Sociological Theory
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
UMD




MAY 5, 1818 - MARCH 14, 1883 (IN HIS ARM CHAIR)




Biography

I. THE ECONOMIC BASIS OF A SOCIETY DETERMINES ITS SOCIAL STRUCTURE

  • A. THE INSTITUTIONS
  • B. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE PEOPLE
  • C. THE STATE AND LAW, ETC.
CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S IDEALISM
  1. FOR HEGEL, THE EMPIRICAL WORLD IS NOT REAL, BUT MUST BE UNDERSTOOD AS THOUGHTS
  2. FOR MARX, REAL PROBLEMS GO IGNORED OR UNRESOLVED. IF PEOPLE ARE ALIENATED FROM REAL WORLD THINGS, YOU CAN NOT FIX THAT BY DEFERRING TO THE HERE AFTER
  3. HEGEL EMPHASIZED THE ULTIMATE REALITY OF THOUGHT
    THIS LEAD TO MISPERCEIVED HUMAN NATURE
    CORRECT ABOUT LABOR, BUT NOT MENTAL LABOR, RATHER, REAL PHYSICAL LABOR TO MEET REAL PHYSICAL NEEDS

  4. REJECTS HEGEL'S RELIGIOUS MOTIF
    "..RELIGION IS THE SIGH OF THE OPPRESSED CREATURE, THE SENTIMENT OF A HEARTLESS WORLD, AND THE SOUL OF SOULLESS CONDITIONS. IT IS THE OPIUM OF THE PEOPLE.

    THE ABOLITION OF RELIGION AS THE ILLUSORY HAPPINESS OF MEN, IS A DEMAND FOR THEIR REAL HAPPINESS. THE CALL TO ABANDON THEIR ILLUSIONS ABOUT THEIR CONDITION IS A CALL TO ABANDON A CONDITION WHICH REQUIRES ILLUSIONS. THE CRITICISM OF RELIGION IS, THEREFORE, THE EMBRYONIC CRITICISM OF THIS VALE OF TEARS OF WHICH RELIGION IS THE HALO."

    (Tucker 1972:12)
  5. RELIGION CREATES THE IMAGE OF A COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE (HARMONY, STABILITY, EQUILIBRIUM), IN FACT LIFE IS RIDDLED WITH CONFLICT & SUFFERING

II. ALIENATION

WHAT IS BAD ABOUT CAPITALISM? CAPITALISM PRODUCES ALIENATION

  1. ALIENATION FROM PRODUCTS

    • SOMEONE ELSE HAS CONTROL OF THEM,
    • THE WORKER BECOMES A COMMODITY
    • "...THE MORE VALUE HE [SHE] (THE WORKER) CREATES THE MORE WORTHLESS HE [SHE] BECOMES." THIS IS IN PROPORTION TO WHAT S/HE PRODUCES.

  2. ALIENATED FROM THE PROCESS OF WORK.


  3. ALIENATION FROM OTHERS

    HUMAN RELATIONS BECOME MARKET RELATIONS

  4. ALIENATION FROM SPECIES-BEING

    • HUMANS ARE SHAPED BY SOCIETY, SHAPED BY PAST CULTURE AND PRACTICE, YET PEOPLE CONTINUE TO RESHAPE SOCIETY THROUGH THEIR ACTIVITIES;
    • ALIENATED FROM SOCIAL AND SOCIAL SUBORDINATED TO THE INDIVIDUAL AND INDIVIDUAL DEFINED AS COMMODITY

WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT CAPITALISM?

III. THE DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL CHANGE

THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY

THE DYNAMIC OF HISTORICAL CHANGE IS THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE FORCES OF PRODUCTION AND THE RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION.

  • IDEAS ARE NOT FREE FLOATING IN PREEXISTING CATEGORIES WAITING TO BE DEVELOPED

  • THEY ARISE AS A BY-PRODUCT OF THE BRAIN THROUGH INTERACTION WITH THE SENSUOUS WORLD

    GIDDENS (21)
    "HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS IS CONDITIONED IN DIALECTICAL INTERPLAY BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT, IN WHICH MAN (SIC) ACTIVELY SHAPES THE WORLD HE LIVES IN AT THE SAME TIME AS IT SHAPES HIM (SIC).
    OR AS MARX SAYS:
    "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness." (Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy pg. 11-13)
  • IN THE PRODUCTION OF OUR LIVES THE WAY AND HOW WE DO IT DETERMINES THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT COMES TO DEFINE AND JUSTIFY WHAT WE DO. THOSE THAT HAVE GREATER CONTROL OVER THAT PRODUCTION ALSO CONTROLS THE IDEAS, EXPRESSED IN MORALS, VALUES, RELIGION, AND SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED NEEDS. "AS INDIVIDUALS EXPRESS THEIR LIFE, SO THEY ARE. WHAT THEY ARE THEREFORE, CONINCIDES WITH THEIR PRODUCTION, BOTH WHAT THEY PRODUCE AND HOW THEY PRODUCE."

  • WHAT IS HUMAN HISTORY? THE CONTINUOUS PROCESS OF PRODUCING, SATISFYING AND REPRODUCING HUMAN NEEDS

  • LABOR AND THE LABOR PROCESS IS CENTRAL

    1. CREATIVE LABOR IS WHAT DEFINES HUMAN NATURE

    2. LABOR IS WHAT MEDIATES HUMANS AND NATURE

    3. HUMANS CREATE THEMSELVES BY FIRST MEETING BASIC ANIMAL NEEDS THEN DEFINING THEIR NEEDS AND FULFILLING THEM IN DIRECT INTERACTION (LABOR) ON NATURE

  • HUMAN HISTORY DEVELOPS THROUGH STAGES OF ALIENATION

    1. EACH STAGE DEVELOPS THROUGH INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF IT'S OWN (CONTRADICTIONS) (ST. SIMON)

    2. CAN ONLY REALLY BE DISCOVERED AFTER THE FACT (HISTORICAL METHOD)

    3. THERE ARE NO GOALS IN HISTORY, NO MASTER PLAN

      "HISTORY IS NOTHING BUT THE SUCCESSION OF THE SEPARATE GENERATIONS, EACH OF WHICH EXPLOITS THE MATERIALS, THE CAPITAL FUNDS, THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES HANDED DOWN TO IT BY ALL PRECEDING GENERATIONS, AND THUS, ON THE ONE HAND, CONTINUES THE TRADITIONAL ACTIVITY IN COMPLETELY CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES AND, ON THE OTHER, MODIFIES THE OLD CIRCUMSTANCES WITH A COMPLETELY CHANGED ACTIVITY." THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE OF LOUIS BONAPARTE (1852)



    4. THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY

      STAGES ARE BASED ON THE NOTION OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR (NOT KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS TURNING HEGEL ON HIS HEAD). IN DEFENDING HEGEL AND HIS NOTION OF DIALECTICS MARX STATES:
      "WITH HIM IT IS STANDING ON ITS HEAD. IT MUST BE TURNED RIGHT SIDE UP AGAIN, IF YOU WOULD DISCOVER THE RATIONAL KERNAL WITHIN THE MYSTICAL SHELL." CAPITAL VOL 1 PG. 20


    5. DIVISION OF LABOR (AS A CONSEQUENCE OF ORGAINIZING OURSELVES TO REPRODUCE OURSELVES) LEADS TO DEVELOPMENT OF ALIENATION WHICH RESULTS IN CLASS SOCIETY AND PRIVATE PROPERTY

    6. PRE-CLASS SYSTEMS

      1. MINIMAL DIVISION OF LABOR

      2. COMMUNAL PROPERTY

      3. LITTLE SURPLUS

      4. LITTLE RELIANCE ON EXCHANGE

      5. WHY WOULD THIS SOCIETY DECLINE?

        • CREATION OF SURPLUS

        • MORE COMPLICATED DIVISION OF LABOR

        • MORE PRODUCTION FOR EXCHANGE

        • MORE STABILITY

        • FURTHER CHANGES COME FROM INCREASE IN POPULATION, CONTACT WITH OTHER GROUPS, CONFLICT, AND SLAVERY

        • EXCHANGE DEVELOPS MORE DUE TO GEOGRAPHICAL SPECIALTIES LEADING TO THE RISE IN THE USE OF MONEY

        • GROWTH OF CITIES AND THE ENSUING OPPOSITION IS A INDICATOR OF THE GROWING COMPLEXITY OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR


    7. ANCIENT WORLD
      • A. TRIBES COMBINE INTO CITIES

      • B. AGGRESSIVE AND WARRING

      • C. MILITARY, AND EXPANSIONIST

      • D. MARX CONCENTRATES ON ROME

        1. EXPANDING DIVISION OF LABOR

        2. CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH

        3. EXPANSION OF SLAVERY AND DESTRUCTION OF PEASANT, WHY?

        4. WEALTH BASED ON LANDED PROPERTY, PRESSURE FOR EXPANSION

        5. THE SYSTEM FALLS APART BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF DEVELOPED COMMERCE, THE RELIANCE ON AGRICULTURE AND SLAVERY. AS SLAVERY IS DECLINING SMALL SCALE FARMING EMERGES. THEN COMES THE BARBARIANS


    8. FEUDALISM
      • A. DECLINE OF ANCIENT SOCIETY BROUGHT FEUDALISM; DIDN'T HAVE TO HAVE FEUDALISM,

      • B. COMBINATION OF BARBARIAN AND ROMAN STRUCTURES

        1. MILITARY RULE LEADING TO MONARCHY

        2. SMALL SCALE FARMING WITH PEASANTS

      • C. 9TH CENTURY SERFDOM

          STRONG GERMANIC TRADITIONS

        • COLLECTIVISTIC SOCIAL ORGANIZATION;

        • COMMUNAL PROPERTY

        • SMALL TOWNS (TUNS)

      • D. FURTHER ALIENATION
        WORKERS TIED CLOSELY TO THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION

      • E. DECLINE OF FEUDALISM AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM, EXPROPRIATING THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION

        1. GROWTH OF TOWNS DUE TO MERCANTILE INTERESTS, 12TH CENTURY

        2. SERFDOM BASICALLY GONE BY 14TH CENTURY

        3. ENCLOSURE; INCREASED POVERTY; CREATION OF FREE LABOR; LAWS OF VAGRANCY;

        4. FINAL PIECE, GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES

      • F. NEW CITIES (INDUSTRIAL NURSERIES) BECOME TRADING CENTERS RATHER THAN THE OLD CORPORATE TOWN


    IV. CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE

    • A. CLASS IS DEFINED IN RELATIONSHIP TO THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION

    • B. JOHN STUART MILLS (WEBER WILL SAY MUCH THE SAME) DISTRIBUTION

      IMPLIES INEQUALITIES CAN BE EASILY DEALT WITH

    • C. TENDENCY TOWARDS TWO CLASS SYSTEM, ESPECIALLY CAPITALISM

    • D. CLASSES ARE ALWAYS IN CONFLICT WITH ONE ANOTHER

      MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY (PG. 30-34)

    • E. THE CLASS STRUCTURE OF CAPITALISM

      1. BOURGEOISIE

        • A. PETTY-BOURGEOISIE

        • B. STRATA

      2. PROLETARIAT

        • LUMPEN-PROLETARIAT

        • CRIMINALS

        • UNEMPLOYED

        • SURPLUS LABOR POOL

      3. LANDOWNERS

      4. REMAINING CLASSES

    • F. DEVELOPMENT OF CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS
      • BOURGEOIS, IDEOLOGY

      • PROLETARIAT, REVOLUTIONARY

    • Chapter 52. Classes, Vol. III Capital
      "The owners merely of labour-power, owners of capital, and land-owners, whose respective sources of income are wages, profit and ground-rent, in other words, wage-labourers, capitalists and land-owners, constitute then three big classes of modern society based upon the capitalist mode of production.

      In England, modern society is indisputably most highly and classically developed in economic structure. Nevertheless, even here the stratification of classes does not appear in its pure form. Middle and intermediate strata even here obliterate lines of demarcation everywhere (although incomparably less in rural districts than in the cities). However, this is immaterial for our analysis. We have seen that the continual tendency and law of development of the capitalist mode of production is more and more to divorce the means of production from labour, and more and more to concentrate the scattered means of production into large groups, thereby transforming labour into wage-labour and the means of production into capital. And to this tendency, on the other hand, corresponds the independent separation of landed property from capital and labour,[58] or the transformation of all landed property into the form of landed property corresponding to the capitalist mode of production.

      The first question to he answered is this: What constitutes a class? --- and the reply to this follows naturally from the reply to another question, namely: What makes wage-labourers, capitalists and landlords constitute the three great social classes?

      At first glance -- the identity of revenues and sources of revenue. There are three great social groups whose members, the individuals forming them, live on wages, profit and ground-rent respectively, on the realization of their labour-power, their capital, and their landed property.

      However, from this standpoint, physicians and officials, e.g., would also constitute two classes, for they belong to two distinct social groups, the members of each of these groups receiving their revenue from one and the same source. The same would also be true of the infinite fragmentation of interest and rank into which the division of social labour splits labourers as well as capitalists and landlords-the latter, e.g., into owners of vineyards, farm owners, owners of forests, mine owners and owners of fisheries.

      [Here the manuscript breaks off.]"

    V. THEORY OF SURPLUS VALUE

    1. MOST BASIC FACT OF CAPITALISM IS COMMODITY PRODUCTION!

      WHAT MAKES A COMMODITY VALUABLE?

      • USE VALUE

      • EXCHANGE VALUE
        ONLY HAS MEANING IN RELATION TO MARKET

    2. WHERE DOES EXCHANGE VALUE COME FROM?

      • LABOR THEORY OF VALUE

        1. ABSTRACT GENERAL LABOR

        2. LABOR POWER

        3. CONCRETE USEFUL LABOR

        4. SOCIALLY NECESSARY LABOR
          NOT INDIVIDUAL LABOR

    3. FETISHISM OF COMMODITIES
      LIFE OF THEIR OWN, DON'T SEE HUMAN LABOR IN THEM, BECOME REIFIED AND TAKE ON HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS (ANTHROPOMORPHIZED)

    4. CREATION OF SURPLUS VALUE

      1. BUYS AT VALUE

      2. SELLS AT VALUE

      3. MUST GENERATE MORE VALUE

    5. SIMPLE EXCHANGE PROCESS WOULD BE:

      COMMODITY-MONEY-COMMODITY
      C-M-C

    6. IN CAPITALISM
      M-C-M

      • DRIVING MOTIVE IS PROFIT
        MUST BE M-C-M'

      • M' EQUALS SURPLUS VALUE (POINT 3 ABOVE)

      • WHERE DOES M' COME FROM AND HOW DOES ONE FIGURE THE RATE OF SURPLUS VALUE?

    7. KEY TO THE ANSWER

      LABOR BECOMES A COMMODITY LIKE EVERY OTHER COMMODITY

    8. CONSTANT CAPITAL

      1. FIXED CAPITAL

      2. MACHINES

      3. RAW RESOURCES
        ETC.

    9. VARIABLE CAPITAL
      LABOR COST

    10. ORGANIC COMPOSITION OF CAPITAL

    11. RATE OF SURPLUS VALUE
      S/V

    12. RATE OF PROFIT
      P=S/C+V


VARIATIONS WITHIN INDUSTRIES

BUT CAPITALISM RESTS ON THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF CAPITAL DIVIDED INTO THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF SURPLUS VALUE

VI. CONTRADICTIONS OF CAPITALIST PRODUCTION

  • A. LAW OF THE FALLING TENDENCY OF THE RATE OF PROFIT

    1. AS ORGANIC COMPOSITION OF CAPITAL INCREASES, THE RATE OF PROFIT DECREASES

    2. MANY THINGS CAN OFFSET THIS TENDENCY

  • B. EMISERATION AND PAUPERIZATION

    1. A LARGER GAP BETWEEN WEALTH OF OWNERS AND INCOME OF WORKERS

    2. INCREASED POVERTY

  • C. CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION

    1. NEW CAPITAL COMING UNDER CONTROL OF A FEW

    2. ALREADY EXISTING CAPITAL COMING UNDER CONTROL OF A FEW


VII. THE NEW SOCIETY

NO CLEAR PLAN, WHY?
  1. DEPENDS ON WHAT DEVELOPS IN CAPITALISM

  2. ONE SYSTEM MATURES IN THE NEXT, THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE

  3. BEST WE CAN DO IS LOOK AT DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIATE
    Look at the end of the MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

  4. AND SOME IDEALISTIC STATEMENTS


Parting statement

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