Marx Case

Marx believed that the history of humankind is fundamentally the history of a struggle between social classes. In other words most political facts (and later Marxists would say, cultural) can be explained in terms of their relationship to this struggle. Class struggle is the main motivating force behind historical change.

The nature of this struggle lies in the economic relations of production. Simplifying somewhat, Marx once called this "the base". These are the particular economic activies that people carry out. One person is a miner, the other a manager, the other a shopkeeper. These are related in the economic nexus. There are also corresponding "social relations", and these are the basis of class. A manager for example, has a certain control over his workers, who are obliged to follow certain rules. When we generalize we find we can group these into a "working class" and a "ruling class" or capitalist class.

The capitalist is characterized by ownership of capital, i.e. "the means of production" the factories, shops, tools, cash, and stock. The worker is characterized by their lack of these things, possessing only their labour which they are forced to sell for a wage.

Above the base, and dependent on it, (but also sometimes acting down upon it), is the ideological "superstructure" which includes the legal system, "ideology" (systems of political beliefs often underpinned by philosophical beliefs about the world). Marx believed we can explain much of what goes on in society by reference to the dynamic of the economy that is behind the scenes. For example, in today's world, if you look at the language we use, you will find it is shaped by the type of hyper-captialist economy we have. Marx believed the very nature of language itself (and consciousness) was formed and shaped by the economy.

Now one of Marx's arguments for the injustice of Capitalism was that the worker is "alienated" from his labour, in other words, he is separated from the activity of his work. He/she works in order to live, often carrying out very dull, de-humanizing work. Marx invented a labour theory of value where he fleshed this idea out, arguing that they ar robbed of their labour. His objection is that workers are not allowed to fulfil out their creative potential as human beings under capitalism, and the solution to this is worldwide revolution to bring about communism.

Marx viewed history as having a series of stages that follow one another. This is called a teleological view of history (telos = goal, I think) where history moves towards a more equal form of society. There is much debate as to how far Marx believed this to be an enevitable course of history. Times of crisis cause revolutions that bring about more advanced forms of society, and soon capitalism was to have its time. Marx analyzed the boom-bust

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