The contradictions of capitalism are gradually getting worse and more extreme, the cycles of boom and bust worsen. As our society evolves, capitalism creates a working class consisting of people who have a large amount of hostility towards the owners of capital. Workers are all thrown together in factories and industries working alongside each other, usually in crowded conditions, by the owners of the means of production meaning that they become increasingly aware that they are being exploited and that their needs are not being met by the present political-economic system. “The monopoly” of capital is preventing the production of goods and services which many of the lower classes are in need of but are not being produced because there is no
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As Marx said himself in one of his publishings “Society as a whole is splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.” (Marx & Engles (1872, TCM, cited in SOCI101 Marx 3 lecture content). One conflict between the two classes is the process of alienation for the proletariat and Marx was interested in the effects of the capitalist mode of production upon the proletariat. Alienation can be seen “within all of the renowned social theories of the civilised epoch”, the main idea being that “some time in the past people lived in harmony, and then there was some kind of rupture which left people feeling like foreigners in the world, but some time in the future this alienation would be overcome and humanity would again live in harmony with itself and Nature.” (Marxists.org, …show more content…
Most of labourers work in industry for the bourgeoisie who are the employers and they organise the production and pay the workers so much for their labour. The workers job is to create what is referred to as the surplus value which is the excess of value produced by the labour of workers over the wages they are paid and this value then goes to the capitalist who keeps it. The surplus value represents the rate of exploitation of the workers by the capitalists. Marx thought that as the working class grew more aware of the exploitation that they supposedly suffer from the upper class they would rise up and, just as feudalism was replaced by capitalism, that communism would replace capitalism, he saw this as
As Marx said himself in one of his publishings “Society as a whole is splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.” (Marx & Engles (1872, TCM, cited in SOCI101 Marx 3 lecture content). One conflict between the two classes is the process of alienation for the proletariat and Marx was interested in the effects of the capitalist mode of production upon the proletariat. Alienation can be seen “within all of the renowned social theories of the civilised epoch”, the main idea being that “some time in the past people lived in harmony, and then there was some kind of rupture which left people feeling like foreigners in the world, but some time in the future this alienation would be overcome and humanity would again live in harmony with itself and Nature.” (Marxists.org, …show more content…
Most of labourers work in industry for the bourgeoisie who are the employers and they organise the production and pay the workers so much for their labour. The workers job is to create what is referred to as the surplus value which is the excess of value produced by the labour of workers over the wages they are paid and this value then goes to the capitalist who keeps it. The surplus value represents the rate of exploitation of the workers by the capitalists. Marx thought that as the working class grew more aware of the exploitation that they supposedly suffer from the upper class they would rise up and, just as feudalism was replaced by capitalism, that communism would replace capitalism, he saw this as