Marx's Ideas Of Capitalism

Marx believes in the exploitation of the worker through means of capitalism. This belief is stemmed from the idea of the rising working class in Britain and Europe during the early to late 1800s. Major arguments in his beliefs come a series of events that occurred throughout his lifetime. Although his ideas mirror Adam Smith in certain ways, he comes from a perspective that it’s a highly productive system of economic organization. Within this complex organizations, comes the basic ideas of labor and value, that if an individual contributes their own labor power they should have access to this property. However, this is wrong for Marx’s beliefs, due to two distinct classes which are the capitalists and the working class. Marx’s theory on …show more content…
Whereas feudalism in medieval Europe was the dominant social system, capitalism is the newest social phenomenon in which the economy runs off of. Marx compares these two due to the fact that there is one lower class (working class) working for the upper class (capitalists), which was extremely similar to feudalism. He compares the working class to the peasants, usually villeins or serfs, who were obligated to work on the lord’s land. While the peasants provided labor, in exchange for their services, the owner of the land gave homage, labor, and a share of produce. In medieval Europe, it was a functioning economic system that had benefitted everyone within the system, anyone that was not a part of the economy would not receive these benefits. If we translated these conditions into Marx’s views, he believes this work is unjust and unfair for the working class by providing labor. As the economy benefits those of the upper classes instead of reforming to where every class is benefitting from the same amount. However, this would not be the case as to back then if you were not born of royalty, for the lower class this meant they weren’t able to move up in the social system. This had continued to be the social economic system until the present economy that functions the United States today. The economic situation in Marx’s …show more content…
When an individual works in a factory setting creating a product throughout the day for their entire life, it becomes repetitive and the individual loses freedom in what they’re doing. This is true, factory work is not meant to be the most diverse workplace. If the individual feels alienated in their work, they are at liberty to leave that place of work. An individual should not be forced to working in conditions where, over time, it is draining them of their happiness. Understand that factory work does not provide clean, modern workplace environment as opposed to an office. Therefore, one must know where their labor is being put into. As the individual is working in the factory, their labor is being put in a product that they see being taken away and sold off for profit. This creates a sense of alienation of what Marx describes, however, one must think. If the individual is creating parts for a car that is being put together, why does the individual not receive payment of vehicle? This is due to the fact that their labor, is not the only labor that was being put into the creation of said vehicle. Metals, necessary into creating the car, was mined and processed before arriving at the factory. So understand, that even though their property that they have created, are not the only property that has been alienated. This sense of alienation is needed in order to further