Marx and Engels

1
(No Transcript)
2

• Marx and Engels
• Brief outline of Marxist-Communism
• Critique of bourgeoisie capitalism
• Critique of the Critique
• Aristotle

3

• Karl Marx
• The philosophical brains behind the operation.
  Poor, worked on his manuscripts at the British
  Museum in London.
• Friedrich Engels
• German, father was wealthy business man with a
  factory in England fluent in 12 languages, lived
  long after Marx died, and continued to write
  defences, prefaces, etc. for Marxs works.

4

• I. Communism is already acknowledged by all
  European powers to be itself a power.
• II. It is high time that Communists should
  openly, in the face of the whole world, publish
  their views, their aims, their tendencies,
• Why

5
So the question arises what is communism?

• From Friedrich Engels preface to the 1883
  edition of the manifesto
• The basic thought running through the Manifesto
• From the mode of Economic production arises the
  structure of society of every historical epoch
• This structure constitutes the political and
  intellectual history of that epoch
• All history has been a history of class struggle
• The struggle of the proletariat against the
  bourgeoisie will be the final class struggle in
  history

6

• Subtitle of part one
• The history of all society hitherto is the
  history of class struggle.
• There have always been classes in society
• They have always contended, and at times there
  have been revolutions
• The bourgeois society that emerges from Feudal
  society establishes new classes, but doesnt end
  the antagonism.

7
The uniqueness of bourgeois society

• Whereas previous society (feudal, for e.g.)
  contained various orders and classes, modern
  society is split into two hostile camps
• bourgeoisie
• proletariat.
• The proletariat can no longer emancipate itself
  from the class which exploits and oppresses it
  (the bourgeoisie) without at the same time
  freeing the whole society from exploitation,
  oppression and class struggles.

8

• Man is an historical being.
• The concept man as such does not exist.
• Man does not have a fixed, unchanging nature.
• For the socialist man the entire so-called
  history of the world is nothing but the begetting
  of man though human labour. . . (Economic and
  Philosophic Manuscripts, 1844).
• The coming communist revolution will bring an end
  to human history.

9
Society split between two classes

• Bourgeois and Proletariat
• Who are the bourgeoisie?
• A product of a long course of development, or a
  series of revolutions in the modes of production
  and of exchange.
• Capitalists
• Defined by the mode of production and the motive
  of their activity (profit)
• Rich industrialists
• They are the owners of the modes of production
• Doesnt seem to include the small business owner.
• Who are Proletariat?
• Wage labourers. Do not own the methods or modes
  of production. They live by wages alone.

10

• Note the lumpenproletariat, the passively
  rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of
  society.
• Marx expects little or nothing from this group.

11

• Why are bourgeoisie different than previous
  groups in history?
• The motive of their activity differs from all
  previous ages.
• Profit is their motive (the excess earned after
  wages and costs have been subtracted).
• but not even for the sake of making and enjoying
  the profit.

12

• it is only in so far as the appropriation of
  ever more and more wealth in the abstract becomes
  the sole motive of his operations, that he
  functions as a capitalist,. . .Use value must
  therefore never be looked upon as the real aim of
  the capitalist neither must the profit on any
  single transaction. The restless never-ending
  process of profit-making alone is what he aims
  at.
• Capital, Vol. 1, Critique of Capitalism

13

• They establish no other connection between man
  and man than naked self-interest (exchange value
  contracts)
• Note, Marx means this extends into every sphere
  of life, even the family. Pre-nuptial agreements,
  calculation of the wage equivalent of
  stay-at-home moms?
• It (Bourgeois capitalism) has resolved personal
  worth into exchange value

14

• Bourgeois society is not static, it is restless
• First, it introduces new modes of production,
  e.g. factory
• New modes tear apart the previous feudal society.
• For Marx this is simply a fact of historical
  progress, not to be lamented
• It will soon undermine itself The bourgeoisie
  must constantly revolutionise its own instruments
  of production, and thereby the relations of
  production and with them the whole relations of
  society. CM

15
Whats so important about changing means of
economic production?

• In order to produce, human beings enter into
  definite connections and relations to one
  another, and only within these social connections
  and relations does their influence upon nature
  operate i.e., does production take place.
• These social relations between the producers. .
  .will naturally vary according to the character
  of the means of production.
• Analogy With the discover of a new instrument of
  warfare, the firearm, the whole internal
  organization of the army was necessarily altered,
  the relations within which individuals compose an
  army and can work as an army were transformed,
  and the relation of different armies to another
  was likewise changed.
• Social relations of production, are altered,
  transformed, with the change and development of
  the material means of production, of the forces
  of production.
• The relations of production in their totality
  constitute , society, and, moreover, a society
  at a definite stage of historical development, a
  society with peculiar, distinctive
  characteristics.
• Ancient society, feudal society, bourgeois (or
  capitalist) society, are such totalities of
  relations of production,
• each denotes a particular stage of development in
  the history of mankind.

16

• In sum
• Marx proposes a materialist History of Mankind
• History is not random. Nor is it driven by
  ideas
• Society is a consequence of changes in the
  material means of production
• Societal relations (class relations, power
  relations, family relations) all eventually
  conform to the material means of production.
• On the grand scale, there is no room for human
  choice in directing history.
• What is society, whatever its form may be? The
  product of mans reciprocal action. Are men free
  to choose this or that form of society for
  themselves? By no means. Letter to P.V.
  Annenkov, December 28, 1846

17

• Compare Marx with Publius
• It has frequently been remarked, that it seems
  to have been reserved to the people of this
  country to decide, by their conduct and example,
  the important question, whether societies of men
  are really capable or not, of establishing good
  government from reflection and choice, or whether
  they are forever destined to depend, for their
  political constitutions, on accident and force
  Federalist 1.

18

• Marx
• All social relations and political relations are
  ideologies
• This word really comes from Marx and is not used
  prior to him in this way
• Ideologies are self-justifications produced by
  one class to dupe and dominate the other
• Politics is strictly power relations in the
  service of economic interest. Politics, in
  itself, does not strive for anything like real
  justice.
• Platos distinction between doxa and episteme
  does not apply.

19

• political power, properly so called, is merely
  the organised power of one class for oppressing
  another.
• When class antagonism disappears, so will
  political power, and along with it, Justice,
  Freedom, etc. These are not eternal truths, they
  are merely the instruments used to battle down
  the oppressed classes.

20
How Capitalism undermines itself

• Wage labour
• Bourgeoise wants to build up capital
• Capital results from ever more productive/efficien
  t wage labour
• For each unit of wage labour, the capitalist
  seeks more and more capital
• Bourgeosie compete with one another, they seek
  efficiencies in technology, for e.g.. Henry
  Fords automated assembly plant. Reduces the
  amount of wasted time in manufacturing.
• But Machines also replace human labour (bank
  machines replace human bank tellers). Workers are
  laid off, managers are fired and become wage
  labourers, businesses that cant compete go
  broke, their stock is sold through Liquidation
  World by service clerksi.e. kids who have moved
  off the family farm to the city in search of
  wages.
• More and more proletariat converge in the citys,
  more and more people are squeezed out of the
  capitalist class into the proletariat class.
  Soon, the entire world is run by two or three
  massive companies WalMart and Microsoft (and
  maybe Starbucks). The rest of us are either wages
  slaves of this megalopolies, or we are social
  sum passively rotting (while drinking 5.00
  lattes wearing made-in-China polarfleece
  purchased at WalMart. We begin to plot a
  revolution
• what the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above
  all is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the
  victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

21

• Alienation of labour/alienation of self
• Competition increases number of proletariat
• Once the critical mass has been achieved,
  revolution
• Revolution brings about the socialization of the
  modes of production (interesting no new modes of
  production? Then how can there be new social
  relations?)

22

• The anti-philosophy of Marx
• Marx would object to being called a philosopher.
  Why?
• Philosophy passively studies or contemplates. It
  too is ideology (caught up with mere ideas).
• Marx expected to have a revolutionary effect on
  the world. Praxis versus philsophy.

23

• Politics is ideology
• Politics is partisan, yes. This has been known
  since Aristotle. Each party has a partial view of
  justice its own view of justice is the complete
  view of justice.
• The two main factions (classes)--indeed the two
  permanent classes--are the few rich and the many
  poor. Each will rule in its own interest when it
  comes to power.
• Aristotle believes it is possible to see through
  this partiality. But Aristotle takes something
  from each side of the debate to make a third
  position. Aristotle is neither a democrat nor an
  oligarch.
• Aristotle might charge Marx with being a partisan
  who is blind to justice. He takes the argument of
  the poor democrats as the only argument worth
  considering.

24

• Property
• Aristotle also saw the danger of accumulating
  wealth for its own sake.
• the amount of property which is needed for a
  good life is not unlimited, Bk i.chp8
  (Politics)
• Accumulating wealth should be limited by its
  natural purpose. The household needs money, but
  the purpose of the household is not to make
  money, it is to educate children, to make them
  capable of leading a good, happy, productive
  life, wherein they can enjoy friendship.
• When the use of coin had once been discovered,
  out of the barter of necessary articles arose the
  other art of wealth getting, namely, retail
  trade. . . Hence some persons are led to believe
  that getting wealth is the object of household
  management, and the whole idea of their lives is
  that they ought either to increase their money
  without limit, or at any rate not to lose it. The
  origin of this disposition in men is that they
  are intent upon living only, and not upon living
  well and, as their desires are unlimited they
  also desire that the means of gratifying them
  should be without limit. Those who do aim at a
  good life seek the means of obtaining bodily
  pleasures and, since the enjoyment of these
  appears to depend on property, they are absorbed
  in getting wealth and so there arises the second
  species of wealth-getting. Bk1.cp.9

25

• But nor is it true that our humanity, therefore,
  is defined by productive labour. We labour
  because we can foresee the potential good of our
  work. We (and our labour) are defined more by
  this capacity to think than by the capacity to
  work.
• Marxthere is nothing of human importance outside
  of social relations (e.g. religion is spurious).
  If social relations are governed by material
  production, material production explains
  everything. Aristotle, there is something outside
  societyphilosophy. Therefore, human nature and
  politics cannot be entirely explained by
  reference to material means of economic
  production. Man is the political animal, not the
  economic animal.

26

• What does Marxs end-state look like?
• No private property, but there is personal
  property.
• No property in land
• Public education
• No child labour
• Benefits of production distributed by the state
  according to the needs and best interests of
  members of society
• Cosmopolitan and homogenouseventually this will
  be a world-wide phenomenon. No national identity
  or partisanship. No patriotism, no religion, no
  local cult heroes. Will the NHL still exist? What
  about the World Cup?

27

• Vanguard of the Revolution
• The Communists are at the forefront of the
  proletariat revolution, by virtue of being clear
  eyed (natural authority based on wisdom regarding
  the true goodsounds platonic).
• One supposes this is largely how Lenin, Stalin,
  Kin Jung Ill justify their rule. Rule without
  consent Entrust us with your lives and property
  because we are the knowers. Platos
  philosopher-king?No. In Plato, the philosophers
  dont want to rule. More importantly, they love
  wisdom, they dont have wisdom. Plato never has
  Socrates claim he knows anything except
  eroswhich he defines as a desire for what one
  knows one lacks.
• Marx some of the rich bourgeosie will see the
  writing on the wall and defect to t the
  proletariatis this just added to make Engels
  feel good about himself?

28
(No Transcript)