Karl Marx

SOCIOLOGY

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Karl Marx
KARL MARX (1818 - 1883)

Introduction -

 Karl Marx is one of the most extensively admired as well as criticized

scholar of Human history.

 He is famously known as the Father of Communism.

 Dead or alive, Karl Marx is a personality who haunted capitalism forever.

 He was born in 1818 in present day Germany.

 In 1842, he began to write for the daily newspaper Rheinische Zeitung.

 He was a revolutionary, a philosopher, a radical thinker and above all a votary of the marginalized landless
working class or 'proletariat'.

 Theoretically materialistic, practically Anarchist and philosophically humanist.

 Koestler arguably said Marx is “The God that Failed”.

 His critics hailed him as Utopian, Enemy of Open Society a totalitarian etc. .

 But even today, when vertical and horizontal gaps within and among nations are increasing, Marx's vision
of classless and stateless society is as relevant as it was then.

 Marx integrated three legacies, the German philosophy, French political thought and English Economics.
From the German intellectual tradition, he borrowed Hegelian method of dialectics and applied to the
material world, from French Revolutionary, he borrowed idea of bringing revolution in industrialized
capitalist economy . From English economists he sought to understand dynamics of Capitalism and the
industrial revolution.

Marx Major Works -

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Book Year of Writing Key Concept

On the Jewish Question 1843 Political Emancipation & Human Emancipation

The Economic and Philosophical Manu- 1844 Theory of Alienation

# It lays the foundation of historical materialism.

Theses of Feuerbach 1845 # 11th Theses - The philosophers have only interpreted
the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.
The German Ideology 1846 Camera Obscura
Communist Manifesto 1848 Proletariat Revolution
18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte 1852 Relative Autonomy of State

A Contribution to the Critique of Politi- 1859 Base and Superstructure

Das Kapital 1867 Criticism to Capitalism of Adam Smith and David Ricardo

The Critique of Gotha Programme 1875 Social Democratic View

Theory of Alienation -

 In his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, he held that the capitalists employed workers to produce
object from their labour and this object or product is under the control of the Employer, the Capitalist
and not to the Worker.

 Therefore, Working Class is alienated from the their own product which they have produce through their
own Labour.

 In a Capitalist Society, workers sell their Labour power to a Capitalist ; their Labour becomes external to
them. Hence their own physical and mental capabilities becomes alien to himself. Here, Marx states that
when labour becomes a necessity to satisfy needs of others than itself, it is a form of alienated labour.

 As Workers, they are alienated not only from their own product but from Labour, themselves, nature and
other human beings.

Theory of Surplus Value -

 Marx's theory of Surplus value embodies the Marxist critique of Capitalism and demonstrates how the
capitalist mode of production involves the exploitation of the working class by extracting ‘surplus value'
from them.

 He held that ‘Labour is the sole creator of value’, though they don’t owns a means of production.

 Land , Labour, Capital and Organization are the four factors of production and only labour is the element
which produces new value in Society.

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 The Actual amount of Labour employed in the production of a commodity differs from the market price
which fluctuates on the basis of demand and supply ; as when more job seekers are in the market, the
wage rate of the workers declines.

 Thus, Capitalist exploits the working class with full potential by not paying the actual value of the labour
power which is pocketed by the Capitalist as his profit.

 This is what Marx describes as the “Surplus Value” which denotes the value of the Labour done by the
worker for which he is not paid and this unpaid money is the capitalist profit.

 Therefore, for him the difference that lies between the value of a worker produces and the value of his
Labour power is the Surplus Value

 Surplus Value = Surplus Labour

 Necessary Labour

 Marx held that if the means of production were owned by the workers they would not have to sell their
Labour power to the Capitalists.

 Moreover, the workers do not have control over the objects they produce and even are not
recompensated for the values which they had produced.

State and Revolution -

 Marx viewed social classes as the agents of revolution.

 He held that historically each new property owing class brings the revolution in the name of all members
of Society but establish itself as the ruling class after the transformation and exploits the property less
class.

 Marx strongly asserted that it was only the class of Proletariat whose revolution would abolish private
property and class Society.

 In his Manifesto of the Communist Party he calls state as the instrument of the ruling class, therefore,
according to him , the Proletariat must capture State power in order to bring about the revolution.

 He advocated Dictatorship of the Proletariat to exclude the members of the bourgeoisie class from the
state till the time private property was not expropriated.

Commodity Fetishism -

 Capitalism is based on the principle of commodification. Everything is judged upon based on not their
intrinsic value, but on their exchange value. It represents a new kind of slavery where not people, but
their labour is traded.

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IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION-

 For Marx economic base i.e., production relations are the determining features of any society.

 Governments, civil society, politics, ideology, and religion, all are part of superstructure which is also
decided by economic base only.

 Hence, he put forward that "in every epoch ideas of ruling classes are the ruling ideas'' and they just
reinforce bourgeois dominance in every sphere.

 He even called ideology as "false consciousness" and religion as "opium of the masses'' because they
divert people's attention from real issues and constraint proletariat consciousness.

 He counter the “False Consciousness” with “Class Consciousness”.

ASIATIC MODE OF PRODUCTION

 The idea of Asiatic mode of production (AMP) was propounded by Karl Marx in the early 1850s in his
articles on India. The central theme of this idea is the different nature of Asian societies from Western
societies which doesn't replicate similarities with western Capitalism. Marx suggested that Asiatic
societies were held in control by a despotic ruling elite, residing in central cities and directly
expropriating surplus from largely self-sufficient and generally undifferentiated village communities.
The basic tenets of AMP are:

1. Absence of private ownership of land (self-sustaining units or communes)

2. Unity between agriculture and manufacturing (handloom, spinning wheel)

3. Absence of strong commodity production and exchange.

 Stabilizing role of societies and cultures like India against invasions, conquests, and famines.

YOUNG MARX vs MATURE MARX

 Louis Althusser divided the writings of Karl Marx into two separate categories based on their
chronology and central themes.

 Young Marx is characterized by the early writings of Marx which reflect Human Subjectively like
'alienation', prominent works among them are Economical and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.

 Young Marxist writings inspired Gramsci and later Neo-Marxist of Frankfurt School.

 Old Marx or Mature Marx writing are economically deterministic and represents Scientific
methodology.

 Mature Marx includes a more political and activist version of Karl Marx which encompasses writings
like Communist Manifesto of 1848.

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Commentaries on Karl Marx

 Marx misinformed intelligent people by saying that the historic method is the scientific way of
approaching social problems – Karl Popper

 Marxism is a utopia but a generous and humane one – Sabine

 The contemporary radical view of Marx as being an excellent critic of capitalism but unable to provide a
detailed alternative to it – Harrington

 Marx’s Politics is based on particular qualities of the bourgeois state in the nineteenth century – Robert
Dahl

 Marx Sketched but never developed a systematic theory of the state and hence the idea of a political
economy remained overdetermined and undescribed politically – Sheldon Wolin

 Marx did not foresee the rise of Fascism, totalitarianism and the welfare state – Isaiah Berlin

Famous Quotes -

 ‘The history of all previous Societies has been the history of class struggles’.

 ‘Men make their own history but they do not make as they please’.

 ‘Revolutions are the locomotives of history’.

 ‘Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form’.

 ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways, the point, however, is to change it’.

 ‘The last Capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope’.

 ‘I am nothing but I must be everything’.

Chronological Order of Marx Work

 The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law, 1842

 Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, 1843

 "On the Jewish Question", 1843

 "Notes on James Mill", 1844

 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, 1844

 The Holy Family, 1845

 "Theses on Feuerbach", 1845

 The German Ideology, 1845

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 The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847

 "Wage Labour and Capital", 1847

 Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848

 The Class Struggles in France, 1850

 The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, 1852

 Grundrisse , 1857

 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859

 Writings on the U.S. Civil War, 1861

 Theories of Surplus Value, 3 volumes, 1862

 "Value, Price and Profit", 1865

 Capital, Volume I (Das Kapital), 1867

 "The Civil War in France", 1871

 "Critique of the Gotha Program", 1875

 "Notes on Adolph Wagner", 1883

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