Skip to main content

What is Marxism? A short article

 The Philosophy and Science of Marxism


Dialectical Materialism  

Marxist dialectical materialism developed in opposition to Hegelian dialectical idealism and Feuerbachian mechanical materialism. Marx's Dialectical Materialism shows us the eternally changing nature of all phenomena.

The validity of this philosophy is proven in the field of natural science. For example the constantly changing nature of all phenomena can be seen in Darwin's theory of evolution.

 

Historical Materialism Historical materialism is the science of society that explains the development of society. It explains how society goes through changes as the forces of production develops. As a consequence of the development of the economic system (forces of production and the relation to them), the ideas of that society changes. We can see this through the development of society from feudalism to capitalism and how our ideas have changed in capitalism.


The Political Economy of Marxism Marx continued Adam Smith and David Ricardo's work on the capitalist economic system and further developed on the labour theory of value. Marx showed how the value of commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary labour time spent on it. He goes on to explain the appropriation of surplus value from the workers and how they are only paid enough for their subsistence. In his most monumental work 'Capital', Marx goes on to critique the capitalist system and it's anarchic nature of production.


Scientific Socialism After the downfall of feudalism and as society moved towards capitalism, various ideas emerged to propose a more humane form of society free from oppression. However, these theories were rather idealist in nature and had no materialist analysis and couldn't explain the inherently exploitative nature of capitalism. Marx's Scientific Socialism addresses the question of class struggle and the workers' central role in the revolution and socialist construction as they are the most exploited class by the bourgeoisie.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marx’s Theory of Alienation

Capitalist alienation is a Marxist notion that refers to individuals' estrangement or separation from their work, the output of their labour, and each other within the capitalist mode of production. This phenomena arises from capitalism's fundamental contradictions, which result in a system in which labour is commodified and employees are reduced to mere appendages of the means of production. Capitalist alienation happens when labour is converted into a commodity that can be bought and sold on the market just like any other commodity. As a result, the labour of the worker is separated from the product, and the worker is alienated from the outcome of their labour. Furthermore, workers are cut off from their own creative potential because their job is dictated by the necessities of the capitalist system rather than their own aspirations and interests. "The alienation of man thus appeared as the fundamental evil of capitalist society.”   ―   Karl Marx , Selected Writings in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Karl Marx: On The Great Indian Revolt of 1857

Marx's observations on the Revolt of 1857 are a distinctive component to the study of modern Indian history. Marx was almost the very first to grasp the true nature of the revolt. Karl Marx wrote 31 articles about the 1857 Indian revolt from July to Oct 1857 for the American newspaper 'New York Daily Tribune (NYDT)’. Although the British called it a mutiny/uprising, Marx called 1857 'a national revolt' . When Marx began writing articles about India in the New York Times in 1853, he saw the British as India's saviours. He regarded British colonialism as a necessary evil to break Asia's sluggish economy by investing in the forces required for capitalist expansion. Marx characterized British colonization in India as the "Double Mission of the British". In the puberty, they were contributing positively by breaking down India's Asiatic mode of production, which was hampering its path to capitalism. Second, they were rejuvenating the economy in order t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Analysis of Marx's "On the Jewish Question"

Marx's most explicit work on the subject of human rights is "On the Jewish Question" which appeared in 1844 in the "Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher". In this article, Marx takes a polemic against the ideas of his old friend and master Bruno Bauer, who had recently turned against the battle of German Jews for full citizenship rights, as has been the situation in France since Napoleon. Bauer's criticism of the Jewish citizen's rights campaign was based on the fact that as an emancipation movement it was not radical enough, in his opinion. According to Bauer... the people are guilty of a huge mistake in disconnecting the Jewish question from the general question of the time and [they] did not consider that not only the Jews, but also we want to be emancipated." According to Bauer, the Jewish question was not settled with the offering of citizens' rights to the Jewish population since the roots of this question were very deep, notably in the (Jewish...
Post a Comment
Read more