Marx And The Capitalist System - amazonia.fiocruz.br

Marx And The Capitalist System Video

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialismto understand class relations and social conflict as well as a dialectical perspective to view social transformation.

As Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools source thoughtthere is currently no single definitive Marxist theory.

by Stephen Malcolm

Some Marxist schools of thought place greater Capitaljst on certain aspects of classical Marxism Capigalist rejecting or modifying other aspects. Some schools have sought to combine Marxian concepts and non-Marxian concepts which has then led to contradictory conclusions. Marxism has had a profound impact on global academia, having influenced many fields, including anthropology[5] [6] archaeologyart theorycriminologycultural studieseconomicseducationethicsfilm theorygeographyhistoriographyliterary criticismmedia Marx And The Capitalist System[7] [8] philosophypolitical sciencepsychologyscience studies[9] sociologyurban planning and theater.

Marxism seeks to explain social phenomena within any given society by analyzing the material conditions and economic activities required to fulfill human material needs. It assumes that the form of economic organization, or mode of productioninfluences all other social phenomena including wider social relations, political institutions, legal systems, cultural systems, aesthetics and ideologies. These social relations, together with the economic system, form a base and superstructure.

As forces of production i. As Karl Marx observed: [10].

At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing check this out of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. These inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in society which are, in turn, fought out at the level of class struggle.

Starting with the conjectural premise that social change occurs as result of the struggle between different classes within society who contradict one another, a Marxist would conclude that capitalism exploits and oppresses the proletariat, therefore capitalism will inevitably lead to a proletarian revolution. In a socialist society, private property —as the means of production—would be replaced by co-operative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits, but on the criteria of satisfying human needs—that is, production for use. As Friedrich Engels explains: [12]. Then the capitalist mode of appropriation, in which the product enslaves first the producer, and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode of Marx And The Capitalist System of the products that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production; upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production — Marx And The Capitalist System the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment.

Marxian economics and its proponents view capitalism as economically unsustainable and incapable of improving the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rate of profit by cutting employees' wages and social benefits while pursuing military aggression. The socialist mode of production would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through revolution by workers. According to Marxian crisis theorysocialism is not an inevitability, but an economic necessity. The term Marxism was popularized by Karl Kautskywho considered himself an orthodox Marxist during the dispute between the orthodox and revisionist followers of Marx.

Engels did not support the use of the term Marxism to describe either Marx's or his own views. Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

Marxism uses a materialist methodology, referred to by Marx and Engels as the materialist conception of history and later better known as historical materialism, to analyse the underlying causes of societal development and change from the perspective of the collective ways in which humans make their living. The base and superstructure metaphor describes the totality of social relations by which humans produce and re-produce their social existence. According to Marx, Marx And The Capitalist System sum total of the forces of production accessible to men determines the condition of society" and forms a society's economic base. The base includes the material forces of production such as the labourmeans of production and relations of productioni.

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From this base rises a superstructure of legal and political "forms of social consciousness " that derive from the economic base that conditions both the superstructure and the dominant ideology of a society. Conflicts between the development of material productive forces and the relations of production provokes social revolutionswhereby changes to the economic base leads to the social transformation of the superstructure. This relationship is reflexivein that the base initially gives rise to Marx And The Capitalist System superstructure and remains the foundation of a form of social organization. Those newly formed social organizations can then act again upon both parts of the base and superstructure so that rather than being static, the relationship is dialecticexpressed and driven by conflicts and contradictions.

As Engels clarifies: [23]. The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slavepatrician and plebeianlord and serfguild -master and journeymanin a Sydtem, oppressor and oppressedstood in constant opposition to one another, carried on uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. Marx considered recurring class conflicts as the driving force of human history as such conflicts have manifested check this out as distinct transitional stages of development in Western Europe.

Accordingly, Marx designated human history as encompassing four stages of development in relations of production:. While historical materialism has been referred to as a materialist theory of history, Marx does not claim to have produced a Marx And The Capitalist System to history and that Capitalst materialist conception of history is not "an historico-philosophic theory of the marche generaleimposed by fate upon Captialist people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself".

In a letter to editor of the Russian newspaper paper Otetchestvennye Zapiskymhe explains that his ideas are based upon a concrete study of the actual conditions in Europe.]