Das Kapital

According to Marx there are always two things going on simultaneously in the capitalist mode of production. There are three different duality components. The first component, the duality of use value and value is where the rest of the components derive from. Use value is the intrinsic component to a commodity that it has been predisposed to. It is a qualitative value because it consists of the specific qualities that the commodity has and since each commodity has different use-values one…

Karl Marx, a theorist who examined the societal values and orders, ultimately came to the conclusion that human history was composed of a level of struggles between different classes. The main motivator for humans is “historical materialism” which is associated with wealth, gain, and resources. Marx believed that when factories were created with no progress and investment, the workers just ended up getting poorer and poorer until there was no incentive to work. To fix this problem, Marx came up…

From the time we are born we are fed the lies of capitalism. We are raised in a society that hides the ones that are hurt by this powerful mindset. These people are swept under the rug to be dealt with later. Johnson and Robbins have very influential ideas about capitalism. Johnson writes about the matrix of capitalist domination. In this section he tries to explain the complexities of privilege and how privileges relate to one another. Johnson takes us back to when capitalism first began to…

Marx’s basic ontological assumptions about humans and the nature of society Ontology relates to the questions of being and reality. Marx ontologically assumed that humans are altruistic, material creatures and are creative in nature. He explains that humans meet fundamental requirements by creating necessities such as food and shelter out of the environment. Producing these items and structures expand the human capabilities and can be seen as a mode of self-expression. Marx elaborates on these…

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka tells the story of Gregor Samsa, a man who wakes up as a giant cockroach one morning and the self-realization he goes through as a non-human being. This tale is analogous to Karl Marx’s theories about capitalism and alienation since these theories state the issues with the capitalist system and the effect work has on individuals. For instance, Karl Marx’s theories about alienation of the worker states that workers are alienated from other human beings, producers are…

Saint Joan of the Stockyards, play by Bertolt Brecht attempts to represent drama of life with regard to financial issues of 1930’s. He makes an attempt to dramatize the complex economic situations with the help of his study of Marxism and capitalism. This play portrays the depths of suffering which has a moving effect on audience. In Saint Joan of the Stockyards everything eventually comes down to the question of meeting ends and means. It also portrays the socio-economic difference in classes…

The Conflicting Views of Adam Smith and Karl Marx on the Division of Labor and the Role of Money in Exchange In their works, Adam Smith and Karl Marx prove to have differing opinions on money and the division of labor. Although they understand money as a representation of value and as a medium of exchange, they arrive at different conclusions about the role of money in social life. Smith sees the division of labor as a constructive system and a means of furthering exchange, leading to the use…

Beginning with Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, bourgeois political economists have theorized that the value is a function of a worker’s labor. In Capital Volume One, Karl Marx illuminates this idea and adds nuances to it, explaining underlying relationships between labor and value. Namely, Marx introduces the concept of socially necessary labor-time and uses it as a point of departure for considering the links between labor, value, and material wealth. In Capital, Marx elucidates the…

1.A. Adam Smith describes how productivity growth in economics can lead to economic growth. Smith being an optimist himself saw that the driving force of capitalism would be self-betterment, a yearn for profit, and the desire to make money. One method to increase productivity was to enhance the division of labor. Organization is one way to enhance the division of labor and thus their productivity of labor. Firms also seek to use capital, mainly in the forms of machinery, to aid in the…

Different “Ways of Seeing” In the essay, “Ways of Seeing,” John Berger applies Marxism to art history. Marxism is the social, economic and political theory formed by Karl Marx. It deals with class struggle and the oppression of the lower classes by the upper classes. In the essay, Berger focuses on using Marxist methodology, when he analyzes and explains an artist named Frans Hal. Berger uses Hals paintings to demonstrate the structure of social classes, and their struggles to give an idea of…