Class in a Capitalist Society - Literature review Example

in a Capitalist Society A Perspective of Marx’s of Historical Materialism Introduction: Three great scholars belonging to the second half ofthe nineteenth century have a special place in the study of Sociology viz. Karl Marx (1818-1883), Max Weber (1864-1920), and Emile Durkheim (1858-1917). Because they were the very first to put forth such distinctly sociological analyses (Zuckarman, 2004), which influenced several nations like Russia and China to adopt an entirely new way governance, and economic development, indeed, they are called the “trinity” of Social Theories (Hurst, 2000; Giddens, 1971; Hadden, 1997; Altschuler, 1998; Pampel, 2000; Gane, 1988). But was Karl Marx, sometimes in collaboration with friend and political economist, Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) who revolutionized the relationship of material production and the role of human beings within social structures. He devoted a good part of his time to economic studies on the flaws of the capitalist society; and produced some famous works like the ‘Communist Manifesto’ (1848) and ‘Das Capital’ (1867), with one aim: the self-emancipation of the working class. Hegel (1770-1831) and Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 -1872) are two theorists who affected Marx very strongly. The concept of Historical Materialism: In his ‘Introduction to Theses On Feuerbach’ (1845), Marx commences his own distinctive posit on Materialism, based on Feuerbach’s critique of Hegel’s ‘Theory of the Right’ (1821).His view of history is very different from the others. Marx, states that “it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness (Marx and Engels, 1859: pp 503-504). According to Hegel (1821), God created everything from Him, thus ‘God’ was the ‘Absolute Idea’. Then, due to the nature of the material world opposing God, the ‘negation’ or ‘alienation’ from God occurred; this was a dialectic or a clash of opposite forces; until a third stage of the growth of man’s consciousness, would reconcile with the ‘Absolute Idea’ and return to a state of original consciousness. It had at its centre that all events are predetermined by God. Feuerbach (1841) argued that, the faculty of thought, which is the property of human beings, was the ruling principle of existence, and not God, as theorized by Hegel, and love was what united them. Marx, while agreeing with Hegel in part by accepting the ‘clash of opposing forces’ notion, he rejected Hegel’s view of the ‘Absolute Idea’. Marx posited that ‘labour’ was the ‘essence of man’; which unites him as a ‘social being’ and determined his ‘Consciousness’. According to Marx, the processes of life, such as ‘social, political and intellectual,’ are in general, determined ‘by the mode of production of material life’ and specific stages - social and historical, and these prevented people from seeing the material conditions of their lives clearly. Marx felt that, history did have a definite pattern; though was not merely ‘the progress of the human mind’ (Callinicos, 1983), as viewed by earlier theorists. Marx’s starting point of history is not thought but ‘the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions of their life, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity’ (Marx & Engels, 1847: p 31). According to Marx, Production, involved people working together and labour was a social activity. Labour involves “a twofold relation: on the one hand as a natural, on the other as a social relation” (Marx & Engels, 1847: p. 43). Thus, explains Callinicos (1983), in “The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx”, the analysis of history is based on Marx’s distinction between the means of production. To put it simply, a) Human beings are a part of nature and must produce and reproduce in order to survive. b) Only ‘Conscious life activity’ differentiates man from animals. c) While animals are limited by their genetic makeup in their range of activities, Man has the ‘power of reflective thinking’ d) With the help of this power they refine the method of production, i.e. use technology. Therefore, history of human beings, according to Marx is, is all about the ways of transformation in which, the same species has organized themselves, to meet the requirements. Nature, here means, physical things like land and natural resources, and technology means, the tools necessary for the production of material goods. Together, they are called ‘Forces of Production’. People enter into social relationships and cooperate with each other, to use the means of production, and produce. This then, is the Social relations of Production. Production is controlled by two aspects: 1) The nature of relationship between the human beings involved: like allocation of work, skill-sets of the individual etc 2) The means of production ex. raw materials, the instruments of technology. Herein rises the concept of Class Society – it is in effect the “possession of the means of production by a minority” (Callinicos, 1983: p. 87)The separation of production from the means of distribution necessitates that the labourer’s outcome is split into two parts 1) Provides sustenance to himself and dependents 2) Provides Surplus Labour. The structure of the Class society is based on the exploitation, of surplus labour by the few who control the means of production. A certain stage in the “development of the methods of labour and thereby its social productivity” always denotes “the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers” (Marx, 1971: p. 791) is the economic development of the society. This forms the Base Structure of the Social Relationship, on which other constructs like the sociological and ideological are developed. They are called the Super-Structures. The Hegelian dialectic, accepted by Marx, comes in here and he explains Class –Struggles as the clash of the opposing forces, and the “existence of classes is only bound up with particular phases in the development of production,” and it “necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat,” and “that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society” (Marx & Engels, 1965: p 69). Therefore, according to Marx’s perception “the fact that human beings are material bodies”; hence “they need material bodies (food etc.) to maintain themselves in existence… The basis of historical development is the development of material production. This is an emphatic rejection of idealism, a materialist philosophy of history” (Kilcullen, 1996). Class in a Capitalist Society in relation to historical materialism Marx believed that, ‘labour [is] the essence of man’ (Marx & Engels, 1844: p. 333) and it was indeed labour that formed the basis of social relationships. Since Marx concluded that human beings are fundamentally social beings, he rejects the concept of Capitalism as a system in which individuals are considered as existing outside society. In the Capitalist system, people trade their surplus labour, in return for the work done by them, within a given period of time; here they do not sell the direct product of their industry, and instead, sell their working capacity. The money received as compensation for this capacity to work becomes the means of their survival, as against the system of selling a part of their-own produce for survival. Thus, those who have to sell their ‘surplus labour’ or labour power, in order to make a living, are “proletarians.” Mostly, such persons who buy this labour power are people who own the land and technology to produce: they are called “Capitalist” or “Bourgeois.” Furthermore, Callinicos (1983 p. 70) elucidates Marx’s theory, that under the Capitalist system, the proletarians control neither the produce of their labour, nor do they control the process of labour itself. Therefore, a proletariat under the Capitalist system, no longer affirms his humanity, because he does not labour for his primary existence or ‘life activity’ which is the essence of being human. In other words, Marx posits, that Man under the Capitalist society has ‘alienated’ himself from his basic nature. Thereby, this state of ‘alienated labour’ is the very basis of Capitalism, in which the non-worker or the Capitalist controls the worker and profits from the labour of others. Marx states that the proletariat is dominated thus by an ‘alien being’ which is nothing but the Capital itself, in the form of the products of his labour. The ‘wages’ for the proletariat, ‘are determined through the antagonistic struggle between capitalist and worker’ (Marx & Engels, 1844: p.235), in such Capitalist Societies, argues Marx. Since the Capitalist society is made of individuals, it is prone to the ills of being in constant conflict. The minority of people having control over the wages and the means of production of the proletariat causes conflict. Indeed Class Struggles arise because of such conflicts. Though, it is only when social groups recognize and oppose each other’s interests that ‘Classes’ come into being, the struggles surface once they are formed. Marx states in the opening line of this Communist Manifesto (1844) that, “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” The class struggles are decisive factors in ushering in Socialism. Capitalism however, tended to go through to periodic problems. Marx suggests through the passage of time, Capitalists will tend to diminish their investments in labour and turn their attention to new technologies, as a part of controlling the means of production. And according to Marx, the ‘Capitalist market’ as he put it, has the ‘surplus value’ exploited from labour as the source of its profits. Therefore, he deduces that, even though the economy itself may grow, the rate of profit would fall. This then, shall effect a recession or depression, causing some sectors of the economy to collapse. Paradoxically, the cheapening of labour would eventually pave the way for investment to flow into new technologies and cause anew economic boom. Thus, in the Capitalist system, relations of production are very specific the development of that epoch of the society, and transitory in nature. ‘Economic categories are only the abstractions of the social relations of production,’ states Marx (Marx & Engels, 1848: p.165). Everything changes when the society changes. The Society is a ‘unity of opposites’, and every period of change in history is the struggle of these opposites, explains Callinicos (1983, p 71). Further more, when an economic structure does not improve the productive forces — it ‘fetters’ the productive forces, the failings of the structure will cause a revolution and the epoch will change (Marx & Engels, 1843: pp. 503-504). Thus, ‘fettering’ becomes complement to the concept of functional explanation (Wolff, 2003). In the context of Capitalism, it will be replaced by Socialism, just as Fuedalism was replaced by Capitalism, and Serfdom was replaced by Fuedalism and so on. This process of Social transformation will continue until such time in which the fundamental contradiction, the exploitative social relationship at the crux of society, was eliminated. Marx holds that, it was not possible to achieve this transformation of the Society, through peaceful means. A violent revolution may be necessary to bring about the required change. Marx theorizes that to maintain the socialist system, a proletarian dictatorship must be established and maintained. Capitalism may not possibly collapse under the pressure of its contradictions, and so the triumph of the working class over the Capitalists was not inevitable. When, where and how, the transformation would take place depended, finally on the consciousness, organisation and confidence of the proletariat (Callinicos, 1983: p. 80). Regarding the inevitability of the fall of Capitalism, Marxists have differing perspectives. While Callinicos (1983) held the above opinion, others like Karl Kautsky (1914), hold the view that it is a ‘historical certainty’. Some researchers like Wolff (2003), state that Marx’s critique does not explicitly attack Capitalism on moral ground because of two reasons: 1) There were many disagreeable aspects of Capitalism, from a historical point of view however, there was some good about it too. Surely, without Capitalism, Communism would not be possible. Thus, Capitalism is to be transcended, not abolished, though this may be difficult to convey in the terms of moral philosophy. 2) Marx disagreed with Utopian theories, and the most important difference was in the understanding that, the possibilities of human emancipation lay in the analysis of historical and social forces, not in morality. Therefore for Marx, any appeal to morality was theoretically retarding and disagreeable. Mike Ballard (1976) comments on the present day scenario of Socialists, that they “have fallen prey to the very mystification they have been aiming to overcome, they have turned socialism into a religion (although they may have exorcised Marx!)”. Conclusion: In summation, one can clearly state that, self-emancipation of the working class was at the centre of Marx’s philosophy of Socialism. Both, his Critique of Capitalism and the Theory of Historical Materialism, have elements of truth, which have revolutionized the modern constructs of sociology. Despite the fall of the practicing social state, viz. USSR and the East European Countries, Marx’s theories will still hold a unique place in history, for the radically new method of viewing human history, and the redefinition of Social Relationships it put forth. Bibliography Altschuler, Richard. 1998. The Living Legacy of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, volumes 1 and 2. Gordian Knot Books. New York, NY: Ballard, Mike. 1976. 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Pine Forge Press. http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/dubois_socialtheory.html Retrieved on Feb 25th 2006. Read More