Marx- A Complete Introduction

by Gill Hands

  ‘The animal is immediately one with its life activity. It does not distinguish itself from it. It is its life activity. Man makes his life activity itself the object of his will and of his consciousness. He has conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he directly merges. Conscious life activity distinguishes man immediately from animal life activity. It is just because of this that he is a species-being. Or it is only because he is a species-being that he is a conscious being, i.e., that his own life is an object for him. Only because of that is his activity free activity.’

  Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, 1844 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/ manuscripts/labour.htm

  Marx did not believe it was only consciousness that distinguishes us from animals and he develops this idea in The German Ideology. Here he writes that it is not just consciousness or religion that distinguish us from animals but that human beings differentiate themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their ‘means of subsistence’. Meaningful work is important to all humans. For Marx, labour is an important part of social development and fundamental to human beings, for through it we change nature and society and in the process we change our selves.

  The opposite of alienation is actualization, or affirmation of the self, which Marx believed humans achieved from the purposeful use of their consciousness. He did not believe that work was supposed to be drudgery to be done away with, as many of the Utopian Socialists believed. Work is an integral part of humanity and unless people are in right relation to it then they will be alienated; according to Marx, labour is essential to the ‘species being’ of man but the new capitalist system changed the ways that people worked so that they were not in a ‘right relation’ to their labour. The factory system, and the society that had grown up around that, had perverted the natural relations of people to the products of their labour and to each other.

  The capitalist system of working alienates all those in it, both rich and poor. Workers are alienated from the products they make because they do not benefit from them. They see the products of their labours as ‘alien and outside them’. In The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts Marx wrote that the labour of the poor provided the rich with wonderful things but left the poor in misery.

  Workers are alienated and de-personalized by the capitalist system because of the way in which the capitalist obtains surplus value from their labour. The capitalist system also means that they are told when to work, how to work and they derive very little personal satisfaction from their labours.

  The environment of some parts of the capitalist system, the factory system, is dehumanizing: it is hostile to the workers and physically and mentally damaging to them. The constant repetitive nature of the work is not harmonious with human nature. The division of labour and the way the factory system is set up is also not natural, according to Marx, because it encourages competition instead of co-operation and it alienates people from each other.

  Exploitation

  Alienation is connected to exploitation by the capitalist. Marx saw the exploitation of one class by another as a fundamental part of an industrialized capitalist society. Marx believed that there had always been exploitation but it was only under the capitalist system that exploiting others became the normal way of working. In Chapter 4 we saw that the capitalists hold the balance of power. They are able to make a profit from the surplus value because they own the means of production. The worker is not aware of the fact that he is being exploited. He believes the capitalist has a right to the surplus value that is produced because he believes that is just the way things are, or part of human nature. This kind of exploitation is not really visible, unlike the more common forms of exploitation such as making people work long hours, child labour and difficult and dangerous working practices and conditions.

  In the introduction to Das Kapital Marx says that he has not painted a picture of capitalists and landlords in a ‘rosy light’. There are many examples of explicit exploitation of workers given as examples in the book. Chapter 10, The Working Day, consists of mountains of evidence that Marx collected from reports and newspaper articles. Evidence includes children working in mines and heavy industry in appalling conditions, engine drivers working 21-hour shifts, and dressmakers and milliners forced to work in overcrowded sweatshops where they died of consumption. Capital is ‘vampire like’, writes Marx, because it sucks living labour.

  ‘Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him.’

  Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867, Chapter 10

  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm

  In the Victorian era the average age for death among the working classes was just 19 years old. Marx records descriptions of the physical state of many of the workers in British industrial cities in Das Kapital; many of the examining doctors report on the undernourished and progressively stunted growth of the working class.

  Marx believed that a shorter working day would greatly benefit those people and in most democratic countries today there are laws to regulate the hours that people have to work. The workers who had to fight for improvements in working conditions by uniting against the capitalists found their inspiration in the works of Marx.

  Marx did not make overt moral judgements on the capitalists; he tried to distance himself from any moral commentary in his writing and tried to keep true to the idea of an objective materialism. He saw Das Kapital as a scientific study. However, anyone who writes in such an emotive way as Marx does, comparing capitalists to ‘werewolves’ and ‘vampires’ (as he does in Das Kapital) is obviously not in favour of capitalism as a system and is making a moral statement. Marx applauded those who did their best to alleviate working conditions but he believed that both worker and capitalist alike are victims of the system. The capitalist is only a part of the society around him and has no choice but to continue with things the way they are, for even if a factory owner were to give away his goods and his factory somebody else would take his place. In the Grundrisse Marx appears to disagree with the Romantic ideal that believes life was better in some pre-capitalist rural idyll. He saw capitalism as a great civilizing influence but believed it was only a part of the progression of history and not the final stage of development as others at the time believed. Marx thought that it would give way to communism and that it is only under a communist system that there would be no exploitation of any kind. He believed this society would only come about when people become aware of the true nature of society and their alienation.

  Marx believed that capitalism seduces consumers by giving them desires which enslave them. The goods that a worker produces eventually enslave him because he is trapped in a cycle of working for money to buy goods; fetishism of goods means that people want to buy and consume more. The fetishism of money means that people have to sell themselves to obtain it and then desire money for its own sake. Private property also alienates people because they believe that an object only has worth if they can possess or use it. Marx even went so far as to say that people do not appreciate objects for their aesthetic beauty but only in relation to their commercial value.

  Private property, wage labour, surplus value and market forces are structures that have been constructed by people in society. These structures manipulate everyone in society but in subtle ways so they don’t realize what is happening. Because people are not aware of the way in which they are manipulated by the economy they feel alienated and do not know why. Marx believed that even capitalists are alienated but they are comfortable with this. Their power, wealth and privilege are substitutes for true happiness.

  On the other hand, the alienation of the workers is oppressive. They are the ones who truly suffer from alienation as they have nothing – neither the means of production nor the end prod
ucts. All they hold is their labour power.

  ‘The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same human self-estrangement. But the former class feels at ease and strengthened in this self-estrangement, it recognizes estrangement as its own power and has in it the semblance of a human existence. The class of the proletariat feels annihilated in estrangement; it sees in it its own powerlessness and the reality of an inhuman existence.

  Karl Marx, The Holy Family, 1845, Chapter 4

  http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/ holy-family/ch04.htm#4.4

  The capitalist cannot exist without the worker; the worker believes he cannot survive without the capitalist because of the hold that money and wage labour have over him. In The German Ideology Marx describes how the abolition of private property and regulation of labour would abolish alienation between them and their products and would let them be in control of their lives again. Marx believed that realization of alienation was a vital step towards the revolution that would bring about communism. Capitalism was in crisis due to its internal conflicts, and it would go through a series of crises that would bring it to its knees. Once the workers understood their alienation and exploitation they would rise up and help to finish it off. A revolution would take place.

  Key ideas

  Alienation The feeling of being isolated or estranged from society.

  Colonialism The second stage of imperialism, where one country takes over the governing power of another.

  Existentialist A philosophical movement based on the concept of an absurd or meaningless universe where human free will is an important factor.

  False consciousness False beliefs or values created by a culture or society.

  Fetishism Desiring, worshipping or giving excessive concern to inanimate objects; in Marxist terms this would be commodities, money or capital.

  Third World (Developing World) Poor, less industrialized and under-developed countries, often former colonies.

  Things to remember

  • Marx was interested in the ways in which the economy affected society.

  • Capitalism had spread around the world through imperialism.

  • Communism could also spread around the world, but colonies would only be ready for revolution after industrialization had taken place.

  • Marx described how fetishism of money, capital and commodities alienated people.

  • Alienation is connected to exploitation.

  • People are alienated by a society that they have constructed but they don’t realize this.

  • Workers are oppressed by their alienation because they do not own the means of production.

  • Capitalists are alienated but are happy in their alienation because they have material possessions.

  • Realization of alienation would lead to class struggle and revolution.

  Fact check

  1 What do definitions of imperialism usually have in common?

  a They describe some kind of exploitation

  b They define the borders of empires

  c They describe a system of trading

  d They define the value of products sold overseas

  2 Where did Marx and Engels publish articles on capitalism in India?

  a The New York Tribune

  b The Calcutta Gazette

  c The Times

  d The Manchester Guardian

  3 Which of these terms is not described by Marx?

  a Money fetishism

  b Capital fetishism

  c Commodity fetishism

  d Profit fetishism

  4 What is the name of the early writing where Marx begins to explore the idea of alienation?

  a The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

  b Das Kapital

  c The Communist Manifesto

  d The Grundrisse

  5 Which answer best describes the idea of ‘species being’?

  a The essence of humanity

  b The origin of species

  c The alienated human

  d The labour of the poor

  6 Which answer best describes actualization?

  a The abolition of work

  b Affirmation of the self

  c Alienation of the self

  d Abolition of the self

  7 Why did Marx believe capitalists are happy in their alienation?

  a They have material possessions as a consolation

  b They do not have to work

  c They have political power

  d They have a good social position

  8 What did Marx believe would happen once people realized they were alienated?

  a They would stop working

  b It would lead to revolution

  c It would lead to depression

  d It would mean the end of the factory system

  Dig deeper

  Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures (Radical Thinkers Series 3), Verso 2008

  Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Penguin 2003

  Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm

  Istvan Meszaros, Marx's Theory of Alienation, The Merlin Press 2005

  Bertell Ollman, Alienation: Marx’s Conception of Man in Capitalist Society, Cambridge University Press; 2nd edition 1977

  Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism, Vintage 1994

  Edward W. Said, Orientalism, Penguin 2003

  Dan Swain, Alienation – An Introduction to Marx’s Theory, Bookmarks Publications 2011

  6

  Class, class struggle and revolution

  In this chapter you will learn:

  • how Marx defined class

  • how capitalist society developed

  • about ideology and false consciousness

  • about workers’ power and organization

  • how class consciousness could lead to revolution.

  Introduction

  Long before Marx, historians had discovered the existence of social classes, but class awareness and classification became more important in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century as a result of the French Revolution. Adam Smith was one of the first English writers to look at class, in an economic sense, in The Wealth of Nations: here he describes class conflict between ‘masters’ and ‘labourers’. Today there are many ways of defining class in society. Sociologists might see class as defined by the functions of people in a society, for example managerial workers, white collar workers, blue collar workers, etc., or they may define class according to income or by cultural tastes and habits.

  Marx did not define class in any of his works and used the term rather loosely to mean different things at different times but he believed that class is defined purely by economic factors. He saw that classes are made up of individuals who share a common relationship with the means of production. At the time he was writing, he saw that the capitalist economy had divided society into two opposing camps, the bourgeoisie and proletariat. Those who owned the means of production were the bourgeoisie, those who owned no means of production were the proletariat.

  ‘Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other – Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.’

  Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848, Chapter I http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/ communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007

  Modern definitions of class are much broader than Marx’s definition and society can be seen to be structured in different ways depending on whether you are studying social issues, looking at economic factors, or doing market research.

  Marx wanted to understand how this situation had come about and spent many years studying the development of the capitalist system that had grown up in Europe after the Industrial Revolution. He believed a scientific study of the ways in which society had developed would help prepare the working classes to overthrow the system
by showing them the historical perspective of their position. He believed that capitalism was the latest form of exploitation in a series of oppressive rules throughout history and that if people were shown this then they could be persuaded to take action against their oppressors. It was only in this way that a classless communist society would eventually come about.

  The development of capitalist society

  In the earliest societies, when people lived as hunter-gatherers and small-scale farmers, there were no real classes as society was organized on the basis of common labour and mutual protection and there was no private property. People scratched out an existence at subsistence level and had just enough food for basic survival. In Marxist theory this type of society is known as ‘primitive communism’.

  As societies became more efficient in producing food, the surplus products often came under the control of a ruling elite. The surplus products allowed the ruling elite to live off the labour of those below them in the class structure without having to produce anything themselves. This elite was often only a minority of the society as a whole. Throughout history the ruling elite has changed: slave owners, religious leaders of many types, feudal lords and, finally, capitalists.