Part II KARL MARX Karl Marx 1818 1883

Part II KARL MARX

� Karl Marx (1818 -1883) � Social change � Growth of industrial production and resulting social inequalities � European labor movement

� Hope that a new era was dawning that would liberate humanity. � Science had a key role to play in creating this new age (does it sound familiar? ). � Unique context: �Germany � No middle class similar to France and England � German middle classes aspired to imitate rather than overthrow aristocracy � German Enlighteners assumed that real forces of change were ideas and their producers (intellectuals)

� Why do we need theory? � In order to effect change, it is necessary to understand the social forces (institutions, cultural traditions, social groups) that block it. � Social criticism helps undermine the authority of anti-Enlightenment traditions (eg. religion). �A secular-humanistic philosophy to replace religious culture.

� However, ideas are not sufficient to bring about social change. Individuals do not act on ideas primarily because they are true or have been proven correct but on the basis of their self interest. � Ideas may shape our actions, but our social interests determine which ideas we adopt. � Our social interests are determined by our social position, in particular, our class position.

� If ideas are rooted in social structural conditions, only by changing the latter (structures), the former can be changed. � Culture: �Ideas �Values �Meanings �A critique of culture is important, but it must be connected to a critical analysis of the social conditions that sustain cultural meanings.

Idealist philosophy preoccupied with intellectual critique Materialist perspective that viewed sources of social change in clash of interests arising from inequalities of social structure

“Theory becomes a material force once it has gripped the masses. ” Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right � Theory can become a force of change only if it appeals to individuals whose self-interest is to change social conditions. � If theory expresses the social interest of individuals who are socially positioned as oppressed, it can become a force of change. � Examples �Feminist thought women’s movement �Ülker workers

� Marx did not believe that theory by itself could bring about change. � Individuals, because of their shared social positioning (wage laborers), might have an interest in creating change. � Theory by itself cannot create the social conditions of discontent nor the interest in change. It could give voice to social discontents and direct its political expression. � It can make individuals aware that their discontent is social in origin and can politicize their sense of self and society.

� Idealist philosophy had to give way to materialist social theory A theory that analyzed the political economy of society.

� Focus of social criticism Analysis of consciousness and the evolution of ideas The development of social institutions and conflicts

� History is a progressive series of human struggles with nature. � History progresses towards increased emancipation from nature, i. e. scarcity. � Work on nature (labor) creates social relations, which in turn create order, stability and hegemony, which in return block further emancipation. �The transition from feudalism to capitalism

� The bourgeoisie (private business owners) were the revolutionizing force in feudalism. Caused emancipation of serfs came at the expense of commodification of labor. Working classes bound by hegemonic rule and exploited movement toward increased emancipation blocked

� CAPITALISM Capitalists render workers as part of machinery, diminished from their individuality. Important step towards emancipation (potential of solving scarcity, removing the pressure of nature on individuals). Alienation Individuals reduced to objects, their labor makes them slaves to machinery, identity reduced to object of production Labor (ultimate means to achieve freedom) becomes the source of unfreedom. Contradiction of capitalism

�A specific combination of: productive forces (these include human labor power and means of production (e. g. tools, equipment, buildings and technologies & knowledge, materials, and improved land). social and technical relations of production these include the property, power, and control relations governing society's productive assets (often codified in law), cooperative work relations and forms of association, relations between people and the objects of their work, and the relations between social classes.

� Primitive �No communism system of property ownership � Ancient Greece and Rome �Some private ownership �slavery � Feudalism �Settled agriculture �Feudal property relations �Landowners – landless peasants

� Capitalism �Bourgeoisie – proletariat Problems brought about by capitalism (industrialization) cannot be resolved within the system itself. Understand capitalistic social relationships (favoring a few and disadvantaging the majority)

� What other sources of conflict and inequality exist in modern societies?