POLS1102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Productive Forces, Class Conflict, Basic Income
Lecture 7 - Marxism
real socialist societies:
failed to provide effective alternative to cap.
Systems maintained by violence
this has discredited Marx
Marx as utopian dreamer - failed to understand human nature
Communism = radical equality of humans
Summary:
structure of societies is determined by their material relations of production
to know societies, one must actively investigate their basic social relations
e.g. not constitution, but social relations
cap. is exploitative, alienating, and tends towards crisis
classes are fundamental divisions within society based on relationships to means of
production
class struggle = possibility of better society
politics only expresses divisions in society - cant fix them
the state is a tool to enforce the rule of the powerful
Capitalism creates the possibility of a better society: communism
communism is classless + stateless, a society of free association
unemployment is inherent to capitalism
Historical materialism:
social relations bound up with productive forces
we normally understand society through human nature, culture, and institutions
the direction of society is normally understood through shared ahistorical features, it is
progressing by reforms/changes, or it is decaying through a twilight of
values/culture
However, Marx believes:
the basis of society is the way we reproduce human life
how we work, organise work, distribute wealth
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politics, ideas, culture, religion are just superstructures sitting on top of the
fundamental determinations of human society
these structures are historically specific and changing
no universal condition of humanity
Antagonisms are built into basic social relations, and they produce either mutual ruin
or a new society
class struggle drives history
social existence determines everything - even consciousness and ideologies
Ideology:
division of labour splits doing from thinking
ideology explains a condition of ideas produced by living in a class society
the ideas of the ruling class become the dominant ideas
bad ideas have a material basis
to change ideas you need to change society
ideas become split from us and reign over us
there is a still a role for agency, but it is limited
Knowledge:
how can we understand society?
problems:
societies produce their own distorted image of themselves
surface appearances dont tell us about social relations
possibilities:
conflict in society produces the possibility of understanding them
an active knowledge
Marxs method:
begin with surface appearance
then work to determine core social relations
then reconstruct the totality of society from this perspective
from concrete -> abstract -> concrete
the contradictions in society are the expression of the contradictions in the core
social relations
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