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Why Is Marxism Important In The Early 20th Century

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Many saw that Marxist economics catalyzed the political movements in the early 20th century but ignored the importance of Marx’s theory itself. Based upon the foundations set by the classical economists such as Ricardo, Malthus and J. S. Mill, Marx revolutionized the conceptualization of the key economic terms. He offers an overview of the mechanism of capitalism and its fate. Although some of Marx’s theories are fairly opaque, his observation of the economy adds novel innovations to the classical economics, and is still insightful in the modernity. Marxist theory of labor value, consideration of surplus value and outcome of accumulation and class struggle firmly build upon the classical economics while create Marx’s own unique school of understanding. …show more content…

He believes that the equation s/(c+v)=(s/v)/(c/v+1) showcases the falling rate of profit case. With c/v rises, the rate of profit falls because s/v must be spread over large quantity of output. Capitalists, however, would maximize the length of work day to sustain the profit. The falling rate, meanwhile, drives out productive labor and eventually remove underperforming capitalists out of the market. With an elevating concentration of the economic power from a decrease number of capitalists, monopoly is likely to appear to establish instability in the economic system. At the same time, resentment from reserved unemployment increases. The ultimate fate of capitalism, according to Marx, is a crisis. Similarly, Wolff, in his article and lecture, attributes the cause of the Global Financial Crisis to the historically established gap between the wage, productivity and working hours in the United States. Americans work “on average 20% more hours per year than workers in France, Germany and Italy.” Capitalists do not wish to pay wages; instead, they flood profitable loans to “desperate and often financially naive workers.” This type of exploitation came to an end when workers fell below subsistence level and ruined the loan mechanism. Wolff pretty much reflected upon the Marxist fate of capitalism that the exploitation harms the workers and trickles up to the capitalists. Moreover, the modern events and debates of “Occupying Wall Street” and “Tax Reform” all direct to the overly profitable higher strata of the society, specifically represented by capitalists. Robinson did correctly pointed out that Marxism “cannot be of any use without an understanding of the economic relationship within any society to which it is applied.” Marx himself, though examining the economy in Western Europe, does not restrict his philosophy to a particular region; rather, the capitalist system as a whole should be concerned. For example, the

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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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However, under capitalism, work is reduced to a means of earning a wage, and workers are often forced to perform repetitive and menial tasks that offer little satisfaction or sense of purpose. This can lead to feelings of emptiness and despair, as workers are denied the opportunity to express their creativity and fulfill their human potential. This is evident in today's economy, where workers in precarious employment are often denied benefits and job security and are forced to work long hours for low wages. As Marx wrote, "The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in

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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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In this essay I am going to highlight some of the key issues that Marx focused on and why he believed that capitalism was doom to failure because of these issues and that eventually at some point it would have to come to an inevitable end. Marx is a socialist and a communist who believes that the material conditions of society shape the social structures and culture by the means of production and relations of production which he also believes are flawed in themselves which I will go on to discuss. In other words, means of production and relations of production equal mode of production which is the type of society we have due to capitalism. Capitalism works in a way in which those who have ownership have the power to control the way in which our economic system works (Adam Smith, Karl Marx & John Maynard Keynes p.68). He was very critical about capitalism, although not in the way that people may think, he did not necessarily believe that

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Marx argues that the method of exploitation built into the capitalist economic system is the source of social dislikes that will eventually lead to the demolishing of capitalism itself. Marx distinguishes ordinary money from capital. A commodity is transformed into money, which is then transformed back into a commodity, and then sold for money and then that money is used to buy a commodity and so on. His concern with the exchange-value of labor power is to show that origin of surplus value is not about cheating the workers during the sale of their labor-power, but to show that surplus value may occur in an equal exchange.

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8). Not only are the workers being exploited from their basic needs, but alienated from other humans, even those superior to them, and lower the value of work and the worker. Referring again to the New York Time article the vice president make a comment, “‘ We believe our wages are competitive,’” (Greenhouse pg.5) and this enforces Marx idea that competition and the want to increase capita is the reason alienation in the workspace is an issue and dehumanizes workers. This overall idea of exploitation alienates the worker, not only from their job, but from others as well, which is what capitalism contributes to the

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In the theory of Marxism, the main focus is on the division of labour in the different social classes and how they change over time. Marx was interested in how the capitalistic society operated and how contradictions and conflicts of interest were a result of alienation in the society. The overexploitation of the majority party by the minority was a great concern to Marx as he believed that people should be rewarded depending on the amount of labour they put in. Contradictions arose from this inequality and questioned how far people will go for personal gain. In order to properly understand the contradictions of a capitalist society, key concepts such as the structure of capitalism, social theories and how Marxism works must be taken into consideration.

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This essay will explain and discuss Marx's concept of wage labor and the worker's relationship with the capitalist as he describes in in 'wage labour and capital'. It will elaborate on Marx's definitions on such topics such as what wages really and labour really are. What are wages? To Marx wages are the sum of money a capitalist paid by the capitalist for a particular labour time or for a particular output of labour.

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Through the philosophy of Marx, he uses a method to analyze and critique the development of capitalism and the role of class struggles in these economic units. In Marx theory he finds that the conflictions within the classes are due to problems between the interests of the mistreated class of laborers employed by the bourgeoisie for the production of goods and services and the bourgeoisie, the class who own the production and take out their wealth through the profit that is produced by the proletariat. This class struggle results in a period of short-term crises as the bourgeoisie struggle to manage labor experienced by the proletariat. The conditions analyzed by both thinkers are very similar and are focused on the rapid development of global

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Marx and Engels believe that capitalism exploits workers. This is evident throughout our texts for Social Theory. To begin with, Marx developed a labor theory of value. This states, “A commodity’s value is based on the quantity of labor required to produce it” (Kivisto, 9). This in itself makes labor into a commodity, thus adding more value to the product.

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Marx argued that this type of labour that the Proletariats performed, always involved exploitation because they earned less for their labour in order for the Bourgeoisie to make profit. For Marx, exploitation is a requirement for a capitalist system, which is why he argues that the system was flawed as it resulted in inequalities between people. This is why he believed that a socialist state would be a better system as people would work together and there would be no class struggles. Exploitation of workers is something we see occurring in the world today. AS companies move their modes of production overseas because of cheaper labour.

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634 Words | 3 Pages

Capitalism developed from feudalism and is similar as it “new forms of struggle in place of the old ones” (Marx and Engels 1884, pp. 474). As all of previous societies were based on social oppression and because capitalism has led to rapid technological and philosophical development the idea of continual class exploitation, for Marx, is not sustainable and dehumanising and therefore communism is needed to overthrow the consistent historical oppression. Capitalism has created overproduction and “the conditions of bourgeoisie society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them” (Marx and Engels, pp.478). By doing this capitalism has “forged the weapons that bring death to itself and it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons- the modern working class- the proletarians” and thereby capitalism and its simplification of class antagonisms to two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, paved the way for communism as the next step towards modernity. As Marx describes bourgeoisie society as being necessary for communism to arise and that he appraises bourgeoisie society as it brings “even the most barbarian nations into civilisation” through creating a world market and its progressive and open nature is why some call the text Marx’s ‘hymn to the bourgeoisie’ (Marx and Engels 1884, pp. 477).

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This is partly because capitalists seek increasingly big risks in order to make even bigger profits, and this speculation disrupts prices and employment. However, Capitalism isn’t just volatile because of competition and human fragility. In Marx’s view, it is inherently unstable–a force that constantly overpowers itself. Ironically, we have crisis in Capitalism not because of shortages, but because of abundance; we have too much stuff. Our factories and systems are so efficient that we could give everyone on this planet a car, a house, access to a decent school and hospital.

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It claims in lecture five that the profit earned by capitalists at the expense of workers will eventually fall due to the diminishing returns. Thus, the value of the commodities will decrease, which further reduces the workers’ wages and some of them might even lose their jobs due to the rising technological unemployment caused by the growing population. Workers will end up working even longer hours for less wages. As a result of this grown exploitation, not only the economic growth will slow down, but the disparity between the social classes will further increase social conflicts that lead to social instability since the rich are constantly trying to catch up with the “capitalist tail” by staying rich, powerful and ahead of the competitive game. However, this behaviour, as Marx believed based on Chris Hedges’ article, would cause capitalism to eventually exhaust its potential and collapse.

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