MARXISM

UNIT 2
LESSON 2
 AT THE END OF THE LESSON YOU CAN;

Identify key concepts and approaches in the Social

Science.
Interpret personal and social experiences using relevant
approaches in the social sciences.
Analyze social inequalities in terms of class conflict.
Identify the key theorists on Marxism
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the approach.
 MARXISM
Is a sociological, political and
economic philosophy that is based
on the ideas and theories of Karl
Marx (1818-1883)
In Order to understand the ideas of
Marx ;
The historical backdrop
from which he lived
The Industrial Revolution
 KARL MARX
Karl Heinrich Marx,

Born on : May 5, 1818

Born at: Trier, Rhine province,
Prussia Germany
Died : March 14, 1883, London,
England
Revolutionary, sociologist,
historian, and economist
Spent his Highschool at Trier (1830
to 1835)
In October 1835 he enrolled at
University of Bonn.
The courses he attended were
exclusively in the humanities, in
such subjects as Greek and
Roman mythology and the
history of art.
He presided at the Tavern Club,
which was at odds with the more
aristocratic student associations,
and joined a poets’ club that
included some political activists.
A politically rebellious student
culture was, indeed, part of life
at Bonn.
In October 1836 he enrolled
at the University of Berlin to
study law and philosophy.

Received his degree in

April 1841. at
University of Jena
Introduction to Hengel’s
Philosophies.
Joined the Doctors Club- was
involved in new literary
philosophical movement.
He started talking vaguely
on Political actions.
Hegelians became
republicans.
In April 1841 he enrolled at
University of Jena
Where he achieved his degree in
Philosophy.
He started to be a contributor of
the news paper the Rheinische
Zeitung. It was the liberal
democratic organ of a group of
young merchants, bankers, and
industrialists.
His life is dedicated to freedom of
the Press.
Jenny was an attractive,
intelligent, and much-
admired woman, four years
older than Karl; she came of
a family of military and
administrative distinction.
Four months after their marriage, the young couple
moved to Paris, which was then the center of
socialist thought and of the more extreme sects that
went under the name of communism.
There, Marx first became a revolutionary and a
communist and began to associate with communist
societies of French and German workingmen.
Marx befriended
Friedrich Engels , a
contributor who was to
become his lifelong
collaborator.
And in their pages appeared
Marx’s article (“Toward the
Critique of the Hegelian
Philosophy of Right”) with its
oft-quoted assertion that
religion is the “opium of the
people.” It was there, too, that
he first raised the call for an
“uprising of the proletariat” to
realize the conceptions of
philosophy.
Once more, however, the
Prussian government
intervened against Marx. He
was expelled from France and
left for Brussels—followed by
Engels in February 1845.
That year in Belgium he
renounced his Prussian
nationality.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Before the Industrial
revolution, the primary
source of living in the
European countries was
farming or agriculture
related work
 The introduction of machines enabled
rapid advancements in the production
process, which allowed fast market trade
and consumption of goods.

This development provided factory owners

with profits that enabled them to invest in
factory expansion. This cycle of production
and consumption continued to create an
economy, which became known as Industrial
Capitalism.
The Industrial bourgeoisie
capitalism created 2
classes in the society.

proletariat
bourgeoisie

Controls the means of production

(factories, machines and land)
proletariat
Who does not have access to such means
of production, exchanges labor for wages.
 The relation between the
bourgeoisie and the
proletariat is a form of
exploitation because the
former gains profit from the
labor and services of the
latter.
 KEY
CONCEPTS IN
MARXISM
 SOCIAL is characterized by the
INEQUALITY existence of unequal
opportunities and rewards for
different social positions or
statuses within a group or
society. It contains structured
and recurrent patterns of
unequal distributions of
goods, wealth, opportunities,
rewards, and punishments.
 The profit from goods should be equally divided
among the laborers since they are the ones who work
to produce such goods.

They are given low

wages and are often
ask to work in
terrible working
conditions.
Ideological
Control
The ruling class
manipulates minds so
that the masses will
remain subservient.
Class Conflict or
Class Struggle Arises from the
oppression of
the proletariat
by the
bourgeoisie
Such oppression happens
whenever a society has a
stratified and hierarchal
class division and it is more
evident in a capitalist
society, where the
manipulative force of
capitalism creates tension
between the classes.
Communist Is characterized by
society a classless society
having common
ownership of
property and
resources (means of
production).
IMPORTANT
THEORISTS
IN MARXISM
 Their most notable
work together was the
Communist
Manifesto., published
in 1848.

MARX AND ENGELS

It provided a sociological
perspective in the
understanding of history.
For Marx and Engel history is
determined by the history of
class struggle and the conflict
between the oppressor and the
oppressed.
 It points to an organized
proletariat class who would
revolt against the
bourgeoisie by amassing
political power. This is the
aim of Communism as
argued by Marx and Engels.
 An Australian Archeologist and
philologist.
specialized in the study
of European prehistory.
became the first exponent
of Marxist archaeology in the
Western world.
He used Marxist economics as a
tool in distinguishing periods of
prehistory and tracing the
evolution of Western Civilization
Vere Gordon Chlide
 Chlide classified periods of
prehistory through their
capacity to utilize the
environment in food
production process.
He maintained that
civilizations in those periods
developed and evolved as they
gradually took control of their
food production process.
Vere Gordon Chlide
 Was a German Philosopher and
sociologist.
His most notable work was
Dialectics of Enlightenment (1944).
– this was made in collaboration
with Max Horkheimer who was also
a German Philosopher.
Adorno and Horkheimer criticized
the capitalist ideology by taking off
Theodor Adorno and from where Marx began.
Max Horkheimer
It places value on
the consumerist
goods by making the
mass want and
desire to consume
them.
 Taking the argument of Marx, Adorno
applied this to the state of capitalism in
his time. Adorno Argued that commodity
and fetishism has reached beyond
material goods and has touched different
institutions and even academic
disciplines.
Human minds are conditioned to accept
the ideology without second thought and
apply capitalist ideology in their daily
lives.

Theodor Adorno
 Thus, ideology becomes
the driving force in all
human actions, a sit
provides the desire and
the objects were only
made by capitalist
system.

Theodor Adorno
 A Slovenian philosopher and sociologist.
He expounds ideology and how it directly
affects everyday reality. He argued that
reality is constructed by ideology itself.
He explains that ideology blankets society
with beliefs that paradoxically have no
believers.
He elaborates on how ideology is used by
capitalist to extract more profit from the
masses

Slavoj Zizek
The Criticism and
limitations in
Marxism
1. Communism- which aim to establish a
society with citizens being treated equally
and enjoying a communal ownership and
control of property and resources.
Counter arguments: Marxism is
criticized for the need of Class Conflict and
a revolution of the Proletariat, which are
violent in their very nature.
2. Marx Idea of Materialism- a notion which
supports that technological progress in the
modes of production results in changes to
society- is seen as very limiting.
Counter Arguments: Critics argue that
societal development takes place not only
through material changes but also through
ideas, cultures and other aspects of society.