Sociology 3020: Marx

Front 1

Marx: Alienation

Back 1

Separation of things that naturally belong together

Front 2

Four Dimensions of Alienation under Capitalism

Back 2

1. Alienation from product
2. Alienation from the act of our labor
3. Alienation from species being
4. Alienation from other people

Front 3

1. Alienation from the product

Back 3

-Not making the entire product
-Good for the owner, bad for the worker
-Don't feel like they are contributing much

Front 4

2. Alienation from the act of our labor

Back 4

-The work is boring and routine.
-It's not a means in itself

Front 5

3. Alienation from our species being

Back 5

-The need to produce because we want to
-To feel human, we want to produce.
-The proletariat class doesn't get to do that.

Front 6

4. Alienation from our "fellow-man"

Back 6

-Competition, struggle for survival
-Alienated from the need to struggle.

Front 7

Alienation plays role in his bigger theory...

Back 7

Dialectical Historical Materialism

Front 8

Materialism

Back 8

Refers to property rights

Front 9

Dialectical

Back 9

Refers to progress, always changing, and ongoing

Ex: Marx: Feudalism-->Capitalism-->Socialism

Front 10

Historical

Back 10

Different modes of production

Primitive Communism: collective tribal communities
Asiatic: State regulated property, Asia.
Ancient: no property rights, people shared everything, and their goal to survive
Feudal: landowners/peasants, middle ages
Bourgeoisie/Capitalist: capitalists/proletariat, industrial revolution
Socialist Communist: collective ownership

Society follows a path of these modes of production ^

Front 11

Marx's Concept of Human Nature

Back 11

Alienation causes the proletariat revolution.

-You can't say humans are all greedy and selfish, in primitive communism and communism, they are sharing, which means human nature is sharing.

Front 12

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" (Marx, Communist Manifesto)

Back 12

Ongoing struggle between people who are in control of production (Bourgeoisie) and people who work for them (Proletariat)

-People are seen according to their class struggles
-Class overrides identity

Sticks VERY closely. Everything deals with owners and workers.
-Thinks economy determines the whole of important life in society

Front 13

1. Base

Back 13

-Effects superstructure
-Material-who owns means of production

Mode of Production:
1. Forces of Production: things we use in order to make a living from the environment
-machinery, land, energy

2. Relations of production: never evenly distributed
-Landowners have the land, resources of society are unevenly distributed into classes

Front 14

2. Superstructure

Back 14

The Ideal. (institutions): approximation of real life situations

-Where alienation is
-Bigger topics that structure society
-Culture, politics, ideas
-effected by base
-Dialectical, Historical, Materialism: how history evolved through the idea of property

Front 15

Relations of Base & Superstructure

Back 15

-If there is a disconnect in the superstructure it will have to fall into line

Front 16

Why did Marx expect capitalism to collapse?

Back 16

Alienation of the proletariats
-competition drives capitalists towards the wall
-increased monopoly
-Capitalists shrink in number due to competition
-Workers forced by lower wages-->miserable
-Capitalism de-skills workers due to technology

Eventually workers would unite against the bourgeoisie

Front 17

To what extent has Marx predictions come true? Does it matter if his predictions about the future were wrong?

Back 17

-Polarization of economic classes, we're losing the middle class.
-in the middle right now with the recession (capitalism falling apart) and occupy wall street (the lower class).

He believes in the post modern world, workers will form unions and fight back, government will control monopolies.

It matters because it affects his credibility.