How did Karl Marx view America - Essay Example

The USA during the life of Karl Marx was a rapidly developing capitalist country, but social antagonisms were not as clear in the USA as they were in the UK during the life of Karl Marx. But in general the views of Marx about Great Britain and the USA are the same, as the last one turned into economical giant and the strongest economy of the world already at the beginning of the twentieth century. American society based on democratic values and free market relations is a classic capitalist society according to Karl Marx.

America's one of the fundamental values is a property right, and protection of private property is one of the central goals of the USA system. Marx made an excellent job in studying the origins of the state, family, private property, the evolution of social relations and social formations. He brilliantly explained the nature and origins of economical relations from the point of view of political economy. Arguing that capitalist relations were unjust because the producers (workers) didn't have the means of production and had no property rights on the products they were producing because means of production were the property of capitalists and bourgeoisie, Marx made a prediction that capitalist formation will be changed by a new just and fair social formation with no private property- formation of communism.

He characterized capitalist relations as follows: "Bourgeois productive relations. That's why bourgeois social formation ends the prehistory of human society."( Marx 1992:21)Marx considered the ruling class to be the class that had the means of production in his property. In his works talking about dominating class he mentioned bourgeoisie, but mainly bankers and industrial magnates. Small business, engineers, teachers, clerks considered to be the class of philistines and were the main support of big bourgeoisie.

Oppression was characterized basically by the fact that bourgeoisie had all the essential means of production, capital, power, ideologists, police, judicial system and periodicals.The oppressed class by Karl Marx was proletariat. He didn't rely in the social revolution on peasants as they were considered to be property owners and were more attached to capitalist, market relations as workers, because they had private property. Peasants had some property rights and were defended by law, as they were among the main producers of agricultural goods.

The working class got its democratic rights only nominally. In the 1850ies democracy was just developing and it was on the initial stage of the development and it had a form of formal democracy. People who were told that they've got something but in fact had nothing considered they to be out of share, its human psychology. The desire to have the promised rights stimulated unrest in the circles of workers. Liberty, equality and the demand for education rights were the basic demands of workers.

Criticizing unjust and unequal conditions of living of workers and bourgeoisie Marx made an assumption that capitalist relations will be replaced once by another form of social and economical