PRESENTED BY:

1- BUSHRA AMIN
2- AFSHEEN YOUSAF
3- SAIMA ASLAM
4- SUNILA BARI
5- SADIA NASIR
 WHAT IS MARXISM?



Marxism is an economic and social system based upon the

political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
While it would take veritably volumes to explain the full
implications and ramifications of the Marxist social and economic
ideology, Marxism is summed up in the Encarta Reference
Library as “a theory in which class struggle is a central element in
the analysis of social change in Western societies.” Marxism is the
antithesis of capitalism which is defined by Encarta as “an
economic system based on the private ownership of the means of
production and distribution of goods, characterized by a free
competitive market and motivation by profit.” Marxism is the
system of socialism of which the dominant feature is public
ownership of the means of production, distribution, and
exchange.
 Under capitalism, the proletariat, the working class or “the
people,” own only their capacity to work; they have the
ability only to sell their own labor. According to Marx a class
is defined by the relations of its members to the means of
production. He proclaimed that history is the chronology of
class struggles, wars, and uprisings. Under capitalism, Marx
continues, the workers, in order to support their families
are paid a bare minimum wage or salary. The worker is
alienated because he has no control over the labor or
product which he produces. The capitalists sell the products
produced by the workers at a proportional value as related
to the labor involved. Surplus value is the difference
between what the worker is paid and the price for which
the product is sold.
 An increasing immiseration of the proletariat occurs as the
result of economic recessions; these recessions result
because the working class is unable to buy the full product
of their labors and the ruling capitalists do not consume all
of the surplus value. A proletariat or socialist revolution
must occur, according to Marx, where the state (the means
by which the ruling class forcibly maintains rule over the
other classes) is a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Communism evolves from socialism out of this progression:
the socialist slogan is “From each according to his ability, to
each according to his work.” The communist slogan varies
thusly: “From each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs.”
 What were the Marxist views of religion? Because
the worker under the capitalist regimes was
miserable and alienated, religious beliefs were
sustained. Religion, according to Marx was the
response to the pain of being alive, the response to
earthly suffering. In Towards a Critique of Hegel’s
Philosophy of Right (1844), Marx wrote, “Religion is
the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a
heartless world, and the soul of soulless
circumstances.” Marx indicated in this writing that
the working class, the proletariat was a true
revolutionary class, universal in character and
acquainted with universal suffering. This provided
the need for religion.
 DEFINITION OF MARXISM

Marxism is summed up in the

Encarta Reference Library as
“a theory in which class
struggle is a central element in
the analysis of social change in
Western societies.”

Sculpture of Karl Marx

(foreground) and Friedrich
Engels
 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

 Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a

German philosopher, political economist, and socialist revolutionary,
who addressed the matters of alienation and exploitation of the
working class, the capitalist mode of production, and historical
materialism. He is famous for analysing history in terms of class
struggle, summarised in the initial line introducing the Communist
Manifesto (1848): "The history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of class struggles". His ideas were influential in his time, and
it was greatly expanded by the successful BolshevikOctober
Revolution of 1917 in Imperial Russia.
 Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a
German political philosopher and Karl Marx’s co-developer
of communist theory. Marx and Engels met in September 1844;
discovering that they shared like views of philosophy and socialism,
they collaborated and wrote works such as Die heilige Familie (The
Holy Family). After the French deported Marx from France in
January 1845, Engels and Marx moved to Belgium, which then
permitted greater freedom of expression than other European
countries; later, in January 1846, they returned to Brussels to
establish the Communist Correspondence Committee.
 MARXISM AND CLASS STRUGGLE

Marxism is a political and economic philosophy that is
based on theories of class struggle within societies. This
philosophy was developed by Karl Marx — for whom it was
named — and Friedrich Engels during the middle of the
19th century. It is often described as a form of socialism, an
economic system in which resources and the means of
production are publicly owned. Marxism calls for society's
progression from capitalist oppression to a socialist,
classless society through a worker's uprising, which it
deems as necessary.
 Class Struggles
 Marx believed that the history of humankind is
fundamentally the history of a struggle between social
classes. In other words most political facts (and later
Marxists would say, cultural) can be explained in terms of
their relationship to this struggle. Class struggle is the main
motivating force behind historical change.
 The nature of this struggle lies in the economic relations of production.
Simplifying somewhat, Marx once called this "the base". These are the
particular economic activities that people carry out. One person is a
miner, the other a manager, the other a shopkeeper. These are related in
the economic nexus. There are also corresponding "social relations", and
these are the basis of class. A manager for example, has a certain control
over his workers, who are obliged to follow certain rules. When we
generalize we find we can group these into a "working class" and a
"ruling class" or capitalist class.
 The capitalist is characterized by ownership of capital, i.e. "the means of
production" the factories, shops, tools, cash, and stock. The worker is
characterized by their lack of these things, possessing only their labour
which they are forced to sell for a wage.Marx believed that history was a
series of class struggles and uprisings. Under capitalism, he argued,
members of the working class, which he called the proletariat, are
oppressed and alienated by the wealthy elite, whom he called the
bourgeoisie. The wealthy own the resources and means of production,
and they inevitably pay their workers a smaller wage than their true
value in order to make profits and increase their wealth. As the wealthy
get wealthier, the inequality between the classes increases, leading to
even greater oppression.
 Other Dangers of Capitalism
 Another of Marx's criticisms of capitalism was that the competition
between similar companies would increase until one drove its
competitors out of business and became a monopoly. The creation of
powerful monopolies would allow for workers to be paid less and
consumers to be charged more. Free market forces also would lead to
wild swings in the economy, including times of severe depression.
 Workers' Uprising
 The only way for the proletariat to overcome their oppression and avoid
the pitfalls of capitalism, Marx believed, was through an uprising. This
would allow the workers to take control of the resources and means of
production. The government would then become what Marx called a
dictatorship of the proletariat — in other words, the working people
would rule. A socialist system would be established and eventually
evolve into a communist society — one that includes common
ownership of all resources and means of production, no class system and
no monetary system.
 Marxism's Influence
 Marx's theories were detailed in two books he wrote, The
Communist Manifesto, in 1847, and Das Kapital, in 1867.
Although many of Marx's economic theories, such as the
labor theory of value, were soon discredited, Marxism
became a very influential concept in global politics during
the 20th century. Marxism is widely considered to have led
to the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR) in 1922 and later the People's Republic of China, in
1949. There are many variations of Marxism that were
developed after Marx's death in 1883, including Leninism,
Trotskyism, Stalinism and Maoism.
 MARXISM AND COMMUNISM

 Marx gave little indication of what Communism would look like: he
deliberately avoided proscribing such a things as he believed the
creatively of humanoty would shape the future. Communism would
be the end of the class system and the beginnings of a new epoch of
freedom where people were not determined by class conflict but
free to shape their lives. Karl Marx, the father of communism
summed up communism in 1 sentence. " From each according to his
ability, to each according to his need." Karl Mark believed that in an
industrialized society, the working class would revolt and take over
the ruling class, and would in effect, create a classes society. Karl
Marx believed this could only happen in a industrialized society.
Once it became apparent that the working class would not rise
above, Lenin stepped in. Lenin Claimed that the working class had to
be guided by something he called "professional revolutionaries." He
believed that a a small group of people would have to take over and
constantly fight for the revolution, even after the revolution had
happened. He rejected traditional Marxism, claiming that
professional revolutionaries would have to guide the process to
communism. He claimed that democracy, IE voting, would do
nothing. The working class had to take over. Obviously it didn't work,
but that's what he believed
SALIENT FEATURES OF MARXISM
 The best single source to understand Marxism is the Communist
Manifesto. The best single analysis of Marxism is the encyclical on
Atheistic Communism by Pope Pius XI in which he identifies Marxism as a
"Utopian Messianism,“

 1. Messianic Ideal.
 According to Karl Marx, mankind should look forward to the attainment
of a Messianic society in this world, which is the highest ideal toward
which the human race can tend. The attainment of such a society
presumes man's perfectibility, and is based on the belief that the human
desire for happiness will be fulfilled on earth in some future period of
history.
 2. Equality and Fraternity.
 This idyllic society will be distinguished by the practice of perfect
equality and fraternity among its members. It will be the last stage in a
series of five stages of human development, reflecting the original state
of man in a tribal and communitarian society, namely slavery, feudalism,
capitalism, socialism and communism. In the first three of these stages,
men exploit one another; in the fourth (socialism) they are passing
through an interval of adjustment; and in the fifth (communism) the
classless society is achieved.
 3. Economic Progress Through Marxism.
 Confirmation of the myth of Marxism is the remarkable material
progress already attained in places where its ideology has been put into
practice. It is, therefore, no longer a merely speculative position but an
established fact that a Marxist philosophy succeeds where others had
failed.
 4. Dialectical and Historical Materialism.
 According to all its philosophers, Marxism is founded on two kinds of
materialism, the dialectical and historical. It is materialism because it
claims there exists only one reality, matter. It is dialectical because
through the interaction of opposing material forces all apparently higher
forms of being evolve – first life, then sentient beings, and finally man. It
is historical because, now that man exists, human history follows the
same evolving pattern towards higher perfection, but uniquely through
the interaction of the material (economic) forces of society.
 5. Accelerating Progress Through Conflict.
 Consistent with its stress on dialectics, Marxism holds that the progress
of humanity toward its predicted goal is accelerated by human conflict.
Hence the role of revolution as a necessary means of fostering social
development and the importance of sharpening the antagonisms which
already exist or can be stimulated between various classes of society.
 6. Marxist Deviation.
 There is only one "grave sin" in Marxian morality. It is committed by those who
deviate from the ideal of relentless revolution. Within the Marxist camp, left and
right are measured by the degree of departure from or conformity to this need
for violence as the precondition for an eventual warless society.
 7. Primacy of the Group.
 The individual in a Marxian society surrenders his personal rights in favor of the
group. He does this, after long indoctrination, on the conviction that part of the
contribution toward the eventual rise of a classless commonwealth is the
complete sacrifice of his own personality,
 8. Equality Among People.
 In man's relations with other individuals, Marxism holds that only absolute
equality is legitimate. It rejects all civil and ecclesiastical authority as grounded
on the will of God, and denies any innate authority of parents over their children.
What people call authority or subordination is derived from the community as its
source and only foundation.
 9. Denial of All Property Rights.
 Not without reason did Marx and Engels state in their Communist Manifesto that
"The theory of Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition
of private property." They meant it to be taken in absolute literalness. In Marxian
ethics, no individual should be granted any rights over material goods or the
means of production. This is because history has shown that private property is
the universal source of further wealth, and personal possession gives one man
power over another. All forms of private property, therefore, must be eliminated
because they are the origin of every economic enslavement.
 10. The Artificial Institutions of Marriage and the Family.
 Since Marxism denies any sacred or spiritual character to human life beyond the
merely economic, it logically claims that marriage and the family are purely civil and,
in fact, merely artificial institutions. They are the outcome of an outmoded economic
system. There are no moral bonds of marriage. There are only such privileges as the
collectivity may see fit to grant persons to mate and procreate, for the sake of the
collectivity and subject to its conditions. An indissoluble marriage bond may be
humored by the state, but it has no inherent rights before the civil law.
 11. The Emancipation of Women.
 Marxism is especially characterized by its rejection of any link that binds women to
the family and the home. Women's emancipation is proclaimed as a cardinal principle
of the socialist interim that will usher in the classless society of the future. Women are
to be first encouraged and then, if need be, compelled to withdraw from the family
and the care of children. These are regularly stigmatized "bourgeois" activities,
Liberated from household chores and the rearing of a family through thousands of
childcare centers, women are to be thrust instead into public life and collective
production under the same conditions as men.
 12. No Parental Rights in Education.
 Correlative with the function of women as robots (Russian for "work"), the collectivity
assumes the total responsibility for the education and training of children. The
euphemistic statement in the Manifesto, "Free education for all children in public
schools," has been implemented to mean that the state alone has the right to
educate. In practice, this has further meant that the state, and not the parents, has
the exclusive prerogative to determine who shall teach, under what curriculum, with
what textbooks, and how the matter is communicated. The previous mandate of the
Manifesto (number 10) should be joined with another mandate (number 6), that is,
"Centralization of the means of communication. . . in the hands of the state."
 13. Economics, the Basis of Society.
 In the Marxian scheme of society, economics is the fundamental law of human
existence. It is not freedom, or human rights, or a divinely established moral order, or
the pursuit of happiness, or the service of God, but uniquely the advancement of the
economic system. Greater production of material goods, more efficiently, in a more
collectivized manner – this is the bedrock of a society’s well being. This must be given
precedence over everything else; as everything else mentioned must be subordinated
to technological productivity.
 14. The Collectivity Controls the Individual.
 Six of the ten principal "measures" of the Manifesto affirm in clear language how
completely Marxism sees the individual as a tool in the hands of the state: "Abolition
of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes; abolition of
all rights of inheritance; centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means
of... an exclusive monopoly; centralization of the means of... transport in the hands of
the State; extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State;
equal liability of all to labor; establishment of industrial armies, especially for
agriculture." State totalitarianism could not be more complete or the subjugation of
individual to the "common plan" devised by the collectivity.
 15. Disappearance of the State.
 According to Marxist predictions, this tyrannical enslavement to the State is the
necessary radical surgery which must be performed on society in order to give birth to
a new society – never before dreamed possible in the history of mankind. Synonyms
are accumulated to describe this prophetic vision. It will be a society in which "the
public power will lose its political character"; a society in which "the free development
of each is the condition for the free development of all." For the time being, during
the period of socialism, the state dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary. But, by
means of the Marxist revolution, the proletariat will be "abolished in its own
supremacy as a class. In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class
antagonisms, we shall have an association" in which all conflicts are gone.
Marxist language theory

 Marx, Eangle and their followers gave their

views about language. They all show the
basic idea of Marxist theory of language:
language is the product of society and vice
versa society is the product of language.More
over, ‘Language and society are mutually
dependent’
Eangles,

 Eangles confirms his thinking about the

development of language in the following
passage, “First work and slowly with its
language – these are two main forces under
the influence of which the brain of an app was
transformed in to that of the man; which is
larger and more complete in spite of their
similarity.

Marx,

 Marx looked at the language with the more

philosophical and psychological point of
view,”_______ language is as old as
consciousness--- language like consciousness
arises from need, the necessity of intercourse
with other men”

Language change and marxism

 Marxs and Eangle consider the language as a

product of the prevailing relationships of the
classes and language changes with removal
of one ruling class by another
 Finally the changes in the process of
production according to Marx lead to the
disappearance languages.

Change in economy lead to
language change
 More over change in economy do not only lead
language and consciousness ideologically to a
wrong conscious and therefore wrong language.
That language changes that it indeed becomes
explicitly , ‘ a new language” and not only obtain
new words and meaning is the result of
economic process when the producers change
acquire new powers, concept and new means of
trading. New needs and a new language.

Grammar, semantics and class

 grammar is not bound to classes

 Semantic part is partially class character
Marxism in linguistics

 In speaking about Marxism in linguistics one

must immediately demarcate four aspects
which should not be confused.

 The first aspect, is the political views of

linguist and his attitude towards Marxism
outside linguistics.
 The second aspect is the level of interest in
the dominance of Marxist ideology in society
 The third aspect relates to a particular
neighboring area of scholarship
,sociolinguistics, where apart from views on
linguistics the scholar is obliged to have a
definite point of view on the society studied,
and the Marxist conception of society
undoubtedly was and is one of the most
influential.
 And finally, the fourth aspect concerns
Marxist linguistics in the full sense, the
attempt to construct a theory of the
structure, functioning and development of
language on Marxist foundations.
