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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.

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