Marx and Engels
Marx, Engels, and Industrialization
It is widely known that the philosophies of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels influentially spurred forth the creation of The Communist Manifesto, a manuscript solely detailing the purposes of communist thought and the problems of capitalistic society. Marx and Engels discuss the problems of society that hinges on class, and predicts a more potentially positive outcome in a classless world. Yet their arguments toward the negative aspects of industrialization can be used, in a sense, to argue for capitalism as well.
The Communist Manifesto is the collaborated idea between two philosophers arguing against what they call the "bourgeoisie," a society responsible for putting the huge divide between its high-class organization and the working-class proletariat (Marx and Engels). In the manuscript, the authors call for the abolition of the social class and the creation of one organization -- namely the State -- in order to maintain a…...
mlaReferences
Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1968. Print.
Marx, Karl. "Estranged Labour." Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. 1970. Web. Retrieved 5 April 2011.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. New York: Monthly Review, 1964. Print.
" (Marx & Engles, "The Communist Manifesto," Chapter 2) the little pin-maker is long sense dead, suggestted the authors of the "Manifesto." The little peasant or artisan has been replaced by the pin factory owner, and there is no nobility to the wage slavery of the worker to the factory.
Later on, in Captial, rather than the more vehement rhetoric of the politically agitating "Manifesto," Marx was to more cautiously suggest a controlled, rather than completely communal marketplace where the surplus-value "realized by the sale of a certain commodity appears to the capitalist as an excess of its selling price over its value," should be contained and better allocated to the worker rather than through pure privatization. (Marx, Capital, Volume III, Part 1, Chapter 1) but the more politically incendiary words of Marx and Engels regarding communal ownership are what are remembered best by history, much like Adam Smith's notion of…...
mlaWorks Cited
Marx, Karl. "The German Ideology." 1845. Marx Engels Archive.
Voice, however, is usually political and confrontational.
In communist societies, it is impossible to get all people to conform to an ideal without using some type of force. People view freedom as the ability to do what they want with their time and control their resources. If the state forces you to work only for its benefit and the benefit of the community, individual freedom will always be limited. This problem was seen in the Soviet Union, North Korea, and China, which were repressive nations that used force to support its theories.
It is important to consider that "exit" is not always physical. It can be mental or emotional, as well. If communist theories were in motion, citizens would not have the ability to exit the system if they decided they did not like it. Physically, it is likely that they would lack the resources to move to another country. In…...
mlaBibliography
Hirschman, Albert. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Marx and Engels. (1969). Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, USSR, pp. 98-137.
Putnam, Robert D.,editor. 2002, Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society, Oxford University Press Inc., New York, NY.
. . ' Their authority may only be of the order and breadth determined by the Idea of the whole; they may only 'originate from its might'. That things should be so lies in the Idea of the organism. But in that case it would be necessary to show how all this might be achieved. For conscious reality must hold sway within the state." (Marx, 77)
This suggests that independence is a pathway to authoritarian tyranny, whereas the 'might' of the state is accorded only by a collective population supporting this right. this resonates most closely with my own personal perspective, denoting something of a universal order in which central authority is necessary to retain civility but in which collectivism is elevated over materialism as a way of empowering such leadership.
2.
The spread of capitalism as both a chief ideology and an aggressive response to the mores of socialism in the…...
mlaWorks Cited:
Eksteins, M. (2000). Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age. Mariner Books.
Gerth, H.H.; Mills, C.W. & Weber, M. (1958). From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Oxford University Press.
Hachmeister, L. (2006). The Goebbels Experiment. First Run Features.
Marx, K. (1992). Early Writings. Penguin Classics.
Marx's Evolving Theory Of Exploitation
As the author of the definitive Communist Manifesto, Marx was arguably one of the most influential of 19th century economists, and certainly one of the most influential of the revolutionaries of the era. ecause of the overwhelming influence which he had on the political and philosophical history of the world, it is understandable that he has a great and even fundamentalist following. However, there remains a great deal of debate about what, precisely, constitutes "Marx's Marxism," as Kliman (1997) would call it. One of the difficulties in pinpointing authentic Marxism is the fact that Marx was hardly consistent in his writings throughout his lifetime, but continued to think and evolve as time progressed. (Kliman, 1997; Howard, 1990) If one were to compare Marx's "Alienated Labor" (1994) and Capital (1961/1967), for example, one would see a definite change in his perspective on the way in which capitalism…...
mlaBibliography
Howard, M. & King, J. A History of Marxian Economics: Volume II, 1929-1990. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Kliman, A. "A Contribution to the Ongoing Inquiry into the Existence of Marx's Marxism"
Submitted for discussion to the International Working Group in Value Theory. Miniconference at the Eastern Economic Association Conference. Washington, D.C.,
Lee, C. "Marx's Labour Theory of Value Revisited." Cambridge Journal of Economics 17, 1993.
45). ith the ideology of the ownership class necessarily becoming the dominant ideology throughout the world not simply through the spread of industry and capitalism but through dramatic changes in international trade and economies brought about by capitalist/industrialist changes in single countries, the bourgeoisie acquires (or acquired) dramatic power to shape global events and politics through their shaping of the thoughts that can be had and the modes by which they can be expressed -- through their control over rhetorical interpretations and expression, in other words.
Implications of Marx's Rhetorical Theory
Using a Marxist approach to rhetorical theory has a variety of benefits and drawbacks to theorists and critics working from many different perspectives. The benefits to such a perspective are clear, if somewhat ominous -- they give concrete and measurable ways in which to develop an understanding of thought itself, and of how thoughts are created and expressed (and how…...
mlaWorks Cited
Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick. Manifesto of the Communist Party. 1848. Accessed 28 February 2013. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf
Marx, Karl. The German Ideology. 1845. Accessed 28 February 2013. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm
Marx on Labor
Heilbroner's honesty at the onset of his writing on Karl Marx reveals the flaws and distortion contained within the often complex, if not mystical tone of Marx's philosophy. The admitted sheer immensity of work produced by Marx and his partner Engels cannot be completely understood. The author confessed " the collected works compromise forty volumes, each 700-1000 pages in length. I have no room for many documents of great historical importance." This dismissal is proof of the limited value of Marx and his theory. Cherry picking this and that from any collection suggests an inconsistency, if not cloaking, of the true essence of Marx's art.
Regardless of the irrationality behind the author's analysis, there are still worthwhile ideas contained within the writing. The alignment of Marx and Adam Smith's appreciation for the value of labor and the corresponding explanations of each demonstrated a quality of humanity in both philosophers'…...
In other words, he changes, and for Marx, the capitalist cannot change until forced to do so, specifically by the revolution he and Engels call for in the Communist Manifesto. Marx sees the economic development of history as a matter of class struggle, following the dialectic of Hegel as opposing forces fight and through that revolution produce a synthesis, or a new social order. Dickens sees change as possible more simply by showing people the error of their ways and so getting them to change to a different way of behaving. Marx sees the need for a revolution to force any change into existence.
Again, the England described by Dickens was the England that helped produce Karl Marx and that contributed to his social theory. Both Marx and Dickens see the social ills of the time and ascribe these to the greed and single-minded pursuit of money on the part…...
mlaWorks Cited
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Provided.
Marx, Karl. "The Duchess of Sutherland and Slavery." 1953. Provided.
Tucker, Richard C. The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: W.W. Norton, 1978.
eber and Marx on Labor
In the 19th century, leading social theorists such as Karl Marx and Max eber believed that because its many inherent contradictions, the capitalist system would inevitably fall into a decline.
More than a century later, however, the capitalist system is far from dead. Rather, it appears to be further entrenched, encircling the world in the stranglehold of globalization.
Despite the continued growth of capitalism, however, this paper argues that both Marx and eber's writings remain relevant to explaining many aspects of advanced industrial capitalism. In this paper, the Marx and eber's writings on estranged labor are explored in detail, to examine if the labor theories both men used to analyze capitalism and the plight of workers in the 19th century can also be applied to 21st century capitalism.
The first part of this paper discusses Marx's theory of estranged labor, as written in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of…...
mlaWorks Cited
Alarcon-Gonzales, Diana and Terry McKinley, "The adverse effects of structural adjustments on working women in Mexico" Latin American Perspectives, 26, 3, May 1999, 103-117. Available from Proquest Database.
A ore, Tom, ed. A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Second Edition. London: Basil Blackwell, 1991.
Coser, Louis. Masters of Sociological Thought. New York: Harcourt Brace Janovich, 1977.
Lee, Matthew T. And Ermann, David. "Pinto madness as a flawed landmark narrative: an organization of and network analysis." Social Problems, Feb 1999 v46 i1 p30(1). Proquest Database.
Cultural Power
Karl Marx, Max Weber, Antonio Gramsci and Pierre Bourdieu all conceptualize culture power in different ways. Each identifies the agent (the specific social group) which acquires and makes use of cultural power as well as the means by which the agents acquire and maintain cultural power.
As Marx and Engels observe in The German Ideology, "The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it" (64). Thus, for Marx, laborers were the specific group that needed to acquire power from the elites (capitalists), owners of the means of production. The means of production were, of course, the laborers. Communism was the ideology that would free the laborers from subservience to the owners of capital.
For Weber, culture…...
Legacies of Marx and Engels
The publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848 by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels formed the basis for a variety of ideologies. Some of these ideas have been modified and adapted by both communists and capitalists in the ensuing years. However, a number of Marx's ideas can be shown to be erroneous and/or outdated in light of events which have taken place since the time Marx and Engels wrote.
Marx believed that human history unfolds in distinct stages, and that these stages follow a distinct order, with one unfolding to reveal the next. According to Marx, scientific laws, which can be discovered by man using his innate powers of reason, govern the progression of these stages, and thus the progression of history can be foretold. This basic idea has often been applied by modern political and economic theorists as they make predictions of how events will unfold…...
Monticello, the mansion that Thomas Jefferson designed in the hills of Virginia near the State University that he founded, has three portraits that are to be found on the wall of President Jefferson's study that have remained there for 200 years. These portraits are of three writers Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and John Locke. Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and acquired the Louisiana Purchase form the French, refers to these three as "the greatest men who ever lived." e see Lockean reasoning reflected in the Declaration where Jefferson says that we hold life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to be self-evident truths. A similar reverence was afforded Karl Marx in the Soviet Union, where many streets and several smaller cities were named after Marx and his fellow communist Frederick Engels. One could argue that the primary ideologies of the 20th-century were those of Locke and Marx, as…...
mlaWe can see the best examples of these 19th century economic theories in the works of Henry George, a populist who wished to ensure plurality by limiting the ability of property owners to hoard natural resources, and Herbert Spencer, an English sociologist who incorporated Darwinism into his defenses of what is now termed 'classical' liberalism and famously advocated "the right to ignore the state."
Locke, John, Second Treatise on Self-Government. http://www.swan.ac.uk/poli/texts/locke/lockcont.htm
Marxist Origins of Communism, George Mason University. http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/marx1.htm
There is no distinction between products that are exchanged to fill actual needs and those created to fulfill desires. This disregard for the true dynamic of capitalism creates the false perception that no crises can result. Marx however holds that the apologetics are vocal only in times of prosperity, while they are conspicuously silent during times when crises do ensue.
The most prominent related debate around globalization today revolves around the benefits (or lack thereof) of free market principles. Many hold that the free market system is beneficial for all participants, while others believe that the system perpetuates the poverty of third-world countries attempting to participate in the world market. At the same time, the richest countries become ever richer as a result.
The type of denial of the possibility of increasing poverty is reminiscent of the apologetic denial of crisis. Poverty is increased in poor countries by denying them the…...
Management
Karl Marx is highly regarded as one of the foremost authorities in economics and social structure. It is through his beliefs that the thought process of Marxism was created. Although very controversial in this thoughts and beliefs, Marx outlined, what he believed to be, a social framework for society. According to Marx, society often begins a series of transformations directly related to the primary flow of labor and production (Singer, 200). Through division of labor each organizational structure has a central conflict. According to Marx, each organizational structure is characterized with conflict among different parts of society with particular emphasis on economic status. Marx focused a disproportionate amount of his research on the social relationships between the economic classes prevailing in society (Marx, 1990). Marx tended to focus on the relationships between entry level workers and those of their immediate supervisor. Marx identified historical epochs from the beginning of…...
mlaReferences:
1) Curtis, Michael (1997). Marxism: the inner dialogues. Transaction Publishers. p.201- 291. ISBN 978-1-56000-945-0
2) David McLellan 1973 Karl Marx: His life and Thought. New York: Harper and Row. pp. 189 -- 190
3) Engels, Frderick "Principles of Communism" contained in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 6 (International Publishers, New York, 1976) pp. 341-357.
4) Enrique D. Dussel; Fred Moseley (2001). Towards an unknown Marx: a commentary on the manuscripts of 1861 -- 63. Psychology Press. pp. 33 -- 67. ISBN 978-0-415-21545-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=-Ld9fM0DOYQC&pg=PR33 .
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Wacquant, L. (2009). Punishing the poor; the neoliberal government of social insecurity...
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Butler, T. (2007). Understanding social inequality. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif:
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