Karl Marx was a 19th century German thinker most famous for developing a notion of

communism in The Communist Manifesto. His notion of communism was not simply a utopia
presented in a vacuum, it was a political program meant to critique the social conditions of
capitalism.
What is Marxist criticism? The Marxist criticism definition is an approach to diagnosing political
and social problems in terms of the struggles between members of different socio-economic
classes. Drawing from this approach, criticism does not aim at the flaws of particular individuals,
even if they have attained positions of power. Instead, such an approach focuses on how social
life is structured by class oppositions that are determined by laboring relationships. Or in other
words, Marxist criticism seeks to show how the economically powerful exploit and dominate the
economically disadvantaged. Moreover, Marxist criticism also points to how class conflict is
obscured and hidden in ideology.
Several concepts are indispensable for Marxist criticism:

 Class - Class is a grouping of people with a similar social situation with regard to labor
and exchange. The proletariat, for example, are a social class defined by their need to
sell their labor power because they do not have sufficient property to generate income. In
short, they are the 'have-nots.' The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, are a social class
defined by owning the means of production, and they have sufficient property to generate
wealth without needing to labor.
 Alienation - The concept of alienation is meant to capture the ways in which workers are
separated from the fruits of their labor and from others. When a worker creates
something, but they cannot take pride in their work, their work only puts them in
competition with others, and they receive no profits from the quality of their work. In this
case, they are alienated laborers.
 Ideology - Ideology is a system of values and beliefs of a society or group. Ideology
tends to be explicit, or at least have a significant explicit component, and it serves to
protect the material conditions of a society by distorting them. For instance, capitalist
ideology includes the value of self-reliance and being 'self-made,' while also insisting on
free competition. This obscures the fact that those who are born into rich families have a
significant edge in competition.
 Base and Superstructure - The base and superstructure of any society consists of
material conditions and then explicit institutions, art, and ideology, respectively. In other
words, the base of any society, the driving reality behind any experience or political
action, is its economic conditions. This includes the methods of production as well as the
relationships that constitute social production and exchange. The superstructure is every
aspect of society beyond material necessity, including ideologies, art, and institutions.
This include religion as well as normative political views, e.g., liberalism. Institutions
include government as well as social clubs. While the ideologies and institutions of a
society may appear open and impartial, Marxist criticism holds that they are a tool used
by the powerful to oppress the weak and obscure the very mechanisms of that
oppression. Marxist criticism examples would include Charles Beard's work on the
American Revolution and the self-interest of the moneyed class in designing the
constitution.

Marxist criticism has also been important for literature. That is, works of art have a relationship to
the societies in which they are created. Using literature as a means to ask questions about
society and culture is called literary criticism. Criticism of that art has taken it as its task to
diagnose and illuminate the social oppression that informs the work. In other words, literary
works may present, consciously or unconsciously, the contradictions inherent with the seemingly
neutral or impartial superstructures of a society and its oppressive material base. Marxist literary
theory involves criticism that makes those contradictions explicit and analyzes them.