Concepts are the Building Blocks of Theory It is very striking that after Communist doctrine had proven itself as absolutely unnatural, the writings of Karl Marx are still being thought of as maintaining a certain degree of credibility by many people. This is due to the fact that despite his wrong suggestion that the social stratification in human society is caused exclusively by economic inequality, he rightly noticed that the means of production and the capital have tendency to be concentrated in the hands of minority. The irony lies in the fact that, even though Marxs theory was meant to explain the processes within industrial societies, it is only the post-industrial era and the concept of globalization that corresponds to Marxs theory about the nature of capital. Let us analyze more closely the three major components of this theory: means, forces and class. The means of production, according to Marx, are the physical properties, which consist of the factories and land, and the capital. He spends a great deal of time classifying existing relation between the means of production and shows how they affect class relations within a society.
Yet, even though Communism is still being regarded as a humanist theory in certain circles, it ultimately refers to people as nothing but some sort of production tool, deprived of any other drives but consumerism, which in Marxs view, is nothing else but a necessity to satisfy ones primary needs, such as food and shelter. Marx suggests that only a fraction of capitalists income is spent on the expansion of production, with a bulk of capital being simply saved by them. Therefore, he concludes that another form of social order needs to be established, which would economically benefit many more people, by investing capital into expansion and improvement of production facilities. Yet, in his utopian classless society he reserves a special role for communist intellectuals, whose task would be to govern such society. If modern capitalist societies structure can be compared to the diamond, with rich and poor people on the extreme ends and middle class in between, Marxs communism is best represented in the form of triangle, with the caste of communist functionaries at the top and countless slaves at the bottom, whose only task is to work for food. The bearded prophet of universal brotherhood also suggests that the forces that define political structure in every society are purely economical ones. Just like Freud, he takes one of many human traits and builds universal theory about it, denying other traits any significance whatsoever. Just as Freud, who idealized human sexuality, Marx idealizes the economy and suggests that we can only think of anything else from consequential point of view.
The Essay on Complementarity and Substitution in the Theory of Capital
This essay is an explanation and importance of complementarity and substitution in the theory of capital. Complementarity can be usually seen in goods with ?sympathetic shifts in demand.? It is also important to realize the narrowness of the traditional treatment of complementarity. Complementarity is analyzed in a single enterprise and also in the economic system as a whole. In the latter ...
He says that peoples actions are always motivated by their class affiliations, even though that they often dont even realize this fact. Therefore, workers from Germany and Papua-New Guinea, for example, will be much more likely to find and understanding between each other than with representatives of their own ruling class. Only because of this, we cannot seriously consider Marxs theory as having any philosophical value. He predicted that the first Communist revolutions would occur in highly industrialized countries of Europe that had a proletariat as well established social class. Yet, it was the semi-feudal Russia where Communists had first taken over the political power. The reason for this was simple fact that the majority of Russians were much more devout Christians that their Western counterparts and the Communist theory appealed to their inner subconscious drives, as it is basically nothing but a Christian doctrine, designed for the twentieth century.
The Essay on Working Class Marx Political International
... that the history of society is a history of struggles between ruling and oppressed social classes. Marx concluded that the capitalist class would be ... Engels submitted a statement of principles known as the Communist Manifesto, the first systematic statement of modern socialist ... physical ailments that impeded his political and literary labors. Marx's influence during his lifetime was not great. After ...
Marx was wrong, suggesting that the drive towards enrichment in people is stronger than their other basic instincts. His theory can only be more or less applicable to the societies with low quality of its ethnos. That is why Communist revolutions could only take place in countries with strong traditions of dictatorship and religious prejudices. Even the emperor Boccassa of Central African Republic wanted to become communist at one time, but was rejected by Soviet leadership, because it didnt want to have a cannibal as one of its affiliates. The whole human history, according to Marx, is the history of antagonism between classes. The eventual outcome of this antagonism he sees in physical elimination of representatives of oppressive class.
The social processes are defined by this struggle alone: Thus capital presupposes wage-labor and wage-labor presupposes capital. They mutually condition one another; they mutually bring each other into existence and they also strive to dominate over each other… The increase of capital is, therefore, an increase of the proletariat, i.e. of the working class (Marx, p. 567).
Marx denies the existence of any other factors that play role in shaping up the social relations.
Peoples inequality is artificially created and maintained. The notions of common good, morality and solidarity are nothing but chimeras. Marxs sociology does not attach any significance to the role of individual; its only concerned with its social status. This can only be thought of as one-dimensional approach to complicated matters, on his part. Marx promoted the idea of dictatorship of proletariat, which was to insure that other social classes would gradually cease to exist. As history shows, very often Marxist revolutionaries werent patient enough to wait until it happens naturally, so theyd use mass executions to speed up the process. Marx anticipated the time when there would be no national states.
His vision of future resembles anarchist utopia, from certain prospective. Yet, he also theorized that masses cannot effectively rule themselves, thats why he suggested that the ruling elite should be created out of idealist promoters of workers cause, such as himself. The history has long ago proven the cheer absurdity of many Marxs statements. His theory of class struggle, besides being conceptually wrong, is also inhumane. The only time in history when Marxs communist principles were applied in the way they were originally intended to, was in Cambodia under regime of Pol Pot, which resulted in deaths of 7 million of people. The stratification of societies is well known fact, but the economic factors that influence it are derivatives of racial and cultural preconditions in every society.
The Essay on Perceiving And Interpreting Karl Marxs Works Capital In Particular The
... or economic approaches in understanding Marx. Practically both chosen approaches define applications of Marxs philosophy, theory of capital, class struggle, distribution of wealth, etc. ... into the realm of social science and thus an important step in the history of sociology. (McLellan, 34) Marxs theories were also influenced ...
As history of 20th century shows, it was possible in many countries to eliminate class antagonism, in order to achieve greater national goals. Therefore, Marxs class struggle theory is nothing but an outdated concept of individual preoccupied with its own grandeur complex. Despite the fact that Marx had rightfully pointed out to a few characteristics of industrialist production process, his sociological conclusions deserve to be rejected out of hand.
Bibliography:
Giddens, Anthony Sociology. Polity Press:Cambridge. 2001 Kreiken, Van Sociology: Themes and Perspectives, Sydney: Pearson, 2000 Marx, Karl Capital. A Critique of Political Economy trans.
by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. Random House. New York. 1995 Newman, David Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life, Forge Press: California, 2002.
