The Name of The Chapter: Classical Sociological Theorists On Development. The Name of The Topic: Karl Marx (1818-1883)
The Name of The Chapter: Classical Sociological Theorists On Development. The Name of The Topic: Karl Marx (1818-1883)
The Name of The Chapter: Classical Sociological Theorists On Development. The Name of The Topic: Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Classical Sociological
Theorists on development.
The Name of the Topic: Karl
Marx (1818-1883)
Karl Marx
❑Major Contributions:
❑ The German Ideology, 1845
❑ The poverty of Philosophy, 1847
❑ The Communist Manifesto, 1848
❑ Das Capital, 1867
❑ The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, 1844
❑ A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy etc.
Karl Marx is a prominent sociologist, economist , philosopher and journalist.
He was the engineer of the socialism philosophy. He held that social
change and development can be brought about by the establishment of
socialism through a revolution against prevailing capitalist economy.
System of production and class
relation.
❑ Mode of production: is the way in which the production process takes place. It
denotes the system of production as a whole. There are different types of mode of
production existed in the history, e.g. Feudalism, Capitalism etc.
❑ Means of production/Forces of production: The elements necessary for completing
the production process, such as raw materials, technology, tools and equipments etc.
❑ Class: class is a group of people who holds a common relationship to the means of
production. Two types of class:
1. The Bourgeoisie: The owner class. The capitalists who own capital, raw materials,
technology necessary for the production process.
2. The Proletariat: The labor class. Who do not own the means of production
including capital. They sell their labor in exchange of wages.
❑ Relations of production: In every mode of production, there exists a relation of
production i.e. class relationship between two groups. Marx argued that the
relationship between two classes is conflicting and the relationship arises from
conflict of interest.
The process of the establishment of
Socialism
Conflict between Class
two classes consciousness
Class struggle
Establishment of
Overthrowing of
Socialism/
Capitalism
Communism
Surplus Value and Class Conflict
⮚ Without the labour power of workers, capitalists can’t make profits. The
system can’t function.
⮚ Of all the things a capitalist can buy to build their business, only labour
power adds value; meaning the business can produce something worth
more than the original cost of the components that went into the finished
product. The time, thought and energy applied by workers in the production
process – whose efforts are only partially compensated by the employer
who keeps the output – is the ultimate source of profit (or surplus value) in
a capitalist economy. Put simply, all profits come from the unpaid work of
workers. And of course the drive for profit is the beating heart of capitalism
Surplus Value and Class Conflict
❑Workers and capitalists
❑ Workers are those who have none of the necessary premises, equipment,
materials, or the money to acquire these things, that are needed to engage in
production or exchange – to make a living on the market – and can trade
only their ability to work (labour power).
❑ Capitalists do have the above, but to put them to use efficiently enough to
make a profit they need other people to work them. So they offer wages to
workers that will:
❑ allow the workers to subsist, and
❑ allow the capitalist to profit from everything made after this subsistence is paid
for. The lower the wage and the more hours worked for that wage, the more the
capitalist is exploiting the worker, i.e. the more money they’re making at the
worker’s expense.
Surplus Value and Class Conflict
▪ We find two main classes:
▪ (1) a majority-class of labourers who do virtually all of the work and
create all of the wealth, but own very little, and
▪ (2) a minority-class who do very little work and create none of the
wealth, but own virtually all of it.
Surplus Value and Class Conflict
❑ Competition in the market and their insatiable need to make more profits
compels the capitalists to expand their enterprises by intensifying the
exploitation and amassing greater numbers of – increasingly restless –
employees; who in order to defend and extend their rights and conditions are
likewise compelled to organise together. This instinctive desire on the part of
both capitalist and worker to push the rate of exploitation in opposite
directions creates a constant tension in capitalist society: the class struggle
(with all its social manifestations in conflicting ideas, organisations,
institutions), but the class struggle, with its ups, downs, swings and
roundabouts over time, in the last analysis, decisively influences all social and
historical change.
Adapted from: ‘Karl Marx’s Theory of Class Struggle: The Working Class and
Revolution’ by Eddie McCabe
The Theory of Surplus Value
⚫Labor provided by the working class is the creator
of market value for a product.
⚫The formula of surplus value:
The money earned after selling a product − The
production cost of the product = The surplus value
of the product/ the profit earned from the product
⮚Absorption of the surplus value by the capitalists.
⮚Accumulation of money by the capitalists by
depriving the working class.
The Theory of Surplus Value
❑Marx analyzed the market economy system in Das Kapital.
In this work he borrows most of the categories of the
classical English economists Smith and Ricardo but adapts
them and introduces new concepts such as that of surplus
value. One of the distinguishing marks of Das Kapital is
that in it Marx studies the economy as a whole and not in
one or another of its aspects.
❑His analysis is based on the idea that humans are
productive beings and that all economic value comes from
human labour
The Theory of Surplus Value
The system he analyzes is principally that of mid-19th-century
England. It is a system of private enterprise and competition
that arose in the 16th century from the development of sea
routes, international trade and colonialism. Its rise had been
facilitated by changes in the forces of production (the division
of labour and the concentration of workshops), the adoption of
mechanization, and technical progress. The wealth of the
societies that brought this economy into play had been acquired
through an “enormous accumulation of commodities” Marx
therefore begins with the study of this accumulation, analyzing
the unequal exchanges that take place in the market.
The Theory of Surplus Value
❑In the hands of the capitalist the labour power employed
in the course of a day produces more than the value of the
sustenance required by the worker and his family. The
difference between the two values is appropriated by the
capitalist, and it corresponds exactly to the surplus value
realized by capitalists in the market.
The Theory of Alienation
⚫ Alienation according to Marx is a psycho-social condition
of the working class. It is the feeling of estrangement, non
belongingness, powerlessness, hopelessness, losing one’s
true human essence. It is the condition that develops
among the workers from the capitalist mode of production.
⚫ Four types of Alienation:
1. Alienation from the production process
2. Alienation from the products he produced
3. Alienation from the fellow workers
4. Alienation from one’s own self.
Contrast between primitive production
and capitalist production
• Primitive production
• Natural environment
• Immediate use
• Capitalist production
• Mechanical, Non natural environment
• Economy or
Basic Structure mode of
production is
the basic
structure
• Other social
organizations
Super Structure are super
structure e.g.
family, state,
religion,
culture,
philosophy
etc.
Karl Marx
❑Karl Marx argues that changes or development in the
basic structure triggers changes in the super structure
of a society. Super structural elements are developed
in responding to the basic structural organization of a
particular society.
Karl Marx
❑ Class struggle and social change:
❑ Karl Marx holds that in every type of society there is always two
contradictory classes. Marx termed these two contradictory elements as
thesis and anti-thesis.
❑ Here Thesis is the powerful class
❑ And Anti-thesis is the less powerful, weak or deprived group.
❑ The Relationship between these two groups are conflicting. As the interests
of one results in harm for another.
❑ Synthesis or social change occurred by the continuous clash and conflict
between these two classes. As a synthesis new type of society may emerge.
Karl Marx draws the examples of past society to justify his claim.
The Theory of class conflict and Class Struggle
⚫ Figure: The process of class conflict
Anti-
Thesis thesis
Capitalists Workers
Synthesis
Socialism
Karl Marx
⚫Historically there are five types of society as classified
by Karl Marx:
1. Primitive Communism: Absence of private property and productions are
owned by the community; absence of classes and class conflict
2. Ancient mode of production: Slavery system prevailed in society. Here
one class owns and exploits the members of another class.
Karl Marx
3) Feudal mode of production: A class of aristocratic
landowners exploit the mass of peasants and serfs.
Karl Marx
4) Capitalism: The capitalists who own all the means of industrial production
and the workers who do not own anything but their labor that they sell to
the capitalists for earning money.
Karl Marx
5) Socialism or communism : Mode of production is based
on social ownership. This is the stage of ultimate goal of
Marxian ideology. This stage is gained through
abolishment of the capitalist system and class conflict from
the society.
As Marx showed each stage of society contains two
conflicting classes. The class struggle initiated by the weak
class always ushers in new type of society. He envisioned
to overthrow the capitalist economy by the revolution of
workers and thereby to establish socialism of equality.
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