Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Leading to an
Understanding of Communism
U nders ta nding Marx’s
T heories
Karl Heinrich Marx
• born on May 5, 1818
• Jewish
• Philosopher,
Political Economist,
Historian,
Sociologist,
• converted as a Christian
• founder of communism
• died on March 14, 1883
Communist Manifesto
– published by Marx and Engels on behalf
of a group idealistic workers
– originally drafted as a program for an
international “communist league”
– become one of the most important
political documents of all time
– left an incredible mark on human
progress
Key Demands
• Abolition of property in land and
application of all rents on land to public
purposes.
• A heavy progressive or graduated
income tax.
• Abolition of all right of inheritance.
• Confiscation of the property of all
emigrants and rebels.
Key Demands
• Centralization of credit in the hands of
the state, by means of a national bank
with state capital and an exclusive
monopoly.
• Centralization of communication and
transport in the hands of the state.
• Equal liability of all to labor.
Establishment of industrial armies,
especially for agriculture.
Key Demands
• Extension of factories and instruments
of production owned by the state, the
bringing in cultivation of waste lands,
and the improvement of the soil
generally in accordance with a common
plan.
Key Demands
• Combination of agriculture with
manufacturing industries; gradual
abolition of the distinction between
town and country, by a more equable
distribution of population over the
country.
• Free education for all children in public
schools. Abolition of children's factory
labor in its resent form.
Three Parts of Marxism
• Philosophical basis
– Derives much from Hegel
– Neatly inverts the key central idea of
Hegelian perspective
• Theories of political economy
– Follow from the philosophical position
– Theory of Surplus Value
– Labor theory of Value
• Theory of revolution
A Materialist World
• our ideas do not make the world, the
world makes are ideas
• the dialect made Marx and Engels
theories scientific
• free of mysticism and metaphysics but
describing something like a scientific
“law” (inevitably)
Modernist Optimism
• a view that underneath the haphazard
and contingent ordinariness of
everyday life were certain dynamic
power that while remaining hidden,
controlled the way things changed and
determine the future
• materialistic and positivistic
• believing in progress through an
accumulated of knowledge
Class Struggl es
Class Struggle
• active expression of class conflict
looked at from any kind of socialist
perspective
• Main class struggle
– Bourgeoisie
– Proletariat
Class
• refers to the hierarchical distinctions between
individuals or groups in societies or cultures
• social classes in capitalist societies
– Bourgeoisie
• Petite Bourgeoisie
– Proletariat
– lumpenproletariat
– landlords
– peasantry and farmers
2 M ain Class Struggl es
Bourgeoisie
• those who own means of production
• control the process of production
• buy labor power from proletariat
• Their wealth depend on the work of the
proletariat
• exploit proletariat
Proletariat
• individuals who sell their labor power
• add value to the products
• do not own means of production
• labor power generates surplus value
greater than the worker's wages
Sta ges of
D evel op ment
Stages of Development
• Primitive Communism
• Slave Society
• Feudalism
• Capitalism
• Socialism
• Communism
Primitive Communism
• as seen in cooperative tribal societies
– everyone would share in what was
produced by hunting and gathering
– no private property
– primitive society produced no surplus
– few things that existed for any length of
time were held communally
– there would have been no state
Slave Society
• when the tribe becomes a city-state.
Aristocracy is born
– Systematic exploitation of labour
– Compelled to work for another
– held against their will from the time of
their capture, purchase, or birth
– deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to
work, or to receive compensation in return
for their labour
Feudalism
• aristocracy is the ruling class
• Merchants develop into capitalists
– derived from the Latin word feodum
– composed of a set of reciprocal legal and
military obligations among the warrior
nobility
– revolving around the three key concepts
• lord
• Vassals
• fiefs
Capitalism
• ruling class, who create and employ the
true working class
– Economic system in which the private
ownership of property is protected by law
– mode of production characterized by
• predominant private ownership of the means
of production
• distribution and
• exchange in a mainly market economy
Capitalism
• has been dominant in the Western
world since the end of feudalism
• provided the main, but not exclusive,
means of industrialization throughout
much of the world
Socialism
• Dictatorship of the Proletariat
• workers gain class consciousness
• share the belief that capitalism unfairly
concentrates power
• achieved via class struggle and a
proletarian revolution which represents
the transitional stage between capitalism
and communism
Communism
• classless and stateless society
• socioeconomic structure and political
ideology
• based on common ownership of the
means of production and property in
general
The Prophecy
• Revolution would be preceded by a
series of intensifying crisis
• Goods would be produced which the
impoverished proletariat could not
afford to buy
• More workers would be forced out of
work because their labor was not
needed
The Prophecy
• This would drive wages down further
• Lessen the ability of people to buy the
products of capitalism
• Enterprises would collapse and be
swallowed by larger organization in the
centralization of capital
Class Sta tus and
Worl d View
Class
• Identity of a social class is derived from
its relationship to the means of
production.
• Social Classes in Capitalist Societies
Proletariat
Bourgeoisie
• very wealthy Bourgeoisie
• Petit Bourgeoisie
Lumpenproletariat
Landlords
Peasantry and farmers
Class Antagonism