Marxist Theory: Class Struggle and Capitalist Contradictions
Influencing the ruling classes in beliefs, philosophy, or even in the supposed objectivity of science? What is meant by class? What did Marx mean by ideology? What is their relationship? In the second half of the 19th century, capitalism had been established, and contradictions were already visible: labor exploitation, anarchy of production, economic crises, miserable conditions of the working class, and proletarian revolutions. In this context, Marx’s philosophy is distinguished by its social commitment, by its intent to incite and conduct awareness and revolution of the workers and oppressed class against class and bourgeois society. It is a revolutionary instrument of philosophy. One of the influences found in Marx is Hegel, who argues that history, the dialectical confrontation of thought and universal ideas, is led by the Spirit. Also, the notion of alienation from Feuerbach will serve to explain the distorting influence of ideology, speculative alienation, and religious alienation. However, Marx considers the basic alienation does not occur in the realm of theory but in the material, the division of man’s fruit of their work. Another important influence is French socialism, taking the idea of class struggle. Finally, Marx draws on studies of English economists. Among them, Adam Smith argues that economic phenomena are natural and right order, the market regulates itself without any government intervention. Marx complains that his theory masks the true social reality after an objective attempt to understand the exchange of goods. In this respect, Marx used the theory of David Ricardo, who says that the source of wealth is work and the source of capitalist profit is surplus labor unpaid to workers in their wages. Marx will refine the theory of surplus value and will expose the liberal ideology which seeks to hide the exploitation of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.
The Origin of Classes and the Role of Ideology
According to the materialist view, the point is: humans, in their activities to obtain the means to meet their needs, begin a relationship with nature (the productive forces) and other men (the social relations of production). Counted among the first are tools, raw materials, everything that is involved in the production of goods, including the product itself. Among the latter, the relationships established among the people for these products, such as the division of labor and property relations. Productive forces and social relations of production form the economic infrastructure, while the belief and value system of rules that exists in society will be its superstructure. All social structures, both economic infrastructure and superstructure, constitute the mode of production. We can distinguish in history progress between various modes of production: the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the bourgeois. And the class struggle. A preliminary stage is that of primitive communism. The social division of labor is the product of the split nature of the tasks imposed by gender and age differences. Thus, classes arise where the relations of production involve a distinct division of labor that allows an accumulation of surplus production, which can pass into the hands of a minority group, which thus is placed in an exploitative relationship regarding mass producers. Classes are set up by the ratio of groups of individuals regarding the possession of private property over the means of production. All class societies are formed around two antagonistic classes: the parent and the subject, freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and vassal, master and journeyman—in a word, oppressor and oppressed. The history of any society is the history of class struggle. Marx distinguishes between four types:
- Asiatic Society: Despotic central government against a large number of small villages.
- Ancient Society: Slave system.
- Feudal Society: Between those who own the land and those who do not.
- Capitalist System: At the summit of power is the “financial bourgeoisie” composed of bankers, “kings of the railways,” owners of mines, forests, and vast tracts of land, followed by the “industrial bourgeoisie,” then the “petite bourgeoisie” and “peasant class,” both with no political power. Beneath all these is the proletariat, and finally, the lumpenproletariat, the proletariat in rags, regardless of the class system because they are not integrated into the division of labor.
The proletariat can only achieve a dominant position if it deletes the existing property type. But for the final historic ascent of the proletariat to take place, it is necessary for them to become aware of their situation. How to prevent the ruling class from allowing the proletariat to become aware of their state holdings and revolutionary force? This is where ideology comes in. The upper class imposes its vision of the world, the set of values that has taken it to power and kept it there. The dominant ideology serves to legitimate a given social order and allow the ruling classes to exercise their power peacefully, without the use of physical violence. When progressive changes occur in the field of productive activity, a tension arises between these new productive forces and production relations that remain. The latter increasingly hamper the new forces of production that stand out. According to Marx, ideologies will disappear only in a classless society, in a communist society. Meanwhile, revolutionary philosophy must unmask the supposed objectivity of the ideological statements and show their relation to economic circumstances. They are a reflection, considering that only understanding and critique cannot eliminate them, but only with the elimination of the relations of production that produced them.
Proletariat Awareness and Capitalist Contradictions
If the ruling class controls ideology and the cultural level, how can the proletariat become aware of their situation? According to Marx, there are other contradictions of capitalism that can promote this awareness: social and economic inequality, economic crises, the pauperization of the proletariat, and alienation may be stronger than ideological control and force the proletariat to become aware of their situation and revolutionary possibilities.
Revolutionary Praxis and the Communist Manifesto
The key of revolutionary praxis and ideology are expressed by Marx and Engels in the second part of the Communist Manifesto. The Communists, they say, defend the common interests of the entire proletariat, want the abolition of private property, supporting “every revolutionary movement that is directed against the existing social and political situation.” Their own purposes and interests are not private, sexist, national, or local, as are those of humanity. The abolition of the division of labor is possible through the expansion of mechanized production. The State would go extinct, the family would disappear, women as private property, prostitution, and the nation will also disappear.
However, their predictions were wrong in many ways. Revolutionary communist countries were transformed into totalitarian systems. Similarly, capitalism, at least in the West, did not eliminate the middle class; it spread.