Marxists see society as divided solely by class – how the
ruling class exploit the working class, Marxism is a structural perspective, so
it analyses society as a whole system made up of different parts that all blend
together. In opposition to functionalists, Marxists do not see the state and
its policies as benefitting all of society. Marxists instead say the state
represents the ruling class, and its social policies serve the interests of
capitalism, not those of society as a whole. The state provides ideological
legislation to mask capitalist exploitation. For example, the welfare state
makes it seem that the system cares about the poor people in society. Moreover,
a Marxist would say the state maintains the labour force for further
exploitation, an example of this is the NHS – it serves capitalism by keeping
people healthy enough to work. Most importantly, the state is a means of
preventing revolution. Marxists say that to stop a revolution the state will
introduce policies that only have the intention to keep the working class happy
with their situation and position in society.
According to Marx, man is a productive animal; mankind
creates the environment it inhabits, for example we all make our own clothes
and so on. Marx believes in technological determinism, which is a teleological
view (history has a purpose, it is going somewhere), his process comes from the
Hegelian philosophy (history and dialectics), British empiricism (economics of
Adam Smith) and the French Revolution (revolution is the very best way to
achieve the overall goal of equality). Marx followed the scientific method, he
believed that he was using the same methods as Darwin – researching every
aspect of society in order to understand it, he did countless hours of
research. He highly valued the idea of achieving change through violence and
conflict – which is an idea from Hegel that he actually liked – and Marx believed
wholeheartedly that is was always a case of poor (proletariat) vs. the rich
(bourgeoisie).
Marx sought the explanation of the historical process
between man and the physical world (material) and its existence, so therefore
Marx’s theory is called dialectic materialism. In terms of alienation, Marx
believed that capitalism alienates man from themselves and each other; this is
very much akin of Rousseau because they both talk about capitalism placing too
much emphasis on material things which in turn leads to avarice – money is seen
as the most important thing.
Marx talks about the inevitable fall of capitalism,
however I believe that the Marxist theory of capitalism’s inevitable collapse
is not very realistic; only to some extent though. Marx himself, in his later
work, looked into capitalism but this was more in terms of class conflict,
division and exploitation. Marx defined class in accordance to economic power,
with emphasis on where people stand in relation to the ownership of the ‘means
of production’.
Marx believed that capitalism was creating a very
noticeable gap between two large powers of people; the affluent Bourgeoisie and
the exploited Proletariat. For Marx, the analysis of the class system provides
a deep insight into historical understanding and it enables predictions to be
made about the future of capitalism. This encouraged Marx insofar as it helped
him feel he could comfortably predict that the fall of capitalism is inevitable
and that heralding that we will revert into a classless and equal system of
government, otherwise known as Communism, and prior to this the brief period
called the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Marx believes that this is to be
achieved by a full scale revolution conducted by the proletariat against the
bourgeoisie, this was because Marx believed that the proletariat would no
longer accept being exploited; they would overthrow capitalism.
Marx feels that this revolution is inevitable; he
portrays this certainty of revolution through explaining ‘surplus value’.
Surplus value is a Marxist term that explains how the ruling class, in their
striving for improvement in a capitalist society, will always have to make a
profit at the expense of the proletariat; it is the value that is extracted
from the labour of workers by the mechanism of capitalist exploitation.
Capitalism’s quest for profit can only be achieved through paying the workers a
lot less than the value of their labour. This overall makes capitalism very
unstable, though it is still debated whether or not the subordinate class would
ever rise up as the working class are more than alright with continuing with
their routines.
Stay classy :) x
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