HCJ 2 – Marx

Marx

‘Workers of all lands unite’; ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways – the point however is to change it’.

These are printed on Karl Marx’s gravestone, and summarise his values very well. Marx is commonly associated with communism, and rightly so as he created the Communist Manifesto with Engles in 1848.

Marx can be said to be comprised of three parts:

1. Hegelian Philosophy – the dialectics in particular. Society and economics change and arrive at new conclusions, but it is working towards the absolute best economic conclusion.
2. British Empiricism – particularly the economics of Adam Smith (the labour theory of value)
3. French Revolution – man is born free but is everywhere in chains (Rousseau)

Marx went about his life in a scientific way – like Darwin, he analysed every aspect of what would make up his views. He spent years in the British Library looking at census, tax records, and commodity prices.

Marx believed that you could explain everything about a society by analysing economic forces. Economics shape all aspects in society – religious, legal, political.

Men are productive animals, and are driven by technological determinism.

Marx believed that a commodity is worth the time spent on making it, and so factory workers were exploiting the workers as they spent no time on the making of the commodity but indulged in most of the profit.

The fluxation of boom and bust are the reprecussions of the chaotic capitalism. This partnered with the drudgery of repetitive everyday work sets up nicely for a revolution.

Hegel

Marx claimed to be a disciple of Hegel, but had ‘taken the liberty of ridding his dialectic of myticism’.

Marx attacks Hegel’s idealism/mysticism. The ‘Geist’ (spirit of a person/group), the real dialectic, was rooted in the real world – in money. This is all tied in to solving class struggle, the real problem.

Feuerbach

Feuerbach was one of the first Hegelians to criticise religion. Hegel talks about Spirit (the absolute), but man is a sensual being (Locke’s sensory data). Man is a communal being, which echoes Aristotle’s ‘man is a political animal’. He implies that man is only human when in a community, and therefore communism is a very good option for Feuerbach.

Alienation

People can appear to be free, but are in fact in chains – Rousseau. This is created by capitalism because people begin to value things over others. There is competition, greed, and inequality.

Work is the loss of one’s self, and we are alienated from our higher needs – work is other people’s needs. It is the proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie.

Communism

The triadic system applied to communism:

THESIS: The bourgeousie (free market capitalism, liberal state, individual rights)

ANTITHESIS: The proletariat

SYNTHESIS: Socialism

Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels which outlines his ideology for equality amongst all members of society. He talks about the proletariat (the workers) and the bourgeois (the wealthy, the people in charge) and how the proletariat will rise up against the bourgeois. If people worked together equally, the state would wither away.