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How Did Karl Marx Exploit Workers Under Capitalism

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Karl Marx is one of the most influential thinkers to arise from the 19th century and his views on economic, social and political issues are still relevant to the society we live in today. During his lifetime Marx’s writings served as the voice of the rising working classes in the United Kingdom and Europe. One of Marx’s most studied works is his perspectives on capitalism. In this essay I will explain and evaluate why Marx believes that capitalists exploit workers under capitalism and what he means by this. Karl Marx thinks that under capitalism, capitalists exploit off their workers by not fully compensating them for their labor to maximize their amount of profit. Karl Marx saw capitalism as a highly productive system of economic organization(PowerPoint). He believed that capitalism is characterized by the existence of private property in the means of production and under capitalism he believed that people were categorized into two distinct groups: capitalists or workers. The capitalists are the people of the society that own the private property, such as factories and mills, and the workers are the people that “work” in those factories. Workers exclusively owned their ability to work or labor. Under capitalism production occurs when the working people are working for the …show more content…

Nike is one of the most valuable companies in the world, grossing billion upon billions of dollars a year but pay low to near subsistence wages to their employees. To illustrate this exploitation let me give you this example: A nike employee makes a shirt that is will sell for twenty dollars but the employee only get ten cents from the sale of that t shirt. The is not adequately paid for their labor and because of this Nike is able to make more money and the worker is stuck working for a subsistence wage. The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, skyrocketing

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In The Communist Manifesto, Marx refers to the "proletariat" or the working class as the group with the most "class struggle". Marx defines the classes as 1) bourgeois, the "capitalists" who own the social production and employ the labor of others; and 2) proletariat, who sell their labor power to make a living but don 't own their own production. Marx argues that the wealth and prosperity of the bourgeois depends on the proletariat 's production of labor. Their products are sold for a larger value that the labor itself thus exploiting the working class and allowing the bourgeois to control the production. Marx states that the nature of these classes will inevitably result in conflict and revolution.

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Marx, in this work, points out the buyers are naive to where the products come from. We glance past the fact that these laborers are exploited for our gain. In The Alienation of Labor Marx discusses a political economy. Political economy is, “what we would call macroeconomics, that is the economics of large systems” (pg. 250). Marx argues that there is a connection between many aspects of economics.

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In the beginning of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution caused a massive economic spike from small-scale production to large factories and mass production. Capitalism became the prevalent mode of the economy, which put all means of production in the hands of the bourgeoisie, or the upper class. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels argue that capitalism centralizes all the wealth and power in the bourgeoisie, despite the proletariat, or the working class, being the overwhelming majority of the population. The manufacturers would exploit the common proletariat and force them to would work in abysmal conditions and receive low wages, furthering the working class poverty. “The Communist Manifesto” predicts that as a result of the mistreatment

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One of the most if not the most compelling pieces of literature on communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ political plead The Communist Manifesto presents innumerable facts and ideas surrounding communism and its role in the mid-nineteenth century. Written during a time of great tension, The Communist Manifesto discusses two very interdependent social classes that could not be any less alike. On one hand, the bourgeoisie social class luxuriously thrives on the principle of capitalism, using property accumulation and the growth of industry to remain at the top of society. However, falling under the rule of the bourgeoisie are the countless proletariats, or labor workers.

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According to Karl Marx, the real capitalism aims to gain the ultimate profit, no matter what the cost is. Thus, capitalism contributes to divide the society into two classes, Bourgeoisie, and Proletariats. Marx believes, in our epoch, bourgeoisie owns forces and controls to means of productions. On the contrary, Proletariats is considered to be a working class, who owns nothing. Thus, in our today’s economic system, the bourgeoisie’s are the property owners, whereas proletariats are property-less workers.

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The capitalist class realizes the workers need their jobs to keep living, but also realize that as a worker you are disposable. The employers realize that there will always be someone there willing to replace you and that you need them more than they need you. Marx argues that this may be the largest issue with capitalism. Although as a worker you

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While Karl Marx on the other hand, fundamentally believes that labor value is exploited by the capitalist and the proceeds of productivity of labor is never returned to the wage worker, and wage workers remain at a level of subsistence. Karl Marx’s analysis about the welfare of people under capitalism is dire. While his technical perspective seems similar to Adam smith at face value, his conclusions are more similar to the dismal views of Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo. Marx, Ricardo, and Malthus all share interest in the misery among the working class and present dire views on the economy, subscribe to the Iron law of wages, and suggest there is some sort of societal grief associated with economic growth.

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Industrialization also enhanced the capitalism which is focused on the issue of more profit and conflict between capital and workers. While owner of productions take more profit with less labor, workers take less profit even with much more labor force. Karl Marx is one of the thinkers who criticizes this situation of capitalism in terms of workers and capitals in industry, especially he focuses on the situation of

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Karl Marx who was an economist, during 19th century established an idea between wealthy and rich. According to “Three Great Economists”, Karl Marx believes that “the class struggle itself, expressed as the contest over wages and profits, would be the main force for changing capitalism and eventually undoing it” (33). Here Marx shows that there will always be difference between classes in capitalism and the only technique can be use to change this concept is to ruin a capitalism. This shows that income inequality is something we cannot fight with in capitalism, because no matter what we do we always will have this problem. People will always want more, and some will achieve it and other won’t.

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It is argued that social inequality occurs because of the conflict between the upper-class and the working-class, or as Marx defines it, the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. Based on the Manifesto of the Communist Party (Marx and Engels, 1848), the divergence emerges because the aim of the Bourgeoisie is to obtain a surplus-value that is produced by the work of the Proletariat. On the other side, the Bourgeoisie provides the Proletariat with the minimum required, such as a place to live and a minimum wage, in order to keep the society under control and avoid a rebellion. However, Marx did predict a revolt of the working-class that would eventually lead to a communist regime. When it comes to applying this theoretical approach to reality, it is evident to notice that no global revolt in regards to capitalism has occurred.

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Marxism has intriguing perspective on capitalism. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels composed The Communist Manifesto, which is about Marxism. In the writing the men dicuss three classifications of people, bourgeoisie, proletariat, and lumpenproletariat. The bourgeoisie are the people who dominate the production industry, while the proletariat are the people who do the grunt work. The lumpenproletariat are people who are part of the lower class and do not care about starting a revolution.

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The proletariats are the wage earners or the labour class, in a capitalist society the proletarians don’t have much wealth, and their main asset is their labour power. The bourgeoisie is the class that owns the means of production, their class interest lies in the value of property and the preservation of capital, and this ensures their perpetual economic supremacy in society. According to Marx, in the capitalist mode of production, a worker slowly loses the power to decide upon his or her life and destiny, they lose their Gattungswesen (“species-essence”), and this is a consequence of living in a socially stratified society, where human beings become a mechanistic part of a social class. Even though human beings are self-conscious and autonomous, in a capitalist society they are nothing but an economic entity whose acts are dictated by the bourgeoisie, with the aim

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Marx believed that the current capitalist society is separated into two classes, the Proletariat society, and Bourgeois society. The Proletarians, as perceived by Marx, are part of the working class that only possess one significant material value, that is the ability to work, or labour power. The Bourgeoise, on the other hand, is the societal class that owns the means of production and hence rule over the Proletarians. As I quote from Marx’s book, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (Marx and Engels, 1988, p. 473)

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Marx’s theory on exploitation is related to his earlier writings on the theory of alienation. They are both similar in that they are both highly critical of the capitalist system. Grint,(2005) emphasises that before Karl Marx nobody had ever confronted the idea of exploitive wage labour, many great thinkers of Marx’s time like Locke and Ricardo thought that the value of the wage labour was exactly equivalent to the labour expended while producing a product. Watson,T.J (2008) states that “ capitalist employment is exploitive in attempting to take from working people the value which they create through their labour and which is properly their own. ”P.62.

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