Polsci Tutorial Class 5
Marxism
- Marx + Engels. Later Lenin and Stalin
- Theory of history and program of political action. Philosophers have only interpreted the world
differently, the point is to change it
-
- Marx designated human history as encompassing four stages of development in relations of
production:
1. Primitive communism: co-operative tribal societies.
2. Slave society: development of tribal to city-state in which aristocracy is born.
3. Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class while merchants evolve into the bourgeoisie.
4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the proletariat.
Proletariat: "[T]he class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of
their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to
live."31(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism#cite_note-31) The capitalist mode of
production establishes the conditions that enable the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat
as the worker's labour generates a surplus value greater than the worker's wage.
Lumpenproletariat: the outcasts of society, such as the criminals, vagabonds, beggars, or
prostitutes, without any political or class consciousness. Having no interest in national, let alone
international, economic affairs, Marx claimed that this specific sub-division of the proletariat
would play no part in the eventual social revolution.
Bourgeoisie: those who "own the means of production" and buy labour power from the proletariat,
thus exploiting the proletariat. They subdivide as bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie.
Petite bourgeoisie: those who work and can afford to buy little labour power (i.e. small business
owners, peasants landlords and trade workers). Marxism predicts that the continual reinvention
of the means of production eventually would destroy the petite bourgeoisie, degrading them
from the middle class to the proletariat.
Landlords: a historically important social class who retain some wealth and power.
Peasantry and farmers: a scattered class incapable of organizing and effecting socio-economic
change, most of whom would enter the proletariat while some would become landlords.
- Ideas are seen as underlying the means of production. Capitalism is only a
step in the progress of history
- Means of production - there is a connection to the superstructure of
juridical, political, religious, philosophical, other ideas
- Believe capitalism to be exploitative
- Promotes lie that growth of productive capital is good for all
- Exploitation - surplus labour - beyond what is received in
goods
- Based on labour theory of value
- Criticisms: empirically untrue that more
labour intensive = more profits (called "the great contradiction")
- Pilkington writes the following: [V]alue is
attributed to objects due to our desire for them. This desire, in turn, is
inter-subjective. We desire to gain [a] medal or to capture [an] enemy flag [in
battle] because it will win recognition in the eyes of our peers. [A] medal [or
an enemy] flag are not valued for their objective properties, nor are they
valued for the amount of labour embodied in them, rather they are desired for
the symbolic positions they occupy in the inter-subjective network of desires.
-
HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
‘legal and political superstructure’ arise from the ‘economic base’, the real foundation of society. This
‘base’ consists essentially of the ‘mode of production’ or economic system – feudalism, capitalism,
socialism and so on.
Rejecting the idealism of the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), who believed that history
amounted to the unfolding of the so-called ‘world spirit’, Marx held material circumstances to be
fundamental to all forms of social and historical development. This reflected the belief that the production
of the means of subsistence is the most crucial of all human activities.
History:
- 1917 - october revolution - Bolsheviks (founded by Lenin) took power from russian provisional govt
(which had come after abdication of nicholas II)
1929-32 - dekulakization - kulaks (prosperous peasants) as class enemies. Collectivization of soviet
union. All agriculture and labourers brought under state control. Kulaks blamed for famine (on kulak
counter revolution)
"The kulaks are the furious enemies of socialism. We must destroy them, don't take them to the kolkhoz,
you must take away their property, their inventory." - red army
Political Correctness - appeared in Marxist Leninist vocabulary in 1917.
It was “politically incorrect” to reveal such facts; the “party line” was for all loyal communist party members
to promote the same “politically correct truths” about the “good life” under totalitarian government. (In
addition, it entailed strict adherence to the Soviet Union’s current foreign policy: American Communists
firmly opposed military preparedness against Nazi Germany during the operation of the Nazi-Soviet Pact,
then a swift turnabout to being pro-war once the Germans invaded Russia.)
Also, in 1970s - translation from Chinese texts from cultural revolution
Struggle sessions - self criticism (in soviet union)
In some [communist states], party members who had fallen out of favor with the [nomenklatura] were
sometimes forced to undergo self-criticism sessions, producing either written or verbal statements
detailing their ideological errors and affirming their renewed belief in the [party line).
Soviet union - public interrogation of suspected intellectuals as part of proletarization
Cambodia - Khmer Rouge - self critivism used to increase social cohesion. Still there in North Korea
1922 - CCP founded. Chinese Civil War. Maoism developed. 1949 - people's republic of china. 1966-76 -
cultural revolution to purge capitalism
1959 - Cuban revolution - Fidel Castro
Cultural revolution - up to 20m death toll. Culutral and economic destruction. People of accused of being
in "5 bad categories" (landlords, rich farmers, counter revolutionaries, bad influencers, rightists).
Subjected to [public humiliation], imprisonment, torture, hard labor, seizure of property, and sometimes
execution or harassment into suicide. Intellectuals persecuted, 10m young ones sent to coutnryside.
As the movement escalated, students formed paramilitary groups called the Red Guards, which attacked
and harassed ‘capitalist roaders’ and members of China’s elderly and intellectual populations. Not only
were wage differentials and all forms of privilege and hierarchy denounced, but even competitive sports
like football were banned. There was also a dramatic purge of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as
well as of officeholders in the economy, education and cultural institutions.
Holodomor - 4-7M deaths (1932-33). Result of forced communalism, According to Solzhenytsin, caused
by robbery of peasants by bolshevik fgrain procurements
Leninism and Stalinism
Took over empire. Dictatorship of the proletariat to stop democracy
Developed Marx's idea to mean organization of oppressed as ruling class to crush the
oppressors. Doctrine of single party rule
Criticism unwelcome - "factionalism" "unbusinesslike" "treason"
Political correctness
Soviet nationalism
Gulags - forced labour camps. Family members imprisoned too
Orwell - how dictatorship is described as democracy, repression of movements is freedom,
differences are equality. Road to Wigan Pier
Eventually became shameful to be a communist
Road to Serfdom - distributed intelligence
Solzhynitsin - Gulag Archipelago
Social democrats
No allegiance to Marx, anti-state
Equality, justice
There were attempts to remove the above from platform. succeeded
Pragmatic
Unleash human artistic potential
Abolition of bouregious property. Personal property
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism
Russia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Chile, Germany
Marx did not anticipate small businesses. Late 1800s - this wasn't happening much
Communism - classless stateless society
Socialism: large govt, vanguard party
Criticize Piketty
Economic Calculation Problem
Mises:
Minimum wage
Price ceilings
The most significant of these are: • community • cooperation • equality • class politics • common
ownership
John Donne (1571–1631): No man is an Island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a
part of the main … any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
"comrade"
Collectivism - different conceptions (individuals, state control), kibbutz
Cooperation - experiments in worker-managed stores and farms
Equality of outcomes. Tawney: survival of the fittest mentality
GROUP 5
15
18
7
5
19
3
4
6
17
9
10
1
GROUP 6
37
26
25
23
34
35
29
33
22
21
28
38
24
32
GROUP 8
72
68
69
61
71
66
67
64
63
74
73
62
75
70
58
59
