Marxism

1
Marxism

• Communist Masifestoon -- http//www.youtube.com/
  watch?vNbTIJ9_bLP4featurerelated

2
First a quick criticism of functionalism. It
implies that all works together for the good.
But

• Robert Merton (from Manifest and Latent
  Functions)
• functional unity?
• universal functionalism?
• functional indispensability?
• sick societies exist indefinitely
• successful societies often have some awful
  institutions
• deaths of societies dont necessarily mean harm
  to people
• why do all societies seem geared to work better
  for those at the top than for anyone else?
• Can we changes to society work better for us? Of
  course we can! (maybe)
• What about positive knowledge? Is it so
  positive?
• Does society develop on its own what role do
  people play in it?
• Is selfishness normal?

3
Issue of misery and economy

• Malthus the natural fate of humans is misery
• Adam Smith (classical economics) growth of the
  economy betterment are via competition/markets/s
  elfishness
• The functionalists (e.g., Durkheim) say
  selfishness is normal, but the amount of
  exploitation in a society is controlled via the
  division of labor and religious beliefs.
• Marx all are false. Misery is historically
  developed, competition leads to monopoly and
  misery, and beliefs (including religious) are
  biased to support the miserable state of affairs.

4
History of development (we skipped through this)

• primitive communism
• slavery (master-slave)
• feudalism, etc. (lords and serf)
• guilds (guildmaster journeyman)
• capitalism (bourgeoisie proletarian)
• ever more fragmentation, with capitalism the
  ultimate in fragmentation, all against all.
  Before that always a complicated arrangement of
  society into various orders. Now it has all
  become simplified.

5
Capitalism has good and bad effects

• Good
• Surplus
• constant revolution/creativity
• ending the idiocy of rural life, etc.
•  
• Bad
• crises of overproduction
• private ownership lack of sharing
• reducing all relationships to mere exchange
  lack of humanity
• monopoly concentration of wealth for a few
• impoverishment the ruling class takes ever more
• alienated labor takes away the joy of
  creativity and work

6
Alienated labor

• the worker is just part of the machine
• work is merely a means of existence (a jobs just
  a job)
• the worker doesnt control the conditions of
  his/her labor
• the worker doesnt own/control what s/he makes
• the worker doesnt even make a whole thing
• man becomes a slave to things materialism is a
  kind of sickness
• workers become commodities (bought and sold)
• workers slave to get objects of labor
  (possessions)
• when people get possessions they get other
  peoples labor
• only possessions can provide subsistence, and
• only possessions can (temporarily, symbolically)
  fill the emptinessthis is a kind of sickness
  called the fetishism of commodities

7
Competition sets the stage for super-exploitation,
at least three ways

• by making people desire things, as substitutes
  for their real desires (the fetishism of
  commodities sickness)
• by setting the social system so one doesnt have
  much choice everything is based on exchange for
  money
• by masking ones recognition of the true nature
  of things
• the bourgeoisie own the industries that shape and
  distribute knowledge
• false consciousness (self-delusion) for
  example with religion

8
The problem of knowledge versus the beliefs of
positivists

• Marx The beliefs of the ruling class are always
  the ruling beliefs
• Who runs the information media?
• How could Malthus be so wrong? Can Adam Smith be
  wrong?
• How can the upper classes justify their place in
  an exploitative society? (false consciousness)
• How can the lower classes justify their place in
  an exploitative society? (remember the opium of
  the people false consciousness)