marxist revolution has profoundly impacted the course of history. Anti-imperialist, socialist groups in Africa, Asia, and South America helped their countries achieve independence. Often displacing other nationalist groups that supported revolution, they succeeded at one period in establishing a large network of small socialist states. Today, as workers in industrialized nations have failed to embrace communism, Marxists largely envision their battle to be against what they view as modern-day imperialist nations.

Unlike Russia and industrialized nations, China lacked an organized working class that might provide the Communist Party with the numbers and material support needed to launch a revolution. As a result, Mao addressed his rhetoric not only to the proletariat proper but to the peasantry as well. He defined a different class struggle —one between the peasants and the landlord class. “The ruthless economic exploitation and political oppression of the peasants by the landlord class forced them into numerous uprisings against its rule,” Mao noted in the Little Red Book —a selection of Mao’s quotes first published in 1964 that all individuals were strongly encouraged to own and study (Mao [1966] 2000, ch. 2). Mao extended the revolutionary class even further to include members of the intelligentsia and the petty bourgeoisie, a term describing those managing small-scale commercial undertakings. Mao urged all these people to join the peasants and the proletariat and become “saviors of the people” by ousting the Japanese imperialists and establishing a new democracy based on Marxist principles. Mao even extended membership in the revolutionary class to members of the bourgeoisie who held strong nationalist, anti-imperialist views: “Being a bourgeoisie in a colonial and semi-colonial country and oppressed by imperialism, the Chinese national bourgeoisie retains a certain revolutionary quality” (Mao [1966] 2004, § 5).

Mao’s reframing of the proletariat afforded Marxist movements far greater flexibility in choosing supporters and defining their enemies. Like Mao’s reenvisioning of the Marxist revolution, this shift enabled the spread of Marxism within the less-industrialized world.

Cultural Revolution and Reeducation

Mao identified the transformation of China from a feudal monarchy to a representative democratic system to a Marxist democracy as a series of cultural revolutions. Despite Mao’s highly inclusive definition of the revolutionary element, he strongly emphasized the primacy of the proletariat and the Communist Party. In discussing the new democracy, Mao explained, “This culture can be led only by the culture and ideology of the proletariat, by the ideology of communism, and not by the culture and ideology of any other class” (Mao [1966] 2004, § 12). Mao had galvanized the support of many groups to win control of China. Now, Mao needed a mechanism to maintain the primacy of the Communist Party and communist control of the nation once imperialist Japan had been evicted from northern China.

Mao found his mechanism with a method he called self-criticism . Mao warned that the party must not become complacent after achieving success. The minds of comrades, Mao explained, gather dust and must be washed from time to time. Engaging in regular self-criticism meant that the party might avoid mistakes and respond quickly and effectively to setbacks. A deeper motivation for self-criticism, however, stemmed from the Communist Party’s desire to establish and maintain control over the new society.

In theory, self-criticism would consist of groups of comrades sitting together, discussing their ideas, reporting on their dealings, and helping each other improve. Mao described how self-criticism should proceed: “If we have shortcomings, we are not afraid to have them pointed out and criticized, because we serve the people. Anyone, no matter who, may point out our shortcomings. If he is right, we will correct them. If what he proposes will benefit the people, we will act upon it” (Mao [1966] 2000, ch. 27).

In practice, as early as the 1930s, self-criticism sessions turned from small groups that shamed individuals into public events in which “class enemies” were denounced, humiliated, and beaten, often by people whom they were close to—such as family members, students, or friends. Indeed, Mao recognized these practices as essential to the revolutionary movement: “A well-disciplined Party armed with the theory of Marxism-Leninism, using the method of self-criticism and linked with the masses of the people; an army under the leadership of such a Party; a united front of all revolutionary classes and all revolutionary groups under the leadership of such a Party—these are the three main weapons with which we have defeated the enemy” (Mao [1966] 2000, ch. 1). Mao’s attempts to reeducate his people culminated in the Cultural Revolution (1966–1977), during which mobs and militias murdered somewhere between hundreds of thousands to millions of citizens who were deemed class enemies.

Whereas in practice, self-criticism in China resulted in brutality and repression, the idea that communication and self-examination can serve as a tool of liberation has continued to develop.

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On the Music of John Prine

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The Many Problems with Marxism

Gerfried ambrosch.

“I recently met up with an old friend, a staunch Marxist, at a traditional Viennese café to catch up and talk about our political differences. After hours of discussion, he admitted, ‘Well, ultimately, it’s a question of faith.'”

T he ultimate test for any theory is whether it works in practice. Wherever implemented, Marxism has led to unfreedom, inhumanity, and economic devastation. Modern-day Marxists blame human failure for these shortcomings. According to them, true Marxism has yet to be implemented, as followers past have invariably corrupted the doctrine by adopting quasi-capitalist policies. Rather than reevaluate their position, they refuse to learn the painful lesson that “a key assumption of Marxian economics is false,” as the economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell puts it in his analysis . 

What did Marx get wrong? In his book More from Less , the MIT scientist Andrew McAfee offers a useful starting point: “[W]hen Marx wrote in 1867’s Das Kapital that ‘as capital accumulates, the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse,’ events were showing just how durably wrong that statement was.” McAfee elaborates:

“Perhaps the single most unfair, inaccurate, and ignorant critique of capitalism is that it is bad for the workers who help create it. Karl Marx was confident that workers under capitalism would be trampled and impoverished until they threw off their shackles and embraced communism, but…this is not what happened. Despite its many flaws, the Industrial Era increased the prosperity and quality of life for average people more quickly than ever before.”

This trend has continued into the present—“progress in many important areas has sped up in recent decades as capitalism and tech progress have both spread around the world,” writes McAfee. In short, one of Marx’s key predictions, the increasing immiseration of the proletariat under capitalism, has not come true, suggesting a fundamental flaw in his theory. 

The Labor Theory of Value

Let’s start with two central Marxian concepts: exploitation and surplus value. Marx saw the latter as a distillation of the former, an “increment or excess over the original value” invested in production, as described in Das Kapital . That increment was assumed to be a function of labor. Marx drew a distinction between value as an intrinsic property of the commodity itself, determined by “socially necessary labor time” (the average amount of time it takes to produce a commodity), and exchange value, defined in Das Kapital as “the mode of expression, the ‘form of appearance’, of a content distinguishable from [value].” 

Not only does this analysis, known as “the labor theory of value,” ignore the fundamental role of supply and demand in determining the economic value of commodities (including labor); it also suggests that profit always comes at the expense of the workers, whose labor power is being “exploited” by capitalists, the people who own “the means of production.” To quote the economist Steven Horwitz , “The argument that capitalism exploited workers depended crucially on the view that labor was the source of all value and that the profits of capitalists were therefore ‘taken’ from workers who deserved it.”

According to Sowell, the problem with this hypothesis is that it “begins the story of production in the middle—with firms, capital, and management already in existence somehow , and needing only the addition of labour to get production started. From that point on,” explains Sowell, “output is a function of labour input, given all the other factors somehow already assembled, coordinated, and directed toward a particular economic purpose.” However, “[w]here there are multiple inputs, the division of output by one particular input is wholly arbitrary.” 

Marx sought to preempt this criticism by asserting that what he called “constant capital” (machinery, raw materials, and so on) was, in fact, not a contribution of capitalists but of past labor. As he wrote in Das Kapital , there is “not a single atom of its value that does not owe its existence to unpaid labour,” and so “the labourer himself creates the fund out of which the capitalist pays him.” This achieves nothing more than to “push back into the past the key question of the source of capital,” argues Sowell. And that, he concludes, “leads to infinite regress, not evidence or proof.” 

By beginning the story of production in the middle, Marx was able to gloss over such risks, essentially excluding failed businesses from his core analysis. But focusing only on survivors leads to a skewed understanding of the processes and dynamics at play.

Nor does the labor theory of value factor in non-physical non-labor inputs, or mental capital, such as expert knowledge, managerial skills, and other entrepreneurial competencies and contributions; to say nothing of risk-taking. Successful entrepreneurs must be able to correctly anticipate consumer demand, and they must be prepared to bear the associated risks. Much like competition, these risks are inseparable from economic innovation and growth, which, in turn, help society progress. 

By beginning the story of production in the middle, Marx was able to gloss over such risks, essentially excluding failed businesses from his core analysis. But focusing only on survivors leads to a skewed understanding of the processes and dynamics at play. What would our understanding of evolution look like if we ignored species which have succumbed to evolutionary selection pressures? The point is that failing businesses also hire and “exploit” workers. So just as breathing is not a guarantee for evolutionary success nor is labor the decisive factor ensuring economic prosperity. 

“Once output is seen as a function of numerous inputs, and the inputs are supplied by more than one class of people, the notion that surplus value arises from labour becomes plainly arbitrary and unsupported,” writes Sowell. “The empirical implication of a special or exclusive productivity of labour would be that countries that work longer and harder would have higher outputs and higher standards of living.” The reality, however, is “that countries whose inputs are less labour and more entrepreneurship tend to have vastly higher standards of living, including shorter hours for their workers.” Indeed, GDP (PPP) per hour worked, a measure of labor productivity normalized to purchasing power parity , is much higher in such countries, as are real average wages . Both measures have increased over time. 

Also worth mentioning here is the decoupling of economic growth from natural resource use, a development chronicled expertly in McAfee’s More from Less. These findings are important because they demonstrate that—contrary to popular belief—capitalism does not require ever-increasing inputs of labor and raw materials in order to consistently produce surplus value. 

Nor is output value determined solely, or even primarily, by inputs. On the contrary, according to Horwitz, “the value of a good emerges from human perceptions of its usefulness for the particular ends that people had at a particular point in time.” In other words, “[v]alue is not something objective and transcendent.” Rather, “[i]t is a function of the role that an object plays as a means toward the ends that are part of human purposes and plans.” It’s a fallacy to assume that “the value of outputs [is] determined by the value of the inputs like labor.” In fact, argues Horwitz, “it’s the other way around: the value of inputs like labor [are] determined by the value of the outputs they helped to produce. ” 

Because economics is fundamentally about the allocation of scarce resources that have alternative uses, the value of labor, expressed in wages, is also determined by scarcity . The skill sets needed to perform menial tasks, for example, are much easier to come by than those needed to successfully manage a business or organization. Not all labor is created equal. So, all things considered, the idea that “socially necessary labor time” provides an absolute measure of what a commodity is really worth can safely be dismissed. Indeed, for economists like Horwitz, “the labor theory of value holds roughly the same validity as the geocentric view of the universe.” 

Primitive Accumulation

Also dubious is Marx’s concept of “primitive accumulation,” which attempts to show that capitalist production, indeed capital itself, is deeply rooted in historical injustices such as slavery and colonialism. Marx writes : 

“The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.  These idyllic proceedings are the chief moments of primitive accumulation .”

Intended to explain the historical origins of industrial capitalism in England, Marx’s account raises more questions than it answers. For instance: What explains the technological superiority that had enabled certain countries to become colonial powers in the first place? And why didn’t they all industrialize? Indeed, if raw materials from overseas had been the decisive factor for the Industrial Revolution, why had no such event occurred in any of the resource-rich regions where they originated? Nor can slavery, a near-universal for most of history, explain such differences. 

The economist Noah Smith offers an alternative explanation : “The UK…was able to industrialize because its citizens invented power looms and steam engines and other technologies, and because its people worked very hard at factories and plants that used those technologies.” The result was an enormous increase in economic growth and prosperity . That’s not to say that natural resources from overseas played no role in the Industrial Revolution. What it is to say, however, is that the value of a given resource largely depends on who has it and how it is put to use. In short, it’s a matter of culture and “human capital”—the skills, knowledge, and expertise possessed by a country’s population.

But this leaves unanswered the question of the historical origins of the labor force required for industrial production. After all, the most consequential event in “the history of primitive accumulation,” according to Marx, was the creation of the industrial proletariat—“when great masses of men [were] suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled as free and ‘unattached’ proletarians on the labour-market.” In Das Kapital , he identifies the “expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil” as “the basis of the whole process.” Left unexplored is the possibility that many a peasant, in search of better prospects, may have sought work in the newly emerging industrial towns to escape the extreme hardships of peasant life. In any case, it is unwise to assume a single-factor explanation for a multifaceted process. 

However, even if we grant that Marx was historically correct, it doesn’t follow that the current distribution of capital is a result of “primitive accumulation.” Historical capital has changed hands or has been destroyed over the centuries, while a huge amount of new capital has been generated, increasing the total amount of capital in the world. Capitalism is, after all, a positive-sum game. But “even if all capital were assumed to have had unproductive retrospective implications,” states Sowell, “this would still leave untouched the prospective policy issue as to whether private or public ownership would be more efficient for an economy and its people.”

Capitalist Crisis

It is often said, based on Marx’s theoretical analysis, that capitalism is especially prone to crisis. The question, as always, is: compared to what? And how might a socialist economy be expected to perform better in this regard? If, as Marx suggests, economic crises are primarily the result of disproportionate sector output, then, argues Sowell, no economic system “in which the efficiencies made possible by specialization and division of labour separate the consumer from the producer” is immune to this problem. And that includes socialism. 

Capitalism, however, provides the ability to “ transmit these inherent disproportionalities—rapidly and accurately—through price fluctuations,” says Sowell. A planned economy, in which decisions are made by a central authority rather than by market participants, lacks this crucial mechanism. Such an economy may, however, be better equipped to cover up crises by fixing prices. But shooting the messenger does not solve the problem. If anything, it makes it worse. 

The fact that capitalism is not immune to crisis does not imply that society would be better off without it. For all its flaws, capitalism allows vast numbers of people to efficiently meet and communicate their individual preferences, using the language of price to indicate supply and demand. In an economic system based on collectivism and central planning, on the other hand, production is, by definition, detached from people’s individual needs and wants. By enforcing a planned economy, a system reduces not only individuals’ “freedom from” (negative liberty) but also their “freedom to” (positive liberty) by needlessly limiting their choices. Yet, Marx saw this as a step toward a future society based on the credo “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” As he wrote in his Critique of the Gotha Program :

“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”

Although specialization and division of labor explain much of the efficiency of production in modern economies, Marx assumed that eliminating these would, somehow , lead to a more abundant flow of wealth. 

Marx regarded specialization and division of labor as a source of alienation: the processes by which workers are separated from the fruits of their labor in a capitalist economy. As he put it in his Notes on James Mill : “Presupposing private property, my work is an  alienation of life , for I work  in order to live , in order to obtain for myself the  means  of life. My work is  not  my life.” Why this would be alleviated under public ownership—that is to say, under state ownership—is not clear. It may have something to do with the “ withering away of the state ” (the eventual transformation of socialism into “full communism”) prophesied by Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels. Marx imagined that:

“… 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, herdsman or critic.”

Although the division of labor constitutes, in Sowell’s words, “one of the great advantages of civilization over primitive society,” the conclusion here seems to be that capitalism is inherently at odds with workers’ real interests and desires—as conceived by Marx. Their individual choices and preferences are thus interpreted as reflecting not their own free will but their alienation. According to Marx , “the individual considers as his own freedom … the movement of his alienated life elements [but] in reality, this is the perfection of his slavery and his inhumanity.” Another way of looking at it, however, is that alienation, rather than being an internal condition, is really just an esoteric concept projected onto the working class from outside. 

Furthermore, the idea that history unfolds like a natural metamorphosis, similar to a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly, suggests that it can only go in one direction.

Historical Materialism

Human choice plays little role in the philosophy of Marx, particularly in his materialist conception of history, known as historical materialism. Marx saw historical development—that is, the transition from one social system to another—not as a result of human ideas and intentions, but as a nomological metamorphosis driven by internal contradictions which relate to changes in the mode of production. According to this view, human consciousness is itself determined by the material conditions underlying social relations. In Marx’s words : 

“The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development the material forces of production in society come into conflict with the existing relations of production…”

Implying an inevitable revolution, this materialistic-deterministic view of history, which is sometimes referred to as dialectical materialism , is central to Marxian metaphysics. Rather than provide compelling empirical evidence, however, it tends to act as a substitute for such evidence, giving aspiring revolutionaries a false sense of being on the right side of history. 

Furthermore, the idea that history unfolds like a natural metamorphosis, similar to a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly, suggests that it can only go in one direction. The historical evidence, however, shows that societies can retrogress calamitously. Not incidentally, some of the worst examples in modern history were linked to Marxist revolutions. 

Class Conflict

These calamities cannot be divorced from the fact that class conflict—“the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes” ( Manifesto of the Communist Party )—plays a central role in Marx’s dramatic view of social history. As the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker argues in The Blank Slate , “The ideology of group-against-group struggle explains the similar outcomes of Marxism and Nazism.” Though Marx characterized the conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between labor and capital, in impersonal terms, these categories nevertheless related to real people, millions of whom ended up in communist death and labor camps. In fact, Marx’s detached abstractions provided the rhetoric for the dehumanization of so-called class enemies.

Nor did he or Engels reject political violence per se. On the contrary, in their 1850 “Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League” they wrote, “Far from opposing the so-called excesses—instances of popular vengeance against hated individuals or against public buildings with which hateful memories are associated—the workers’ party must not only tolerate these actions but must even give them direction.” While they may not have approved of the mass murders committed in their names, Marx and Engels saw “force” as “the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.” As they put it in their Manifesto of the Communist Party , “the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.”

Revolutionary rhetoric aside, much of the appeal of Marxism comes from the fact that it offers religious certainty in scientific terms. I recently met up with an old friend, a staunch Marxist, at a traditional Viennese café to catch up and talk about our political differences. After hours of discussion, he admitted, “Well, ultimately, it’s a question of faith.” A question of faith? Marxism seeks nothing less than to alter the entire institutional structure of society. One would assume that a project with such momentous aspirations would be based on a more solid foundation. But with Marx, facts and evidence take a backseat to his grand narrative and vision. The resulting fallacies and misconceptions, many central to his theory, explain Marxism’s disastrous track record .

Gerfried Ambrosch is an author and writer and holds a Ph.D. in literary and cultural studies.

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• Marxism: Analyzing the Pros and Cons of its Strengths and Weaknesses

Marxism is a socio-economic and political theory that was developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 19th century. It is based on the idea that society is divided into two main classes: the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production, and the proletariat, who sell their labor to the bourgeoisie. Marxism seeks to analyze and critique the capitalist system, with the ultimate goal of achieving a classless society.

In this article, we will explore the strengths and weaknesses of Marxism as a theory. We will discuss its ability to provide a comprehensive analysis of class struggle and exploitation , as well as its potential shortcomings in terms of economic efficiency and individual freedoms . By examining both the pros and cons of Marxism, we can gain a better understanding of its impact on society and its relevance in the modern world.

"What are the strengths of Marxism and its impact on society?"

"what are the weaknesses of marxism and criticisms against it", "examining the weaknesses of marxism and its limitations", "the pros and cons of implementing marxist economic policies", "analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of marxist ideology in practice", frequently asked questions.

Marxism, as a socio-political theory developed by Karl Marx, has had a significant impact on society over the years. It has been praised for its critique of capitalism and its emphasis on equality and social justice. However, like any ideology, Marxism also has its strengths and weaknesses. In this section, we will analyze the strengths of Marxism and its impact on society.

One of the main strengths of Marxism is its ability to provide a comprehensive analysis of the social and economic structures that shape society. Marxism emphasizes the importance of understanding the underlying economic forces that drive social inequality and exploitation. By focusing on the relationship between the working class and the capitalist class, Marxism offers a framework for understanding power dynamics and class struggle.

Another strength of Marxism is its commitment to social justice and equality. Marxism advocates for the redistribution of wealth and resources to ensure a more equitable society. It critiques the inherent inequalities of capitalism and calls for the abolition of private property and the establishment of a classless society. This emphasis on equality has resonated with many individuals and has inspired social movements around the world.

Marxism also highlights the potential for collective action and social change. It emphasizes the role of the working class in challenging the capitalist system and advocating for their rights. Marxism encourages workers to unite and fight against exploitation, leading to the formation of labor unions and the development of worker solidarity.

Furthermore, Marxism has had a significant impact on academic disciplines such as sociology, economics, and political science. Its theories and concepts have shaped the way scholars approach the study of society and have influenced critical theories and research methodologies. Marxism has provided a framework for analyzing social structures, power dynamics, and the effects of capitalism on society.

In conclusion, Marxism has several strengths that have contributed to its impact on society. Its comprehensive analysis of social and economic structures, commitment to social justice and equality, emphasis on collective action, and influence on academic disciplines have made Marxism a powerful force in shaping societies and inspiring social change.

While Marxism has its strengths, it is not without its weaknesses and criticisms. One of the main criticisms against Marxism is its economic determinism, which argues that economic factors are the primary drivers of social change. Critics argue that this narrow focus on economics overlooks other important factors such as culture, religion, and individual agency.

Another criticism of Marxism is its rejection of private property and market economies. Critics argue that private property rights and free markets are essential for individual freedom and economic prosperity. They believe that Marxism 's emphasis on collective ownership and central planning can lead to inefficiencies and a lack of innovation.

Marxism has also been criticized for its potential for authoritarianism. Some argue that Marxism 's concentration of power in the hands of the state can lead to the suppression of individual liberties and human rights. Critics point to historical examples such as the Soviet Union and China as evidence of Marxism 's potential for abuse of power.

Lastly, Marxism has been criticized for its lack of feasibility in practice. Critics argue that implementing Marxist ideals in the real world is challenging due to the complexities of human nature, the need for incentives, and the potential for corruption. They believe that Marxism is an idealistic theory that fails to account for the realities of human behavior and the limitations of government intervention.

Overall, while Marxism has its strengths, it is not immune to criticism. Its economic determinism, rejection of private property, potential for authoritarianism, and feasibility in practice are some of the main criticisms leveled against Marxism . These criticisms contribute to ongoing debates and discussions surrounding the theory and its application in society.

While Marxism has its fair share of supporters who believe in its principles and ideals, it is important to critically analyze its weaknesses and limitations. One of the main criticisms of Marxism is its failure to account for human nature and the innate desire for individual freedom and self-interest. Critics argue that Marxism's emphasis on collective ownership and class struggle neglects the importance of personal ambition and entrepreneurial spirit.

Another weakness of Marxism lies in its economic model. Critics argue that a centrally planned economy, as proposed by Marxism, often leads to inefficiencies and lack of innovation. They believe that a market-based economy, which encourages competition and individual initiative, is a more effective way to drive economic growth and prosperity.

In addition, Marxism has been criticized for its potential to lead to authoritarian regimes. Critics argue that the concentration of power in the hands of the state, as advocated by Marxism, can result in the suppression of individual freedoms and human rights. They point to historical examples such as the Soviet Union and China , where Marxist ideologies were used to justify oppressive regimes.

Furthermore, critics argue that Marxism overlooks the importance of cultural and social factors in shaping society. They claim that Marxism's focus on economic determinism fails to consider the influence of factors such as race , gender , and religion in shaping social dynamics and inequalities.

It is also important to consider the practical challenges of implementing Marxist ideologies. Critics argue that the transition to a Marxist society would require a radical restructuring of institutions and systems, which can be disruptive and lead to instability. They question the feasibility of achieving a classless society and the ability of the state to effectively manage and distribute resources.

Overall, while Marxism has its merits, it is crucial to acknowledge and critically examine its weaknesses and limitations. By understanding and addressing these concerns, we can have a more informed and nuanced perspective on the potential benefits and drawbacks of Marxist ideologies.

Pros of Marxism

One of the main benefits of implementing Marxist economic policies is the potential for greater income equality. Marxism aims to redistribute wealth more evenly among society, reducing the gap between the rich and the poor. This can lead to a more equitable society where everyone has access to basic necessities.

Another advantage of Marxism is its focus on collective ownership and control of the means of production. By eliminating private ownership, Marxism aims to create a system where resources are used for the benefit of society as a whole, rather than for individual profit. This can result in more efficient resource allocation and the elimination of exploitation.

In addition, Marxism advocates for workers' rights and protection. By prioritizing the needs and well-being of workers, Marxism seeks to create a fairer labor system where workers are not exploited and have access to decent working conditions, fair wages, and social benefits.

Furthermore, Marxism emphasizes the importance of social welfare programs and public services. By providing universal healthcare, education, and social security, Marxism aims to ensure that everyone has equal access to essential services, regardless of their socioeconomic status.

Lastly, Marxism encourages social change and revolution. It challenges the status quo and aims to create a society free from oppression, discrimination, and inequality. This can lead to a more inclusive and just society for all.

Cons of Marxism

One of the main criticisms of Marxism is its potential for stifling individual freedoms. Critics argue that Marxism's focus on collective ownership and control can limit individual autonomy and entrepreneurship. The absence of private property rights may discourage innovation and productivity.

Another concern with Marxism is its potential for economic inefficiency. Critics argue that without the profit motive and market competition, there may be a lack of incentives for productivity and innovation. This can lead to a stagnant economy and a decline in overall prosperity.

Furthermore, Marxism often faces criticism for its historical implementation. Critics point to examples like the Soviet Union and other communist states, where authoritarianism, human rights abuses, and lack of political freedoms were prevalent. These examples have led to skepticism about the feasibility and effectiveness of Marxism in practice.

Additionally, Marxism's emphasis on class struggle and revolution can lead to social and political instability. Critics argue that the constant tension between different classes can hinder social cohesion and lead to conflict and division within society.

Lastly, critics argue that Marxism fails to account for the complexity and diversity of human nature. The belief in an inevitable classless society may overlook the inherent differences and motivations of individuals, leading to an overly simplistic view of social and economic dynamics.

It is important to note that the pros and cons of Marxism are highly debated and subjective. Different perspectives and experiences shape opinions on this ideology, and the implementation of Marxist policies can vary greatly depending on the context and the specific approach taken.

Marxism , as an ideology and socioeconomic theory, has been a subject of much debate and analysis. Supporters argue that it offers a framework for understanding and challenging social inequalities, while critics argue that it is flawed and leads to oppressive regimes. In this article, we will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of Marxist ideology in practice.

Strengths of Marxism:

One of the key strengths of Marxism is its focus on social class and economic inequality. Marxists argue that capitalism inherently creates social divisions and exploitation, and that by addressing these issues, society can move towards a more equitable and just system. This analysis of class struggle has been influential in shaping social movements and policies aimed at reducing inequality.

Another strength of Marxism is its emphasis on collective action and solidarity. Marxists believe that through working together, people can challenge and transform oppressive systems. This has led to the formation of labor unions, grassroots movements, and revolutions aimed at achieving social and economic justice.

Marxism also offers a critique of capitalism and its impact on the environment. Marxists argue that capitalism's pursuit of profit leads to the exploitation of natural resources and environmental degradation. By highlighting the contradictions between capitalism and ecological sustainability, Marxism provides a framework for addressing environmental issues.

Weaknesses of Marxism:

One of the main weaknesses of Marxism is its failure to address individual freedoms and rights. Critics argue that Marxist regimes have often resulted in authoritarianism and the suppression of dissent. The concentration of power in the hands of a few can lead to human rights abuses and a lack of political freedom.

Another weakness of Marxism is its economic determinism. Marxists argue that economic factors are the primary drivers of social change, neglecting the influence of culture, institutions, and individual agency. This narrow focus can limit the understanding of complex social phenomena and ignore the importance of non-economic factors.

Marxism's collectivist approach can also lead to a lack of incentive and innovation. Critics argue that without individual ownership and competition, there is less motivation for individuals to excel and contribute to society. This can stifle creativity and hinder economic growth.

Despite its strengths and weaknesses, Marxism continues to be a significant influence in social and political discourse. By critically analyzing its strengths and weaknesses, we can gain a deeper understanding of its impact on society and its potential for creating a more just and equitable world.

What is Marxism?

Marxism is a social, political, and economic theory developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which emphasizes the struggle between the working class and the capitalist ruling class.

What are the strengths of Marxism?

Marxism provides a critical analysis of capitalism, highlighting its exploitative nature and advocating for social justice and equality.

What are the weaknesses of Marxism?

Some critics argue that Marxism is impractical and utopian, and that it fails to account for the complexities of human nature and the diversity of individual aspirations.

Has Marxism been successful in practice?

Marxist regimes have been established in various countries, but their success has been a subject of debate. While some argue that they have achieved social progress, others point to instances of authoritarianism and economic inefficiency.

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The Pros and Cons of Graffiti: Evaluating the Artistic Rebellion

[PDF] 50 (February 2024) : more data and a – [PDF] : 4 chapters available as PDF downloads : Full text, with new intro, now available to and Power Structure Research: Legacies or Relics?"

A Critique of Marxism By g. william domhoff. NOTE: This document is a supplement to the more general overview of the rival theories of power that exist in sociology today. Historical Materialism From a Four Networks point of view, Marxism's emphasis on historical materialism is too narrow a base for understanding the complexity and variety of power structures across time and places. The idea that all power is rooted ultimately in the ownership and control of the means of production, with the ensuing class struggle providing the motor of history, does not fit the origins of civilization in the years from 3000 to 2300 B.C.E., when most property was held by the state and there was no class conflict; nor the 2500 years of empires of domination, when military networks were in the ascendancy; nor the 900 years after the fall of the Roman Empire, when the ideology network called "Christendom" combined with the independent armies of the nobility to create the framework within which a class-ridden capitalism and a closely intertwined system of nation-states began to rise to the fore. In short, there have been great stretches of history when economic forces, no matter how broadly conceived to accommodate the Marxian claim about the primacy of the "mode of production," were not primary in either the first or last instance. Moreover, there were other epochs where the activities of the ruling class were far more important in understanding new developments than any "class struggle" with direct producers, who were far too localized and lacking in organizational infrastructure to challenge the dominant class, let alone to be considered a class themselves. The Origin and Function of the State For Marxists, the state is a structure of domination that protects private property, even though they argue among themselves about the way in which this state domination takes place. Marx's general view of the state followed logically from the fact of human productivity. As already stated, the surplus created by this productivity led to inevitable conflict between the forces and relations of production, an increasing division of labor, inevitable class conflict, and then the creation of the political state as the defender of property. There are several problems with this theory of the state. First, archaeological and historical evidence do not support the claim that the state has its origins in class struggle and the rise of private property. Early states were a mix of religious and political institutions that had functions for small societies as a whole in terms of the need for a common way to store grain and other foodstuffs. These states also had other regulatory functions as city life became more crowded and complicated compared to what faced small groups of hunters and gatherers. Second, changes in the nature of the state are not usually a product of changes in society due to conflict between social classes. One of the biggest impacts on the nature of the state was the need for a common defense against nomadic groups, and later, rival states. Third, even in later times states are not always involved in subjugating the producing classes. Sometimes dominant classes do the subjugating directly, as during the Middle Ages (Mann, 1986, pp. 391-392, 411). Fourth, by conceiving of the state so narrowly, and not seeing its political and religious dimensions, Marxists minimize the potential for patriotic and religious feelings in shaping how groups and classes act. They therefore underestimate the strong possibility that common social bonds also can exist between the social classes in a country. Fifth, the Marxist analysis of the state, with its emphasis on its alleged original role in protecting private property, led to a false homology between the state and the economic system that creates a tendency to downplay the importance of representative democracy. Not all Marxists accept the argument that follows, but many do. For this large subset, representative democracy is an illusion that grows out of the same type of mystification that is created by the marketplace. Just as the capitalists appropriate surplus value "behind the backs" of the workers through the seemingly fair mechanism of the market, when the real story is in ownership and control of the forces of production, so too does representative democracy appropriate the political power of the workers through the seemingly fair mechanism of elections, when the major action is over in a state bureaucracy that responds to the interests of the owners of private property. This view is best summarized in Stanley Moore's A Critique of Capitalist Democracy (1957), a book based on an extremely close reading and synthesis of everything that Marx, Engels, and Lenin wrote on the subject of the state. It is so crucial to understanding how some Marxists view representative democracy, and thus to understanding the politics of those Marxists, that it needs to be quoted at length: These distinctive features of the bourgeois democratic state correspond to distinctive features of the capitalist economy. The capitalist economy appears to be controlled through a series of competitive exchanges, in which all members of the society participate voluntarily under conditions of universal freedom and equality. Similarly, the bourgeois democratic state appears to be controlled through a series of competitive elections, in which all members of the society participate voluntarily under conditions of universal freedom and equality. But beneath the formal freedom and equality of capitalist exchange lie the material bondage and exploitation of capitalist production, resulting from the monopoly over the means of production exercised by members of the capitalist class. And beneath the formal freedom and equality of bourgeois democratic elections lie the material bondage and oppression of bureaucratic administration, resulting from the monopoly over the means of coercion exercised by agents of the capitalist class. The democratic republic is the optimum political shell for capitalism because the relation between bureaucratic administration and universal suffrage is the optimum political counterpart for the relation between capitalist exploitation and commodity exchange. (Moore, 1957:87-88.) The ongoing importance of this analysis can be seen in the work of the Marxist economist James O'Connor, who had a major impact on the thinking of the generation of Marxists who came of age in the 1970s and 1980s. He is still carefully read by radical environmentalists and many members of the global justice movement. O'Connor had the following to say about these matters in Accumulation Crisis (1984): In Marxist theory, the "liberal democratic state" is still another capitalist weapon in the class struggle. This is so because the democratic form of the state conceals undemocratic contents. Democracy in the parliamentary shell hides its absence in the state bureaucratic kernel; parliamentary freedom is regarded as the political counterpart of the freedom in the marketplace, and the hierarchical bureaucracy as the counterpart of the capitalist division of labor in the factory. (O'Connor, 1984, p. 188.) There are some Marxists who would say that this is really the Marxist-Leninist view of representative democracy, not of Marxists in general. Be that as it may, the point for now is that this analysis is often accepted as "the" Marxist view by new Marxists, and is identified as such by O'Connor in the passage quoted above. I think it is a crucial point to consider because the idea that liberal freedoms are really a thin veil for the repression of the working class, when combined with the idea that the market is inherently exploitative, generates a contempt for liberal values and democracy that leads to crucial misunderstandings of the United States. It says that representative democracy is all a sham. I think this may be one of the root problems of Marxist politics in the United States, a problem that makes it difficult for Marxists to join into coalitions with liberals. For those Marxists who see representative democracy as a sham, the solution is "direct democracy," meaning small face-to-face groups in which the people themselves, not elected representatives, make decisions. This is in fact the meaning of the term "soviet." But historical experience shows that such groups came to be controlled by the members of the Communist Party within them. Problems also developed within direct democracy groups, often called "participatory democracy groups," in the New Left and women's movements in the 1960s. Although they tried to foster open participation among equals, they developed informal power structures led by charismatic or unbending members. There came to be a "tyranny of structurelessness" that shaped the group's decisions, often to the growing frustration of the more powerless members (Ellis, 1998, Chapter 6; Freeman, 1972). Based on this experience, it seems that selection of leaders through elections is necessary to avoid worse problems. Rather than downplaying the elected legislature, as some Marxists do, the Four Networks theory suggests that the creation of legislatures was a key factor in breaking down the unity of the monarchical state and thereby limiting its potential autonomy. Put another way, representative democracy and legislatures are one of the few counterpoints to the great potential power of an autocratic state. They should not be dismissed as inevitable mystifications of class rule, even if empirical investigations show that legislatures in capitalist societies are often dominated by capitalists, as is generally the case in the United States. The idea that Marxists and liberals should agree on is to extend the openness of legislatures in ways discussed in the Social Change section of this Web site. The Problems of Socialism The planned economy envisioned by classical Marxists has not proved to be workable either in terms of productivity or democratic responsiveness. There are several reasons for these failures. The productivity problem is rooted in the fact that the range and depth of information needed to run a complex consumer economy is too great for any planning bureaucracy. Moreover, no planning agency currently has the capability to analyze the information that does exist in a timely enough fashion to deal with sudden shifts in the availability of raw materials or changes in consumer preferences. The result is an unproductive economy. As the planners and plant managers come under criticism, they start to cut corners and cheat in ways that can allow them to meet their quotas. The result is hoarding of raw materials that other plants need, and shoddy goods. In other words, all the potential problems with large-scale bureaucracies come into play. Power accrues at the top. Then corruption ensues, such as placing friends and relatives of questionable competence in positions of responsibility, withholding important information from rival agencies, and skimming off resources for the personal benefit of the top officials. All this adds to the morale problems generated by the failures of the economy and multiplies the large economic inefficiencies. The disappointing conclusion that emerges from the social sciences and history is that non-market planning cannot work, even in democratic societies. Thus, progressives and other egalitarians have to develop methods of planning through the market in order to realize their egalitarian goals. For all its potential weaknesses, a planned market system within the context of a representative democracy can be both productive and more equal than present-day societies because it relies on many different people with small pieces of information to make small and limited decisions. Many contemporary Marxists are rethinking these issues as well. There are interesting arguments about "market socialism" (Elson, 1998; Ollman, 1998). Marxist Politics Marxist politics, whether of the Social Democratic or Marxist-Leninist variety, have not been successful for a number of reasons. The first two were discussed earlier in this critique. To repeat: Non-market planning, as the method to reach the key goal of Marxist politics, which is an end to economic exploitation, has proven to be unworkable in complex economies in large countries. The disregard for representative democracy on the part of some Marxists (at the least, Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyists, Maoists) leads to a disruptive and extra-parliamentary approach to politics that alienates most citizens in democratic capitalist countries. Beyond these two serious issues, there are three further problems: The firm conviction that Marx is right about (a) the false consciousness caused by capitalism and (b) the inevitable failure of capitalism due to its internal contradictions can breed a form of elitist thinking that can become very manipulative. The overwhelming emphasis on the nature of capitalism in classical Marxism as the key to politics made it difficult to take the differences in electoral systems from country to country seriously. The idea that the structural realities of the American electoral system militate against third parties of the left or right was therefore taken as a theoretical challenge to the primacy classical Marxists afforded to the economic system. The general leftist preference for a third party is reinforced by the general nature of dialectical thinking, which insists that the opposing class forces within capitalism inevitably come to the fore as it develops, thereby increasing the tensions and "contradictions" built into the underlying social structure. It therefore makes sense to create a third party that might fracture the Democratic Party in order to "heighten the contradictions." By this reasoning, "the worse things are, the better," because crises hasten the fall of capitalism. That is exactly what the Marxist-Leninists who controlled the Communist movement inside and outside the United States from 1917 to 1990 believed. The most extreme expression of this last point was the slogan of the German Communist Party in the early 1930s, "After Hitler comes us," which they used when they refused to enter into a coalition with the Social Democrats to stop the rise of Hitler. As subsequent German history sadly proved, the "worse is better" theory drastically underestimates the power of political repression to destroy a left-wing movement. Much closer to home, the Communists in the United States played a central role in creating the Progressive Party in 1948, even though they had insisted they were going to stay close to the labor unions within the Democratic Party. But when Moscow decreed in October, 1947, that all Communist parties must find ways to oppose the imperialistic Marshall Plan (massive financial aid for Western European countries), the American Communists decided that aiding a third party would be the best approach. Since they knew such a party could not win, and might cost the Democrats the election, it is likely that they were out to help the Republicans, whom they believed might reject the Marshall Plan because of their strong isolationist wing. Return to the conclusion of "Alternative Theoretical Views." Ellis, R. J. (1998). The dark side of the left: Illiberal egalitarianism in America . Lawrence: University of Kansas Press. Elson, D. (1998). Socializing markets, not market socialism. In L. Panitch & C. Lay (Eds.), The social register 1999 . London: Merlin. Freeman, J. (1972). The tyranny of structurelessness. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 17 , 151-164. Mann, M. (1986). The sources of social power: A history of power from the beginning to A.D. 1760 (Vol. 1). New York: Cambridge University Press. Moore, S. W. (1957). The critique of capitalist democracy: An introduction to the theory of the state in Marx, Engels, and Lenin . New York,: Paine-Whitman. O'Connor, J. (1984). Accumulation crisis . New York, N.Y.: B. Blackwell. Ollman, B. (Ed.). (1998). Market socialism: The debate among socialists . New York: Routledge. First posted April 2005 All content ©2024 G. William Domhoff , unless otherwise noted. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. Please direct technical questions regarding this Web site to Adam Schneider . Table of Contents Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, marxist criticism. © 2023 by Angela Eward-Mangione - Hillsborough Community College Marxist Criticism refers to a method you'll encounter in literary and cultural analysis. It breaks down texts and societal structures using foundational concepts like class, alienation, base, and superstructure. By understanding this, you'll gain insights into how power dynamics and socio-economic factors influence narratives and cultural perspectives What is Marxist Criticism? Marxist Criticism refers to both an interpretive framework a genre of discourse . Marxist Criticism as both a theoretical approach and a conversational genre within academic discourse . Critics using this framework analyze literature and other cultural forms through the lens of Marxist theory, which includes an exploration of how economic and social structures influence ideology and culture. For example, a Marxist reading of a novel might explore how the narrative reinforces or challenges the existing social hierarchy and economic inequalities. Marxist Criticism prioritizes four foundational Marxist concepts: class struggle the alienation of the individual under capitalism the relationship between a society’s economic base and its cultural superstructure. Related Concepts Dialectic ; Hermeneutics ; Literary Criticism ; Semiotics ; Textual Research Methods Why Does Marxist Criticism Matter? Marxist criticism thus emphasizes class, socioeconomic status, power relations among various segments of society, and the representation of those segments. Marxist literary criticism is valuable because it enables readers to see the role that class plays in the plot of a text. What Are the Four Primary Perspectives of Marxism? Class a classification or grouping typically based on income and education Alienation a condition Karl Heinrich Marx ascribed to individuals in a capitalist economy who lack a sense of identification with their labor and products. The estrangement individuals feel in capitalist societies, where they become disconnected from their work, the products they produce, and even themselves. Base the means (e.g., tools, machines, factories, natural resources) and relations (e.g., Proletariat, Bourgeoisie) or production that shape and are shaped by the superstructure (the dominant aspect in society). Marxist criticism theorizes that the economic means of production within society account for the base. Superstructure the social institutions such as systems of law, morality, education, and their related ideologies, that shape and are shaped by the base. Human institutions and ideologies—including those relevant to a patriarchy—that produce art and literary texts comprise the superstructure. Did Karl Marx Create Marxist Criticism? Karl Marx himself did not create Marxist criticism as a literary or cultural methodology . He was a philosopher, economist, and sociologist, and his works laid the foundation for Marxist theory in the context of social and economic analysis. The key concepts that Marx developed—such as class struggle, the theory of surplus value, and historical materialism—are central to understanding the mechanisms of capitalism and class relations. Marxist criticism as a distinct approach to literature and culture developed later, as thinkers in the 20th century began to apply Marx’s ideas to the arts and humanities. It is a product of various scholars and theorists who found Marx’s social theories to be useful tools for analyzing and critiquing literature and culture. These include figures such as György Lukács, Walter Benjamin, Antonio Gramsci, and later the Frankfurt School, among others, who expanded Marxist theory into the realms of ideology, consciousness, and cultural production. So, while Marx provided the ideological framework, it was later theorists who adapted his ideas into what is now known as Marxist criticism. Who Are the Key Figures in Marxist Theory? Bressler notes that “Marxist theory has its roots in the nineteenth-century writings of Karl Heinrich Marx, though his ideas did not fully develop until the twentieth century” (183). Key figures in Marxist theory include Bertolt Brecht, Georg Lukács, and Louis Althusser. Although these figures have shaped the concepts and path of Marxist theory, Marxist literary criticism did not specifically develop from Marxism itself. One who approaches a literary text from a Marxist perspective may not necessarily support Marxist ideology. For example, a Marxist approach to Langston Hughes’s poem “ Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria ” might examine how the socioeconomic status of the speaker and other citizens of New York City affect the speaker’s perspective. The Waldorf Astoria opened during the midst of the Great Depression. Thus, the poem’s speaker uses sarcasm to declare, “Fine living . . . a la carte? / Come to the Waldorf-Astoria! / LISTEN HUNGRY ONES! / Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the / new Waldorf-Astoria” (lines 1-5). The speaker further expresses how class contributes to the conflict described in the poem by contrasting the targeted audience of the hotel with the citizens of its surrounding area: “So when you’ve no place else to go, homeless and hungry / ones, choose the Waldorf as a background for your rags” (lines 15-16). Hughes’s poem invites readers to consider how class restricts particular segments of society. What are the Foundational Questions of Marxist Criticism? What classes, or socioeconomic statuses, are represented in the text? Are all the segments of society accounted for, or does the text exclude a particular class? Does class restrict or empower the characters in the text? How does the text depict a struggle between classes, or how does class contribute to the conflict of the text? How does the text depict the relationship between the individual and the state? Does the state view individuals as a means of production, or as ends in themselves? Example of Marxist Criticism The Working Class Beats: a Marxist analysis of Beat Writing and (studylib.net) Discussion Questions and Activities: Marxist Criticism Define class, alienation, base, and superstructure in your own words. Explain why a base determines its superstructure. Choose the lines or stanzas that you think most markedly represent a struggle between classes in Langston Hughes’s “ Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria .” Hughes’s poem also addresses racial issues; consider referring to the relationship between race and class in your written response. Contrast the lines that appear in quotation marks and parentheses in Hughes’s poem. How do these lines differ? Does it seem like the lines in parentheses respond to the lines in quotation marks, the latter of which represent excerpts from an advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria published in Vanity Fair? How does this contrast illustrate a struggle between classes? What is Hughes’s purpose for writing “ Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria ?” Defend your interpretation with evidence from the poem. 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The Writing Process - Research on Composing The writing process refers to everything you do in order to complete a writing project. Over the last six decades, researchers have studied and theorized about how writers go about... Writing Studies Writing studies refers to an interdisciplinary community of scholars and researchers who study writing. Writing studies also refers to an academic, interdisciplinary discipline – a subject of study. Students in... Featured Articles Marxist Feminism Theory Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc Associate Editor for Simply Psychology BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors. Learn about our Editorial Process Saul Mcleod, PhD Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology. Marxist feminists view capitalism and patriarchy as inseparable systems. They believe capitalism relies on the unpaid domestic labor of women to function, and that this exploitation reinforces patriarchal power structures within society. Key Takeaways Marxist feminists see the family as a tool of capitalism and that it is capitalism, not men, who oppress women. They see the family as oppressing women while support capitalism in three ways: Women reproduce the workforce and socialize them into a social hierarchy. Women absorb the anger of men who are frustrated by their alienation and exploitation (cushioning effect). Women are a reserve army of cheap labor that can be activated when they are needed and let go when no longer needed What Is Marxist Feminism? Marxist feminism is a branch of feminist theory which argues that the main cause of women’s oppression is capitalism. This type of feminism is based on the understandings of Marxism, proposed by Karl Marx and collaborator Friedrich Engels in the 19th century. Marx demonstrated how capitalism was able to grow through the exploitation of labor. Social classes were described to explain how one class controls the other as a means to produce goods. People who are of a high-class level of economic condition are the bourgeoise, whereas people who are of a low-class level are claimed as the proletariat since they become the labors of the bourgeoise (Marx & Engels, 1848). Marxist feminists regard classism, rather than sexism, as the fundamental cause of women’s oppression. They explore how ideas of gender structure production in capitalism and argue that women are exploited by a capitalist society. While some Marxist themes may not be as relevant today, Marxist feminists can still be used to explore how the political economy is gendered in late-stage capitalism and how the social reproduction of people and communities renews capitalism (Armstrong, 2020). Whilst Marxist feminism can affect all individuals, this article will be focused on cisgender women in typically heterosexual relationships since this is who much of the research and theory centers on. The Key Issues According to Marxist Feminism The main view of Marxist feminists is that the traditional nuclear family only came about with capitalism. They believe that the traditional role of the housewife- who does not have paid employment and resides in the home completing domestic tasks- supports capitalism. Marxist feminists claim that while the proletariat are oppressed through the capitalist system, women are double oppressed through capitalism as well as through the nuclear family. Women’s oppression is thought to support capitalism in multiple ways, which are detailed below: Women reproduce the labor force In a capitalist society, women are expected to reproduce children. These children will then grow up to be the next generation of workers and mothers. Women are also socializing the next generation of workers and ‘servicing’ the current workers (their husbands) with their unpaid domestic labor. Thus, women are supporting capitalism through their own means of reproduction, according to Marxist feminists. Unpaid domestic labor of women Marxist feminists claim that there is a division of labor between men and women: men are assigned economic production, whereas women have been assigned reproduction of the workforce. In a capitalist society, more value is given to the production of material goods by men, than the reproduction of people by women. Domestic work which is usually carried out by women include household chores, house management, and childcare. This labor is not respected in capitalist society since there is no exchange value. It is, therefore, devalued, and unpaid but expected to be done, nonetheless. Marxist feminists explain that the unpaid labor of women is a way to exploit them. It is done for free, and it benefits both men and the capitalist system. Capitalism would not exist without this unpaid labor because workers would not be able to work all day if they also had to take care of their children and the house (Cottais, 2020). Women are a reserve of cheap labor Since the primary role of women in a capitalist society is in unpaid domestic labor, they were usually restricted from working a paid job. However, women are used as a reserve, to be taken on temporarily when required by the bourgeois. This was observable during the World Wars when most men were sent away to fight. When the men were away, many women were enrolled in the work that they would have otherwise not been allowed to do (Grayzel, 2013). However, the women would have been paid less than the men and many would have had to return to their unpaid domestic duties once the men returned from war. Women take on emotional labor While not directly creating any produce or service, Marxist feminists claim that women must provide emotional labor under a capitalist society. This refers to the labor that is involved in keeping family members emotionally stable, so they can work efficiently. The partners of the women may be understandably frustrated by the exploitation they experience by the bourgeois and women are often expected to absorb this frustration which may result in domestic violence. How Was Marxist Feminism Developed? Although Marxist theory was not initially focused on women’s issues, it was realized that under a capitalist system, women were exploited by not being paid for the reproductive and emotional labor they were involved in. Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl Marx, is thought to be one of Marxist feminism’s pioneers in England in the 19th century among others such as Rosa Luxembourg. During the suffrage movement in the early 20th century, class systems were considered when working-class women forged their own movement for the right to vote alongside white middle-class women. It was not until the 1960s and 70s when Marxist feminism became particularly popular, resounding the most with women of the time. Marxist feminism is thought to have arisen in reaction to liberal feminism , whose fight failed to go beyond equal rights. Marxist feminists argue that legal liberation is not enough to free women since it does nothing to abolish the patriarchy in social relations (Cottais, 2020). A few of the key women who contributed to the development of Marxist feminism as a theory are Chizuko Ueno, Anuradha Ghandy, Claudia Jones, and Angela Davis. What Are The Goals Of Marxist Feminism? Abolish capitalism. The main goal of Marxist feminists is to abolish capitalism. Through this, they believe that patriarchy itself can be tackled. Overthrowing the existing economic system is thought to liberate women. Since capitalism is at the root of inequality and patriarchy is a product of capitalism, removing this system should eliminate gender inequalities. A classless society Instead of capitalism, Marxist feminists advocate for a classless, communist society. Through a classless society, both the upper-class and working-class people will be treated equally. Other solutions can be proposed such as reevaluating the reproductive work through the collectivism of domestic work and childcare. The vision of Marx and Engels was to ensure that there was a collective ownership and the basic dignity of women in society, thus the domestic duties will be shared equally between partners. More women in the public sphere Since women’s exclusion from paid work makes them more oppressed, a way to combat this is to integrate women into paid work and the public sphere. This includes ensuring that women are paid equal wages to men and are offered the same opportunities if they have the necessary qualifications. Marxist feminists do not generally seek to exclude men from feminist struggles, in fact, they often want to avoid separation between the sexes for fear of fueling a class division (Cottais, 2020). Valuing domestic labor Marxist feminists do not necessarily disagree that domestic labor should be ignored. Likewise, if a woman chooses to not work and instead take care of the household and children, then they should be free to do so. However, Marxist feminists wish for domestic labor to be as valued as reproductive labor. For domestic labor to be fairly valued, Marxist feminists argue that women should be paid for domestic work. Being paid for this work puts an economic value on what is still largely considered women’s work. Control over reproductive rights If women have more reproductive rights and more of a choice as to whether to be a parent, they have more choice as to their role in society. Capitalist societies see women’s main job as to be a mother and nothing else. So, if women realize they have a choice as to whether to go down this path, they can feel more liberated to do what they want to do. Strengths And Criticisms Of Marxist Feminism Marxist feminism has shone a light on how women are oppressed by a capitalist society. Attention has been drawn to the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy and the importance of taking both class and gender into consideration in feminist demands. It considers how some previous feminist movements may have been more focused on the rights of middle-class or upper-class women, with working-class women being ignored or forgotten in history. Marxist feminism can also highlight how working-class women are not only subservient to men, but often to wealthy women. More women and men recognize that there is often an imbalance in the share of household and childcare responsibilities. This awareness means that couples can discuss and come to agreements as to how to split the duties. Many more men take on an active role in the household which can allow their partners to relax or to work on their career. Likewise, people in relationships can start to be more aware of whether they are unwillingly doing more of the domestic duties. If someone’s partner is not willing to take on more of the unpaid labor and this is making them unhappy, then they can consider whether this is the person they want to spend their life with. Ultimately, more people can find a partner who suits their lifestyle and do not have to settle for someone who is not helpful or supportive. A main criticism of Marxist feminism is that women’s oppression is thought to have been prevalent in the family system before capitalism existed. Therefore, it is doubtful whether men would suddenly stop exploiting women in a classless society. In fact, sexism and oppression of women can still be found in communist political parties, trade unions, and left-wing militant structures. As such, viewing Marxism as a condition for women’s liberation ignores sexism as a whole and may only deal with a small percentage of the wider issue. Marxist feminism has focused heavily on the intersection of class and gender but initially did not always incorporate the intersection of race, sexuality, or disability alongside these issues. A black woman in a mostly white capitalist society, for instance, would be oppressed because of being a woman, but also for being black. Angela Davis discusses the intersection of race on Marxist feminism in her book ‘Women, Race, & Class’ (1981). Marxist feminism may also be criticized as not being relevant in today’s society. Since more women have the opportunity to work and have the choice as to whether to bear children, they are not necessarily restricted to being a traditional housewife, unless this is what they choose to do. Thus, many aspects of Marxist feminism may now be outdated. Frequently Asked Questions What is the difference between marxist and socialist feminism. Marxist and socialist feminism can often be confused and sometimes used interchangeably. While they may be similar, a way to distinguish between them is by their view on women’s oppression. Marxist feminism considers capitalism to be the root cause of women’s exploitation, which is analyzed through the construct of social classes. However, socialist feminism takes both class and gender factors into account when it studies how patriarchy-capitalism articulate (Cottais, 2020). How does intersectionality relate to Marxist feminism? Intersectionality acknowledges that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and oppression based on factors such as gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and disability, among others. While intersectionality views all forms of oppression as equally important, Marxists highlight how class is the fundamental dividing line in capitalist society. Marxist feminism is intersectional since it considers how women are double oppressed under capitalism. First by being a woman, and second by their social class. Are women in paid work still affected by capitalism according to Marxist feminists? Many may criticize Marxist feminism by stating that it is not relevant to modern day society since more women are able to work in paid jobs and do not have to be restricted to staying in the household, doing chores, and caring for their children. However, for women, there are some barriers which can make it harder for them to have a career and children at the same time. Women who work in paid jobs are often still required to complete their ‘second shift’ when they return home (housework, childcare, and home management), which uses up more of their time and energy (Arruzza, Bhattacharya, & Fraser, 2019). While it may not be the case for every household, heterosexual women are still shown to complete more hours of ‘unpaid labor’ compared to their male partners (Seedat & Rondon, 2021). Likewise, the jobs which are typically undertaken by women (e.g., care work and teaching) are often underpaid meaning that they may not sufficiently cover the costs of raising a child. To make life easier, many women may resort to working part-time or quitting work completely, falling back into the role of a housewife while relying on their husband’s income. Althusser, L. (1969). For Marx (B. Brewster, Trans.). London: Penguin Press. (Original work published 1965) Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and philosophy and other essays (B. Brewster, Trans.). London: New Left. (Original work published 1970) Althusser, L., & Balibar, E. (1970). Reading Capital (B. Brewster, Trans.). London: New Left. (Original work published 1968) Brown, H. (2012). Marx on gender and the family: A critical study (Vol. 39). Brill. Armstrong, E. (2020). Marxist and socialist feminism. Study of women and gender. Faculty Publications, Smith College. Retrieved August 8, 2022. Arruzza, C., Bhattacharya, T., & Fraser, N. (2019). Feminism for the 99 Percent . A Manifesto. London, New York. Davis, A. Y. (1981).  Women, race, and class . Vintage. Delphy, C. (1980). Sharing the same table: consumption and the family. The Sociological Review, 28 (1_suppl), 214-231. Grayzel, S. R. (2013).  Women and the First World War . Routledge. Johnson, D. P. (2008). Contemporary sociological theory. An Integrated Multi-Level Approach . Texas: Springer. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848). THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO. Selected Works by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. New York: International Publishers, 1363. Seedat, S., & Rondon, M. (2021). Women’s wellbeing and the burden of unpaid work.  BMJ,  374. Stern, B. J. (1948). Engels on the Family. Science & Society , 42-64. Tilly, L. A. (1978). The family and change . Thompson, K. (2014). The Marxist Perspective on The Family . Zaretsky, N. (2010). No direction home: The American family and the fear of national decline , 1968-1980. Univ of North Carolina Press. Related Articles Latour’s Actor Network Theory Cultural Lag: 10 Examples & Easy Definition Value Free in Sociology Cultural Capital Theory Of Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu & Habitus (Sociology): Definition & Examples Two-Step Flow Theory Of Media Communication Skip to content Get Revising Join get revising, already a member. marxist approach to education Created by: loupardoe Created on: 22-04-16 19:57 Although the Marxist approach makes a valid argument, I feel that the against arguments well outweigh the views put forward. The Marxist approach seems to me like a flimsy way to say that society is unfair, with all arguments just made to fit, ignoring facts that dispute the theory. Report Fri 26th May, 2023 @ 15:20 Report Thu 8th June, 2023 @ 09:25 The Marxist approach emphasizes that education should not be simply the transfer of knowledge, but also a tool for realizing social and economic inequalities. He recognizes that education can be used by the authorities to maintain and strengthen the existing social order. In this context, the Marxist approach aims at liberation from ideological control and the formation of critical thinking among students. I recently read a free essay on lord of the flies on the link  that highlights how important a Marxist approach is for students to help them understand all the nuances of the world. My idea of such learning changed after reading. Report Mon 9th October, 2023 @ 08:47 CKAD (Certified Kubernetes Application Developer) dumps are unauthorized and unethical materials that individuals may use to cheat on the  https://www.dumpsaway.com/CKAD-dumps  certification exam. These dumps typically contain real or simulated exam questions and answers that have been obtained through dishonest means, such as by violating the Kubernetes certification policies or by sharing confidential information. Similar Sociology resources: key sociologist approach to education 0.0 / 5 the marxist approach to education 0.0 / 5 key sociologist approach to family 3.0 / 5 based on 2 ratings Sociologists approach and functions on education 4.0 / 5 based on 4 ratings EDUCATION KEY TERMS 0.0 / 5 SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE FAMILY 0.0 / 5 key sociologist approach to education 1.0 / 5 based on 1 rating Sociological Approaches to the Family 0.0 / 5 Education 5.0 / 5 based on 1 rating Teacher recommended Families 5.0 / 5 based on 9 ratings Right-wing activists are targeting Black scholars, and the scholars are pushing back phillipWGBH phillip.w.d.martin Karen Mapp — a nationally known scholar who has been with the Harvard Graduate School of Education for nearly 20 years — wonders when “they” will come for her, whether she’ll be next. “They” refers to right-wing activists who have leveled accusations of plagiarism against Black scholars and diversity, equity and inclusion professionals at universities across the country, particularly those who study the effects of structural racism and how to combat it. Mapp, who was recently named “professor of practice,” has never been targeted. But she worries that right-wing activists will unfairly pick apart her hard-won academic achievements as they have with other Black female scholars since the resignation of former Harvard President Claudine Gay over plagiarism allegations. Already this year, three other Black women from Harvard have faced publicized plagiarism charges in the last few months. Some Harvard faculty, a plagiarism expert and civil rights leaders believe the accusations are racially motivated. And a columnist for the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, described the campaign as a “ witch hunt ” against Black women and advocates of diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education. “Why is it only Black women? It seems like, at least in the case of Harvard and some of the institutions I know, that seems to be who’s being targeted,” said Mapp. “And apparently one of these men said something like, ‘Well, they’re the ones that are most likely to do that’ — which is ridiculous.” The allegations at Harvard Those weren’t exactly activist Christopher Rufo’s words, but they were close. Rufo is a senior fellow with the right-leaning Manhattan Institute, who is leading a crusade against what he defines as diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory. “Let’s not ignore the pattern: This is the fourth black female CRT [critical race theory]/DEI scholar to be accused of plagiarism at Harvard,” Rufo wrote in a March 20 post on X, formerly Twitter. “We need further research, including a control group of more rigorous fields, but initial reports suggest that the grievance disciplines are rife with fraud.” What Rufo terms as “grievance disciplines” are academic studies and policies that identify and explore structural racism and histories of oppression in the United States, including the Civil Rights Movement. Critical race theory, which Rufo cites in his posts, posits — in part — that racism is inherent in American government systems. Rufo describes the theory as anti-white and Marxist, which scholars and supporters of critical race theory say is patently false. Gay resigned in January amid the fallout from Harvard’s management of the campus in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack — as well as plagiarism allegations. That same month, Rufo and a writer for the right-wing news outlet Washington Free Beacon targeted Harvard’s Chief DEI Officer Sherri A. Charleston . An anonymous complainant cited 40 instances of alleged plagiarism by Charleston, according to the Free Beacon, which was the first to report many of the complaints. The next month, an anonymous complainant to Harvard accused administrator Shirley R. Greene of 42 instances of plagiarism. The source cited material in her 2008 University of Michigan dissertation. And in March, Rufo, writing on an online publication , singled out Harvard sociology assistant professor Christina Cross, whose research focuses on the intersection of families, race/ethnicity, and social inequality. The department chair of Harvard’s sociology department wrote the university’s student paper, The Crimson, that same month to publicly denounce the accusations. “We find these bogus claims to be particularly troubling in the context of a series of attacks on Black women in academia with the clear subtext that they have no place in our universities,” Frank Dobbin wrote. Rufo, the accused women and Harvard officials all did not respond to requests for comment. In Gay’s case, Harvard looked into the plagiarism allegations against Gay — that were first leaked to the New York Post in October and popularized by Rufo weeks later — concluded that, though there were scattered instances of improper citations in her body of work that required corrections, they did not violate Harvard’s standards for research misconduct. Harvard has declined to comment on any of the plagiarism allegations beyond the independent body review of two of Gay’s papers published in 2012 and 2017. The investigators concluded that there was “virtually no evidence of intentional claiming of findings” that were not Gay’s. Jonathan Bailey, a writer in New Orleans who runs an online publication called Plagiarism Today , told GBH News that “it is obvious” that the intent of the allegations is not to further academic research integrity, but “to attack DEI and score political points.” “The plagiarism allegations so far have been all over the map. Some of them have been very reasonable, and these are deeply problematic. But a lot of them have been either not an issue or an incredibly small one where they’re trying to make a mountain out of a molehill,” Bailey said. He examined each of the claims made against the women. The plagiarism allegations against Cross in particular, he said, are not supported by the facts. And three scholars whose work Cross was accused of plagiarizing defended her scholarship and pushed back against Rufo’s accusation, according to The Crimson. The allegations elsewhere Attacks by right-wing activists against Black academics extend to campuses beyond Harvard. Plagiarism claims have also been made against Black professionals at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Columbia University, among other institutes of higher education. In an online post in April, Rufo accused UCLA Medical School DEI expert Natalie J. Perry of “academic dishonesty” in her 2014 dissertation on diversity programs. In May, a Free Beacon article cited a complaint filed with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology excoriating DEI experts Tracie Jones-Barrett and Alana Anderson as “serial plagiarists,” alleging that they copied pages of text without attribution. Perry did not respond to a GBH News request for an interview. And an MIT spokesperson, in a written reply to a GBH News’ query about the two cases, said, “We do not, out of respect for individuals’ privacy and in adherence to MIT policies, discuss individual employees.” GBH News also reached out unsuccessfully to editors and reporter Aaron Sibarium at the Free Beacon, which has tagged numerous articles as “plagiarism,” so far only targeting Black academics and DEI professionals. Sibarium has written most or all of the site’s articles with plagiarism allegations. The Manhattan Institute and the Free Beacon are both funded by Paul Singer, a billionaire chairman of the Manhattan Institute and has poured tens of millions of his own money into the nonprofit’s treasury. ‘Open season’ on Black scholars Mapp says she’s stunned by the sweeping generalizations being tossed about by conservatives, creating an “open season” on Black scholars, which have resulted in racist attacks on social media, death threats in the case of Claudine Gay, and a grotesquely distorted view of policies and concepts such as DEI, race studies and critical race theory. “I don’t even know what to say. I think if people want to come for you, they’re going to come for you,” Mapp said. “I think the question is: why?” On X, Rufo explained why he is targeting scholars who study race and experts in DEI: “I am demonstrating that an academic discipline and its bureaucratic counterpart is not only wrong philosophically—which I argued in my book—but also rife with fraud, which helps make the argument for terminating continued public subsidy.” More Local News Does Claudine Gay's resignation signal the beginning of a broader backlash? Conservative activists celebrate Gay’s ouster as a victory in their campaign against DEI Claudine Gay resignation sparks outrage among Black academics Why harvard leadership is vowing to stay silent on controversial issues. Ilya Shapiro, director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, said DEI policies are key to understanding the ongoing anti-plagiarism campaign that began with the criticism of Claudine Gay. “Claudine Gay is the apotheosis of the anti-intellectual movement that values DEI identity and activism over truth seeking merit and education,’’ Shapiro told GBH News. “She is sort of the epitome of the crisis in higher education.” Shapiro and Rufo penned a Manhattan Institute briefing paper together last year calling for the abolishment of DEI bureaucracies. Rufo told his more than 600,000 followers on X last January that his goal in launching a plagiarism hunting fund is to root out “racialist ideology” from higher education. Jonathan Bailey, who edits Plagiarism Today, says the selective use of plagiarism as a weapon was exposed when Business Insider reported on plagiarism issues in the work of Neri Oxman, the wife of Bill Ackman, a leading critic of Claudine Gay. Right-wing activists were largely silent on this discovery and the story was denounced by Ackman, who has come out as a fierce critic of DEI. “It was a moment of schadenfreude because I would say it is at least as serious, probably more serious than, what Claudine Gay was accused of — because Gay realistically only had a few passages in a 25-year history of research,” Bailey said. Bailey says he became an expert in plagiarism after he became a victim of it himself 18 years ago. He takes plagiarism seriously, and that makes him all the more incensed that such a grave offense has been “weaponized” by the right. He argues that plagiarism is rampant in academia. “It’s not isolated to ‘DEI’ or specific groups within academia,” he said. Barbara Ransby, a professor of history at the University of Illinois Chicago, describes the conservative campaign against DEI as “very explicit racial and gender attacks.” The view of many on the right, said Ransby, is that “there’s certain people, certain ideas, certain bodies of scholarship that are just undeserving and that don’t fit into the sort of longstanding, white supremacist, patriarchal notion of the academy, of brilliance, of intelligence.” Harvard Professor of History Khalil Gibran Muhammad said the allegations against his colleagues and others around the country “are a political assault on a community of scholars who work generally on topics that explore how racism works, in this society and in countries around the world.” He said Rufo, in particular, has been at the center of “false claims and manufactured lies” about what scholarship on race and racism is all about. Muhammed described the plagiarism charges as examples of “racial profiling” meant to discredit the work of critical race theory scholars. The campaign comes as some universities are rolling back commitments to diversity and inclusion. MIT last month announced it would no longer require diversity statements from applicants for faculty positions. In June, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences did the same thing, reversing a practice that went into effect in the months following the murder of George Floyd in the spring of 2020. A strategy ‘to bully and intimidate’ Harvard’s Muhammad says many critics are simply threatened by Black people in power. “For many people, the ascent of Claudine Gay to the presidency [of Harvard] was an affront to their sense of identity as white people, who could not imagine that a Black woman had earned the right to hold that position.” Like critical race theory, he said, the term “DEI” is being used by white nationalists as a pejorative catch phrase to push back against the progress made by Black Americans since the Civil Rights Movement. “If these people have their way, they will criminalize even the ability to talk about race in America — let alone to track it or to study it, or to look at the racial disparities that continue to be a source of a fundamental threat to a functioning, healthy democracy,” he said. Sociologist Joan Donovan, assistant professor of Journalism at Boston University and an expert on disinformation, says the attacks on DEI and race studies are all about white grievance. “They believe having to go through the process as a white person, particularly as a white man, disadvantages them,’’ she said. “I think people who are white have this vision of whiteness as being more advantaged and therefore are owed these positions.” Shapiro of the Manhattan Institute told GBH News that he has seen no evidence of systemic racism or racial discrimination in higher education, with two exceptions. “I do see great evidence of discrimination against Asian American applicants and white applicants,” he said, referencing arguments that ultimately compelled the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down affirmative action in university admissions last year. Shapiro, Rufo, and other activists on the right say that what they are seeking is a return to the “traditional core mission of higher education,” which they characterize as “color blind.” But Ransby argues those declaring themselves to be color blind while making selective plagiarism accusations should be viewed skeptically. “We saw that during Reconstruction, when Black politicians finally assumed positions of leadership and there was a mockery made of their ability to speak, lead, legislate, etc.,” Ransby said in an interview with GBH News. “The kinds of character assassinations that we’ve seen on Black women academics is a part of that larger context.” Ransby says that, as a historian on race and gender, she would not be surprised if the anti-DEI agitators and critics of race studies came after her, too. “Because that’s the strategy: to bully and intimidate and make people silent and fearful,” she said. ”We have to name this moment of growing racism, repression and authoritarianism, which means we have to organize. And that’s something academics are not known for doing.” Summer EBT program expands food resources for Mass. residents At night, dozens sleep at Logan Airport. During the day, migrant families find solace at a Mattapan church. Protesters confront Mayor Wu at neighborhood 'coffee hour' in Dorchester Norfolk migrant shelter opens despite lingering concerns 444 IMAGES Marxism: Examples, Concepts, Ideology, Criticisms (2024) PPT 😍 Weakness of marxist theory. Marxism and Literary Theory. 2022-11-07 Marxism PPT Marxist Theory by Esha Noshahi on Prezi VIDEO Ideology: A Marxist Perspective |Karl Marx, Lenin and George Lukacs| Marxist Theory in the Movie Fight Club (1999) Marxist theory of democracy part 1 What is the Marxist perspective of social stratification? Profit Is Not Theft #marxism #communism Upsides to Socialism COMMENTS Pros and Cons of Marxism Here are the pros and cons of Marxism that depicts to us a legitimate picture of the theory. Pros of Marxism. 1. It creates equality: Many injustices and inequalities happen because of the divide in social classes within a society. Marxism creates a system of true equality, whereby everyone shares abundantly in society's wealth. 10 Marxism Strengths and Weaknesses In theory, equality sounds great, seeing a lot of examples where people are treated fairly, but keep in mind that an individual is taken out of the scenario under Marxism. The strengths and weaknesses of this philosophy show some sets of benefits and drawbacks, creating a system of government that is prone to abuse, that is why Marx to fix its ... Pros and Cons of Marxism Pros and Cons of Marxism. Marxism, a socio-economic theory developed by Karl Marx in the 19th century, continues to evoke debate and intrigue even today. With approximately 40% of the world's population living in countries influenced by Marxism at some point, it's clear that this ideology has had a significant impact. Criticism of Marxism The Flawed Labor Theory of Value. Marxism's most potent rallying cry for class warfare and a core tenet of Marx's economic theory, the labor theory of value, is rife with serious problems. Marx held that a commodity's value could be measured and determined objectively by how much labor (e.g., the number of labor hours) expended for its ... Eight Criticisms of the Traditional Marxist View of Society Eight criticisms of Marx's view of society are: The class structure today is more complex. Capitalism today is less exploitative. Control of the economic base does not mean control of the superstructure. False consciousness is a problem concept in postmodern society. There is less alienation today. Capitalism has lifted billions of people out ... Karl Marx Sociologist: Contributions and Theory Key Takeaways. Karl Marx was a German philosopher who, in the 19th century, began exploring the relationship between the economy and the people who work within the economic system. The basic idea of Marx's theory is that society is characterized by the struggle between the workers and those in charge. The workers are those of lower social ... Marxism Summarize This Article Marxism, a body of doctrine developed by Karl Marx and, to a lesser extent, by Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century. It originally consisted of three related ideas: a philosophical anthropology, a theory of history, and an economic and political program.There is also Marxism as it has been understood and practiced by the various socialist movements, particularly ... marxism A strength of marxism is that this theory analyses power and conflict in society. It explains why there is such an uneven distribution of power and wealth between social classes. ... marxism helps explain conflict and change; Disadvantages. marxism overlooks alternative ideas that might shape behaviour. with a focus on class conflict, other ... Marxist Literary Criticism: An Overview German Marxist theory found a further advocate in Karl Kautsky (1854-1938), whose preeminence endured till around 1915. A propagandist for the Social Democratic Party, he founded in 1883 a prestigious Marxist journal, Die Neue Zeit, which offered a forum for the elaboration of Marx's economic and political thought.His works included Karl Marx's Economic Teachings (1887) and The ... Marxist Theory Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932): a prominent German Marxist. Karl Kautsky (1854-1938): the greatest theoretician of orthodox Marxism in Germany after Engels' death in 1895. Ferdinand Lassalle (1825 ... Is Marxism Still Relevant Today? Eight ways in which Marxism is still relevant today. A class based analysis of global society is still relevant if you look at things globally. Exploitation still lies at the heart of the Capitalist system if you look at the practices of many Transnational Corporations. If you look at the recent bank bail outs it appears that those with ... Criticism of Marxism Karl Marx and the Close of His System is a book published in 1896 by the Austrian economist Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, which represented one of the earliest detailed critiques of Marxism. Criticism of Marxism (also known as Anti-Marxism) has come from various political ideologies, campaigns and academic disciplines.This includes general intellectual criticism about dogmatism, a lack of internal ... Marxist Theories of History: Pros and Cons Essay The Marxism theory developed against capitalism. He views history based on the perpetual resolution of opposition (rich versus poor, developed versus undeveloped abundance versus scarcity) in which each resolution produces its contradiction. According to him to restore dignity and give individuals full control over self and destiny capitalism ... 12.2 The Marxist Solution Indeed, Mao recognized these practices as essential to the revolutionary movement: "A well-disciplined Party armed with the theory of Marxism-Leninism, using the method of self-criticism and linked with the masses of the people; an army under the leadership of such a Party; a united front of all revolutionary classes and all revolutionary ... Problems of Marxist Historiography Problems of Marxist Historiography. In one of his theses Marx said: 'Philosophers have so far. the world. The point is to change it.'. Marxism sees an innate. between perception of the past and present practice. This unity. continuous interaction: as time passes and history (human. lengthens, we draw greater lessons from it for the present; and. The Many Problems with Marxism Wherever implemented, Marxism has led to unfreedom, inhumanity, and economic devastation. Modern-day Marxists blame human failure for these shortcomings. According to them, true Marxism has yet to be implemented, as followers past have invariably corrupted the doctrine by adopting quasi-capitalist policies. Marxism: Analyzing the Pros and Cons of its Strengths and Weaknesses Marxism is a socio-economic and political theory that was developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 19th century. It is based on the idea that society is divided into two main classes: the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production, and the proletariat, who sell their labor to the bourgeoisie. A Critique of Marxism In Marxist theory, the "liberal democratic state" is still another capitalist weapon in the class struggle. This is so because the democratic form of the state conceals undemocratic contents. Democracy in the parliamentary shell hides its absence in the state bureaucratic kernel; parliamentary freedom is regarded as the political counterpart of ... Full article: What Is Marxism? Perry Anderson (Citation 1976) introduced the term "Western Marxism" to describe the sort of Marxist theory that arose after the Russian Revolution with the work of Lukács, Korsch, Gramsci, and the Frankfurt School. This form of Marxism, he argues, was the product of "defeat," of the failure of the Russian Revolution to extend to other ... Marxist Criticism What is Marxist Criticism? Marxist Criticism refers to both . an interpretive framework; a genre of discourse.; Marxist Criticism as both a theoretical approach and a conversational genre within academic discourse.Critics using this framework analyze literature and other cultural forms through the lens of Marxist theory, which includes an exploration of how economic and social structures ... LITERARY CRITICISM: MARXIST THEORY Marxism is a social theory, because it says that at some point when everything in society is working well, the state will "wither away". Economically, Marxism sets social status as everyone will be poor except for the top Communist bosses, who lived in luxury life style while everyone else was "poor". Marxist Feminism Theory Marxist feminism is a branch of feminist theory which argues that the main cause of women's oppression is capitalism. This type of feminism is based on the understandings of Marxism, proposed by Karl Marx and collaborator Friedrich Engels in the 19th century. Marx demonstrated how capitalism was able to grow through the exploitation of labor. marxist approach to education marxist approach to education. Advantages. we have private and state schools which can make our education system unequal. working class children do perform worse than middle and upper class children. children do learn the skills necessary for lower status occupations-state schools tend to emphasize practical work and apprenticeships. Right-wing activists are targeting Black scholars, and the scholars are Rufo describes the theory as anti-white and Marxist, which scholars and supporters of critical race theory say is patently false. ... "They believe having to go through the process as a white person, particularly as a white man, disadvantages them,'' she said. "I think people who are white have this vision of whiteness as being more ... phd analysis phd audit phd writing thesis template thesis writing