Marxisim versus Social Democracy (original) (raw)
Marx’s concept of the working class and some trends in the development of capitalism
2013
Marx's concept of the working class and some trends in the development of capitalism Nicolás Iñigo Carrera rom different, and even opposed, theoretical perspectives, there is nowadays almost unanimous agreement that during the 1960s and 1970s capitalism went through important changes. The main and most widely circulated points of view state that there has been a deep change in society, and that this change implies the disappearance of social classes, particularly of the working class, which have been replaced by new social and political subjects. These statements are not politically naïve, and must be considered within the historical context in which they emerged: no matter how conscious their authors were of their political implications, the assertion of the disappearance or lack of importance of the working class became an important part of the capitalist offensive led by the most concentrated capital (financial capital) in response both to the social and national liberation struggles around the world during the fifties and the sixties, and to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Thus, this offensive, which is clearly recognized in the policies implemented by governments such as those headed by Reagan in the USA, Thatcher in Great Britain and military dictatorships in South America (and, less evidently, in the fall of the Soviet Union), also had its-special forces‖ in the intellectual and academic world. The capitalist offensive in the intellectual field, which contributed to isolate workers' struggles from the rest of society, was displayed in two converging assertions: a) the working class disappears or, at least, loses economic, social and political weight and is replaced, in these fields, by F 20 Marx's concept of the working class… Workers of the World, Volume I, Number 2, Jan. 2013-new social movements‖; b) the Marxist definition of the working class is no longer applicable to the new society. My purpose here is not to present a new theoretical argument, but to recover Marx's concept of the working class 1 and show its pertinence to account for the most important tendencies in the present capitalist phase. Therefore, the first part of this article deals with Marx's concept of the working class, which is not restricted to factory workers, though, at the same time, distinguishes them from other workers exploited by capital. The second part deals with some tendencies pointed out by Marx and later Marxiststhe decreasing rate of rural and agricultural Population and the absolute and/or relative increase of proletarians, of the non-productive population and of the surplus population. Finally, I analyse these tendencies in the Argentinean case. Marx's concept of working class The argument that sustains the disappearance or weakening of the working class in today's capitalism requires a theoretical license: to restrict the working class only to industrial or factory workers. This reductionism has also been common among acknowledged Marxist intellectuals. Jürgen Kuczynski, for example, pointed out that-the modern working class is a product of the machine‖:-the machine created the working class. The authentic modern workers, therefore, are those of the factories‖. 2 Although Kuczynski expanded his definition to include miners and building workers and then referred to factory workers as the-industrial proletariat‖, his general idea was that the working class was directly linked to machines. This assertion distinguishes modern workers of the capitalist mode of production from pre-industrial, pre-capitalist workers; but it excludes all non-industrial workers and the relative surplus population, that has increased in number and relative weight along with the development of capitalism, as a result of the-general law of capitalist accumulation‖. According to Marx, productive activity is not only production, but also distribution, exchange (circulation) and consumption of commodities, 1 There are several interpretations of Marx's theories, some of them opposing-juvenile‖ and-mature‖ writings or Capital and the Grundrisse. We believe these are false oppositions.
Marx and the critique of capitalism
In this article excerpted from the International relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity, edited by Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith. It examines Marx’s arguments against capitalism. For a summary of ideology opposed to capitalism. Criticism of Capitalism ranges from expressing disagreement with the principles of capitalism in its entirety, to expressing disagreement with particular outcome of capitalism. In discussions of world politics, it is not uncommon for Marxism to be dismissed out of hand as being preoccupied with economics rather than politics, and concerning itself with domestic rather than international social relations. In this article I will suggest to the contrary that Marxist theory aims at a critical understanding of capitalism as an historically particular way of organizing social life, and that this form of social organization entails political, cultural, and economic aspects which need to be understood as a dynamic ensemble of social relations not necessarily contained within the territorial boundaries of nation states. Viewed in this way, Marxism can yield insights into the complex social relationships—on scales from the workplace and the household to the global—through which human beings produce and reproduce their social relations, the natural world, and themselves. Marx was one of the most incisive critics of a peculiarly modern form of social life capitalism. For Marx, capitalism was not to be confused with markets or exchange, which long predated capitalism. Rather, capitalism represented a form of social life in which commodification had proceeded to such a degree that human labour itself was bought and sold on the market. One of Marx’s central insights was that this situation presupposed the development of historically specific class-based relations and powers: the concomitant development of capital—socially necessary means of production reconstituted as the exclusive private property of a few—and wage labour as the compulsory activity of the many. Under the class relations of capitalism, direct producers are not personally tied to their exploiter, as were slaves in bondage to their master or feudal serfs bound to the lord’s estate.
Karl Marx (1818 -1883) was a German philosopher who endorsed the idea that socialism, and eventually communism, would succeed capitalism as the ultimate economic system. Throughout his academic career, Marx's Capital (1873) provides one of the most comprehensive sets of criticisms against capitalism. Marx argues that capitalism involves not only the exchange of commodities, but also the advancement and transformation of capital, in order to generate profit. Marx uses the labor theory of value to criticize the way capitalism makes profit through the exploitation of workers, which method is criticized by many economists for neglecting the importance of capital ownership. Marx also criticizes capitalism of alienating workers and taking away their power of self -actualization. This essay attempts to re -examine and justify both criticisms.