Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Revolutions in 1776, 1789 Napoleonic wars 1795-1815 Restructuring of European politics, 1815 Abortive revolutions in 1835, 1848
Marx, the economist Theory of exploitation Business cycle theory Crisis of capitalism Marx, the sociologist Theory of social class Theory of alienation Marx, the historian Historical determination
Theory of alienation
The estrangement from our common humanity experience by people in the modern world Self expression and self direction are lost as individuals must sell themselves as a commodity to survive
Causes of alienation
In the modern economy, the worker sinks to the level of a commodity. Must sell themselves to survive.
Distinctions disappear
Between landowners & capitalists Between farmers and factory workers Convergence to the two classesthe property owners and the propertyless workers.
Solutions?
Increase in wages better payment for the slave Equality of wages only equalizes the level of alienation The solution that will work is to eliminate property (in capital) estranged labor is the direct cause of private property. The downfall of one must involve the downfall of the other.
In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.
It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.
History is the history of class struggle. Class struggle converges on two classes
Bourgeoisie (owners of property) Proletariat (propertyless workers)
Causes continued
All relationships become wage relationships Forced globalization Manufactured wants Dehumanization of industrialization
The development of modern industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundations on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore produces, above all, is its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Effects of revolution
Abolition of private property (bourgeois property, not personal property)
9/10s of people have no property now
Disappearance of bourgeois family No nationalism Centralized production in the hands of the state
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of childrens factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production
Let the ruling class tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!