Summary Of The Critique Of Capitalism By Karl Marx

There are two types of reproduction. The first, the reproduction of the character of a worker. Why does the average person go to work? Is it because she loves what she is doing, or is it because she needs to work in order to live? Marx explains, “the exercise of labour power, labour, is the worker’s own life-activity, the manifestation of his own life. And this life-activity he sells to another person in order to secure the necessary means of subsistence (204).” Marx highlights that the worker continues the labour specifically because it is the “means of subsistence” ie. the only way to live. The character of the worker is one who, while hating having to work, continuously works because it is her only option. The second type of reproduction …show more content…
In this essay, I address how Karl Marx in The Critique of Capitalism and Louis Althusser in the Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses demonstrate that institutional forces within capitalist societies have upheld the power dynamics central to capitalism, and the main driving force that allows this upholding to persist is reproduction.
Marx explains that in order for capitalism to continue the reproduction of the character of the worker and reproduction of worker needs to exist. The feudal system, in Marx’ eyes, persisted only when feudalism was widely accepted and endorsed by society. For capitalism it is the same. Capitalism is in the very fabric of society which is why the reproduction of the character of the worker has persisted. In the Critique of Capitalism Marx states, “the relations of production in their totality constitute what are called the social relations, society, and, specifically, a society at a definite stage of historical development, a society with a peculiar, distinctive character (207). ” In layman's terms Marx is expressing that our economic system (production) shapes (constitute) the fabrics of our society. The “social relations” currently upheld