The Classical Marxist Model

GROUP MEMBERS:

DALAGDAGAN
DAULLO
CUBILLAS
MIRAFLORES
PEROCHO
1. What argument could one make that
suggests that the works of Karl Marx are
still relevant today? What differentiates
Marxism fro Stalinism?
 What Marx wrote mostly about was
capitalism. It’s his extensive
analysis of capitalism that makes
Marx highly relevant today.

 Marx wanted people to understand

the nature of capitalism, where it
came from, how it worked, what
was wrong with it, why it was a
temporary phase of human history,
and what one needed to do in
order to speed up its demise
because reform was not feasible.
 Today, we are faced with
the inevitability of
globalization : if it is true
that one of the major
transformations under way
in the world today is
economic globalization,
and if globalization really
is just another term for the
spread of capitalism
around the world, then it
makes sense to at least
consider the analyses of
Karl Marx.
 Stalinism imposed a
totalitarian state which was
not in the writings of Marx.
In fact, Marx’s vision for
the future socialist/
communist society was the
opposite of Stalin’s. Marx
imagined the future, post-
capitalist society as one
that was based on
participatory democracy
and that promoted
individual freedom.
2. Define what is meant by ontology and
epistemology in the context of the basic
premises of dialectical materialism.
 Ontology refers to the nature and
relations of being (the theory of reality)

 Epistemology refers to how we think we

know what we know (the theory of
knowledge).
Ontological premises of the dialectic

 All phenomena are interrelated and interdependent.

 The relations between phenomena are more important than the
phenomena in and of themselves

 All things are always in flux, always changing, always moving

 Nothing is ever the same. Nothing is constant. History is a moving
stage, and it does not repeat itself

 “Quantitative” changes are continuously occurring, which

sometimesgenerates major or “qualitative” changes.
 Qualitative transformations occur when an accumulation of
quantitative changes makes the original form unrecognizable or
impossible.
 Change is evolutionary
 No pre-determined historical path can be precisely identified; nor can
any time frame be pre-established.

 Change is driven by tensions, the internal oppositions within

all things
 Marx agreed with Hegel that the dynamic of the unity of opposites
characterizes all phenomena, from the atomic coherence of negative
and positive changes
The ontological premises of materialism

 The fundamental level of reality consists of material—that is,

physical—phenomena.
 Thus for human beings the basic reality is acquiring food, eating,
drinking, dealing with storms, struggling with disease, joining with
others, fighting with others, and so on

 Material phenomena have an independent, objective reality;

 That is, their existence is not dependent on human perception or
human conceptualization of them

 Material conditions are the primary determinant of the

character and qualities of all other dimensions.
 In other words, the surrounding material or physical conditions that
people experience are more important in influencing how people
think and behave than any other influence.
The epistemological premises of dialectical materialism

 The relationships among material phenomena are regular and

lawlike.

 Generalizations (laws) about these relationships are

discoverable through an empirical process, that is, a scientific
method.

 This scientific method, however, as mentioned above, must be

holistic, not reductionist. It must look at systemic relationships
rather than discrete, unconnected, or incomplete parts.

 Important relationships, that is, underlying oppositions, are

often not revealed by superficial observations, but must be
inferred from relational dynamics. The dialectical method
involves looking for the real, underlying power dynamics, the
“hidden agenda.”
 In order for science to be accurate and contribute to the
accumulation of real knowledge, it must combine theory
and practice.
 Scientists must be actively engaged in the matters
that they are studying. By itself, detached theorizing
will not advance knowledge, as there is no meaningful
connection to reality, that is, the material conditions.
3. Compare the approach of dialectical
materialism to conventional science
 The dialectical approach in Marx’s ontology definitely diverges
from the conventional scientific approach, though the materialist
part of his ontology shares similar assumptions with conventional
empirical science.
In fact, Marx called his approach scientific socialism. Marx’s
epistemology starts out in agreement with conventional
science, but it soon diverges on account of its emphasis on
holism. Marx believed in looking at the whole system (not just
parts of it), incorporating history, and looking for the
underlying conflicts that tell the real story of what is going on.
Without engagement with the real world, science is sterile
4. What does Marx mean by the mode of
production? How did he apply it to
human history?
 When Marx studied history, he observed a number of
qualitatively different societies. These different social
formations Marx called modes of production.

CAPITALISM

FEUDALISM
ANCIENT
CIVILIZATIONS

PRIMITIVE
COMMUNISM
 Marx applied it to the human history by identifying the major
modes of production throughout history—especially European
history, and identifies the classes that are endemic to the material
conditions existing within each mode.
5. What are the forces and relations of
production in the capitalist mod of
production?
Forces of production in capitalism
 Instruments of production:
- In the first stage of capitalism, production is centralized in
factories where machines driven by inanimate energy are
organized into assembly lines.

 Raw materials
- shift from largely vegetable and animal substances to
largely mineral and eventually artificial (chemically created)
materials.

 Labor
- more productive in capitalism because of task division,
better education, and capital enhancement
Relations of production in capitalism

 Structure
 Private property plays a key role in the class structure of
capitalism, because capitalists (the ruling or dominant class)
legally own as well as control the means of production.

 Qualities
 Money dominates the capitalist mode of production. All economic
transactions that count are those priced by the market in monetary
terms.