Marxism: Key Concepts, Historical Materialism, and Critique of Capitalism
Marxism: Core Principles
Marxism is one of the most influential currents of the twentieth century, presented from several perspectives:
- A sociological and economic explanation of capitalist society.
- A theory of history that tries to be scientific.
- A revolutionary practice of transformation of society and economic and political reality.
- A critique of philosophy, aiming to change it.
Dialectical Materialism
According to Marxism, reality is material and dynamic, evolving from contradictory elements and obeying certain laws:
- Law of unity and opposition of opposites: Contradictions give rise to opposing forces that fight each other.
- Law of the qualitative leap: Quantitative changes bring qualitative transformations.
- Law of negation of negation: Contradictions are overcome and resolved in a new unit called synthesis.
Dialectical materialism opposes Hegelian idealism and mechanistic materialism.
Historical Materialism
Historical materialism is a dialectical interpretation of history. Society results from the dialectical laws of history. For Marx, a society’s economic system of production determines its cultural values and beliefs.
Basic Concepts of Historical Materialism:
- Production relations: Relationships human beings establish to transform nature and produce goods for their livelihood, including ownership of the means of production.
- Productive forces: All elements of a production process: labor force, means of production, and technology.
- Mode of production: The combination of production relations and productive forces at a particular historical moment.
- Infrastructure and Superstructure: The economic structure (infrastructure) of a society determines its superstructure (social formation, such as feudalism or capitalism).
History and Dialectic:
History advances dialectically: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, overcoming the confrontation between thesis and antithesis. The antithesis negates the thesis, and synthesis negates the negation. Throughout history, contradiction manifests between antagonistic social classes, and this class struggle drives history. The ruling class uses the superstructure to maintain dominance through the state, laws, art, religion, and moral philosophy, extending its ideology throughout society with a false consciousness.
Critique of Capitalist Society
What distinguishes humans from other animals is that humans project themselves into the product of their labor, making the created object a part of themselves. The producer recognizes themself in their work. However, when the product no longer belongs to the producer because they do not own the means of production, this recognition does not occur. The product belongs to the owner of the means of production, the capitalist, leading to alienation. This alienation is not natural but a consequence of the relations of production in a historical moment, especially under capitalism.
Forms of Alienation
Economic alienation is essential, and the worker suffers in different ways:
- In relation to their own essence: Creative work that sets humans apart from animals is impossible in a capitalist society.
- In relation to their activity: Work is forced and repetitive, not fulfilling, and seen as alien. It is an activity not chosen, making the worker feel like a commodity in the hands of the capitalist.
- In relation to the product of their work: The worker has no power over the product, which enslaves them and increases inequalities between classes.
- In relation to the capitalist bourgeois: The capitalist benefits from the worker’s labor, leading to conflicting relations.