Communist Manifesto Assignment PDF
Added on 2021-06-14
9 Pages2793 Words167 Views
Running head: MARXISM AND THE MODERN WORLDMarxism and the Modern WorldName of the Student:Name of the University:Author’s Note:
1MARXISM AND THE MODERN WORLD“Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in aword, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on anuninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionaryreconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”The above quoted lines from “The Communist Manifesto” of Karl Marx give anoverview of the entire concept of Marxism in a nutshell. The machinery of politics is a verytraditional and has been practiced by the various individuals since the dawn of civilization(Bowles and Gintis 2012). As a matter of fact the machineries of politics is often consideredto be one of the oldest professions of the world (Bowles and Gintis 2012). However, in therecent times it is seen that the machinery of politics has undergone much transformation onthe score of the various factors (Pashukanis 2017). Gone are the days when the variousindividuals use to rule the various states or the nations as the kings or the sovereigns of thatparticular place (Pashukanis 2017). Rather now is time when the various nations of the worldfollow the various precepts of democracy (Peffer 2014). However, along with the variousprecepts of democracy, Marxism is another concept which has gained a significant amount ofprominence in the recent times (Bowles and Gintis 2012). This essay will shed on the conceptof Marxism and will also try to find out whether Marxism is relevant in the present day worldor not.Marxism has been described by the various scholars as the “method ofsocioeconomic analysis that frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation, analyzesclass relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical developmentand takes a dialectical view of social transformation” (Peffer 2014). This particular concepthad its origin in the 19th century with the works of the “philosophers Karl Marx andFriedrich Engels” (Kamenka 2015). In the opinion of Kamenka (2015), “Marxism uses amethodology, now known as historical materialism, to analyze and critique the development
2MARXISM AND THE MODERN WORLDof capitalism and the role of class struggles in systemic economic change”. Furthermore, themost basic assumption of the theory of Marxism is that class conflict arises in the Capitalistsociety because of the contradictions in the material interests of the oppressed sections of thesociety and the bourgeoisie or the ruling class (Lichtheim 2015). It is significant to note thatthe in the Capitalist society the bourgeoisie are the individuals who holds the maximumamount of wealth as well as power and thus it is often seen that there is a discrepancybetween the people who are oppressed by the bourgeoisie class in a bid to make surplus profitand the people who are the ruling class (Lichtheim 2015). In the opinion of Bowles andGintis (2012) this class struggle forms the most basic element of the various Capitalistsocieties of the world and is commonly called by the name of “revolt of a society's productiveforces against its relations of production”. In the opinion of Marx this particular class struggleis important as it is likely to lead the oppressed or the proletariat to a revolution which in turnwill establish Socialism (Hay 1999). He defined socialism as a socioeconomic system whichis based on social ownership of the various means of production or the distribution based onone's contribution and production organized directly for use and in his opinion all thesocieties of the world should seek for the attainment of this particular kind of society (Bowlesand Gintis 2012). In the opinion of Hay (1999), Marx gives a very Utopian description of aSocialist society is very difficult to achieve in the real life scenarios.According to “Mark’s theory of the State”, there are three kinds of states, namely,the pre-Capitalist State, the Capitalist State and the post-Capitalist state (Marx et al. 2012).However, it is significant to note that this particular theory was propounded by Marx when hewas young and as he grew older and matured, his views related to the state also changed(Houtman 2017). It is a reflection of this in the 1843 identifying the state and the civilsocieties as separate and says in his “Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right” that “Thepolitical state everywhere needs the guarantee of spheres lying outside it” (Marx et al. 2012).
End of preview
Want to access all the pages? Upload your documents or become a member.
Related Documents
Relevance of Marxism in Contemporary Societylg...
|8
|2029
|177
Marxism, Elitism and Pluralism PDFlg...
|13
|3912
|60
Communist Manifesto Assignmentlg...
|6
|1056
|95
Theories of Sociologylg...
|4
|630
|40
Making Sense of Society Reportlg...
|8
|2567
|39