Class notes
Marx and Engels
- Course
- Polt 14600
- Institution
- Ithaca College
Theorizing the works of Karl Marx and Frederich Engels
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KARL MARXMARX’S IDEAL
• Reconciles freedom, equality and material prosperity
• He is optimistic that they can be reconciled
• The ground of that optimism
• The theory of history?
• The theory of revolution?
• From the perspective of Historical Materialism (HM) history is the record of the increasing mastery by
humans over our environment
• Frees humans by transformation of systems.
• Not only emancipates materially but from social constraints.
• Progressive understanding of history
• Theory of capitalism is just one instance, for Marx, of a broader
theory of historical materialism.
IMPORTANT TERMS
● Forces of production: Resources used in production.
○ E.g. Humans, tools, machines, knowledge.
● Mode of production
● Dominant system of production
○ E.g. Capitalism
● Instruments of production: Whatever you use to produce
○ E.g. In the 18th century there were plow and land.
● Social relations of production
○ E.g., proletariat vs. bourgeoisie, master vs. slave, serf vs. lord.
HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
● Forces of production grow throughout history
● The course of human history reveals a general tendency for the forces of production to change
and grow.
● As they grow, our mastery of our environment increases.
● At different levels of growth of productive forces different relations of production optimizes
production
● By itself the development of productive forces is insufficient.
● Should be accompanied by the second.
● At different levels of development of the forces of production, different social relations of
production will do better in advancing the forces of production.
○ E.g.. Forced labor was suited for the development of prod. forces when those forces are
at low level of development But at a higher level of development when further
development depends on skill of the producer, slavery didn’t work any more.
● The shift is motivated by material relations not ideological
● As the prod. forces grow they eventually come into conflict with production relations
○ (e.g., class relations)
● Prod. relations that at one point were best suited to developing prod. forces, become fetters.
● Economy is never independent of society
● A new system of prod relations, that better serves advancing prod forces, emerges.
● Unfettering requires the introduction of new productive relations.
● So there is a conflict between the material conditions of production and its social form.
, ● Its result is a new system of relations that permits the continuing development of the forces of
production.
● The bases of social and political processes associated with revolutions are the constraints on
prod relations.
● So the push comes from material and changes society.
● In German Ideology he says, all cleavages in history are results of conflict between forces of prod
and forms of intercourse.
● The first dialectic of history.
● A fettering system in general gives way to an unfettering system
○ Conflict has to happen!
● You can’t just be satisfied because your little farm is not isolated from others.
● You have to want to produce more tomatoes because there are other farms around.
● That is why capitalism is a social force. You have no chance to change.
SUPERSTRUCTURE
● Superstructure is not unimportant to Marx
● It is a distorted representation of infrastructure
● A distorted mirror image.
● But it is part of HM
● Superstructure is important for it is glossing the relationship between FP and RP, and Fettering
● The gloss is not completely illusory; it has a relation to what is going on but doesn’t accurately
reflect that relation.
PRIMARY UNIT OF ANALYSIS: CLASS
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.Freeman and slave, patrician
and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in
constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that
each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the
contending classes....The distinctive feature of class struggle in our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie
“it has simplified class antagonism. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great
hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie & Proletariat.”
● Liberalism may conceal class relations by promoting individualism and competition but can’t
erase it
● Individuals don’t exist in society free from their class positions.
● Human nature is not independent from history of class relations but a product of it
BOURGEOISIE
● The class that owns the means of production
● Empowered by urbanization, colonialism, industrialization, trade
● A REVOLUTIONARY CLASS BECAUSE
○ Put an end to feudal, patriarchal, idyllic ties that bound people to their so-called “natural
superiors”
○ Made exploitation more transparent “naked, shameless, direct, brutal”
○ Not concealed by religious and political illusions any more
○ “has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its
paid wage laborers.”
○ Brought about global change
● “The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely
facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization.
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