Summary of the Chapter Marxist Worldviews - Assignment Example

The main reason why Karl Marx was opposed to Capitalism as an economic system was that capitalism, for him, alienates the laborers (the producers) from what they produce. What this means in essence is that since in a capitalist economic system the means of production are owned by a few people (the bourgeoisie), the labourers receive only an insignificant share of the profit that results from their work, and for this reason Marx argued that capitalism alienates the labourers by underpaying them and by denying them a chance to be part of the profit that is made from their labour.

As a remedy to the unjust and the flawed economic system, Karl Marx proposed his own economic system that he was deeply convinced that its adoption and implementation would render justice to the poor, thus ensuring that there is peace in the society. Marx proposed Communism as his ideal economic system. In his development of Communism as an economic theory, Marx was influenced by both Hegel and Engels. Marx adopted Hegel’s idea that the history of the world proceeds in a dialectic process.

Marx, however, differed with Hegel in that, while Hegel had explained the history of the world in terms of the dialectic movement of ideas, Marx explained the history of the world in terms of the dialectic movement of material things, hence, Marx’s account of history is known as dialectic materialism. On the other hand, Marx took Engel’s idea that the laborers are alienated from their work in a capitalist society. In his account of the history of the world, Marx saw the thesis of the history as the status quo economic system, the antithesis of the status quo economic system comes about when there is the conflict between the owners of the means of production in the prevailing economic system and the laborers.

The conflict between the owners of production and the laborers who are opposed to the economic system give rise to a synthesis, which is a new economic system.