Wednesday, April 14th

1
Wednesday, April 14th

• Karl Marx

2
Marx Key Concepts

• Alienation
• Exploitation
• Means, Forces, Relations, and Modes of Production
• Class Consciousness
• False Consciousness
• Dialectic
• Historical Materialism

3
Development of Marxs Thought From Idealism to
Historical Materialism

• Causes of historical change
• Idealism (Hegel) Spirit (God, Reason) makes
  history
• Materialism (Feuerbach) Man makes God and
  history
• Historical Materialism (Marx) History makes
  man, labor makes history
• Assumptions of Dialectical Theory
• Progress by resolution of contradictions What
  is possible versus What is practiced.
• Resolution of contradictions by overcoming
  alienation (attribution of human capacities to
  alien - non-human - entities (God, nature)

4
Development of Marxs Thought From Idealism to
Historical Materialism (cont.)

• Historical Materialism
• Human being Labor mental and physical
  activity
• Human condition
• Scarcity and struggle for subsistence
• Class rule and control of production
• Freedom free labor
• Contradictions Possibilities of production
  versus
• Realities of class rule

5
Marxs Materialist Conception of History
Descriptive

• How is society structured?
• Ideology
• Society Relations Mode of
• Forces Production

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Marxs Materialist Conception of History
Explanatory

• How do societies change?
• 2 conditions of change
• Objective and Subjective
• Objective conditions
• Forces of production (change in material
  conditions)
• Crisis (class contradictions)
• Subjective conditions
• Crisis (class contradictions)
• Revolutionary Consciousness (ideological
  changes)
• Stability Forces Crisis Revolutionary
  Consciousness Revolution Stability

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Marxs Materialist Conception of History
Practical

• How can we emancipate ourselves?
• Social Structure Mode of production
  Material conditions
• Pre-class Primitive communism
  extreme scarcity
• Tribal Unequal scarcity
• Ancient
• Class Feudal
• Capitalist
• Early capitalism Unequal scarcity
• Late capitalism Artificial scarcity
• Post-class Communism Abundance

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Marxs Materialist Conception of History
Practical

• What is the obstacle to emancipation?
• Artificial scarcity created by the capitalist
  mode of production.