SOC231H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: State Ownership, Utopia, Bourgeoisie
Document Summary
Written in 1845-1846, presents the most detailed account of. Marx set out to reformulate the work of the eminent german philosopher georg w. f. hegel (1770-1831) Hegel saw change as the motor of history. Said it was driven by a dialectical process in which a given idea contains within it the seeds of an opposing idea. The resolution of the inescapable opposition between a thesis and its antithesis will produce yet a new idea (a "synthesis") that grows out of the two opposing ideas. Hegel expressed a belief in the ultimate perfectibility of the consciousness of humankind. Marx too fashioned an evolutionary theory, but one that casts communism as the end toward which history progresses. Hegel"s notion of alienation would play a central role in marx"s work. Marx, however, argued that alienation was not a consequence of distorted consciousness but rather that it resulted from the material conditions of production. Marx"s indebtedness to and his break from hegel"s philosophy.
