Eco-socialism

In this essay I will explain Karl Marx’s conception of the development of the bourgeoisie, the development of the proletariat and where Marx sees this struggle leads to. I will also explain the bourgeoisie's relationship to feudalism. I will then discuss how capitalism has limited human freedom and what Herbert Marcuse thinks capitalism has done to individual humans. At the end, I will analyze Marx and Marcuse’s criticisms and I will explain my opinion on their criticisms. Karl Marx is an…

Louis Althusser is among the most influential Marxist philosophers of the 20th century. Althusser has been studied profusely as he laid the foundation for the concept of ideology – a major term in language and media studies. The working definition of ideology is that it is “ideas that legitimize currently existing power relations in society” (Torres, 2017). Each person from the second they are born are immersed in ideology. From that moment forward, ideology surrounds the individual every day…

James E. Cronin, in his essay, “Labor Insurgency and Class Formation: Comparative Perspectives on the Crisis of 1917-1920 in Europe” examines the complex causes of mass labor protests across Europe during the early post-World War I period. The idea that this period of unrest was caused solely by hardships of the war, Cronin argues, is too simplistic. Rather, it was this concept in addition to the organization of workers within a factory setting, as well as the creation of a working-class culture…

Greg Mankiw argues, “wealth inequality is not a problem in itself”. Wealth inequality is the unequal distribution of income and assets in society. Inequality is inevitable in any society, but there are conflicting views on if wealth inequality is a problem for our democratic society or a natural and necessary part of freedom and capitalism. As discussed in the plenary, conservatives view wealth inequality as a good thing, arguing it reflects freedom, fairness, and efficiency of the free market…

The Tragedy of the Commons Name of Student Institution Affiliation The Tragedy of the Commons What is the Tragedy? The Tragedy of the Commons refers to an economic problem within a shared-resource system where actions of individual users, motivated by self-interest for reaping maximum benefit from the common resource, behave in contradiction to the collective common good of every other user by spoiling or depleting the resource through their overall actions. With demand for the resource…

As the 19th century came to an end in America, the country had found itself revolutionized and a shadow of its former self. Steel mills, factories, and the low-wage jobs they provided were now the standards of the common American citizen. The culture started shifting throughout the nation; activism against Jim Crow Laws, hostility towards immigrants, and women’s rights marches pushed the envelope of social inequality. Later, the Great Depression caused many Americans to lose everything they have…

Estrangement from Species Being Thus far we have examined the ways in which alienation and estrangement manifest themselves in the products of labour and the activity of labour itself. However, the third and arguably most nefarious type of estrangement, is the estrangement from species being. Marx succinctly describes the impacts of estranged labour on species being when he writes that estranged labour transforms, “Man’s species being, both nature and his spiritual species property, into a…

Agamben starts with two distinctions : zoe versus bios and oikos versus polis. Zoe refers to the form of life common to all living things, whereas bios refers to a form of life specific to an individual or groups. Agamben's second distinction runs in parallel: oikos is concerned with managing a household and household economics, whereas the polis is concerned with developing the good life. Agamben tells us that, starting with Aristotle and the Greeks, the Western polis was founded by relegating…

Political-correctness, described by Bill Lind on “The Origins of Political Correctness,” as a form of cultural Marxism due to the totalitarian ideology parallels, has currently shaped the way Americans process issues. Sadly, the problem is that many Americans simply can't recognize deficiencies anymore living with this belief . Political-correctness is a way to avoid offending, or hurting another person's feelings by for example, removing certain art, music, sexism, racism, etc.. Throughout the…

Rajeev Sahu The industrial revolution was a time of change for the vast majority of the entire world. Many big factories were being built on land that landowners owned, making them lose their wealth and land. Industrialization changed the way people had lived before. Industrialization improved the lives of people in Europe by creating an urbanized society, creating a better lifestyle, and technological innovations. Before industrialization urban societies was nonexistent, people had to…