Karl Marx

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Karl Marx

• Mr. Crawford
• Pine Crest School

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Our Situation

• The Classical Theory of Economics

ADAM SMITH Involuntary Unemployment is
Impossible. The economy is self-correcting and
self adjusting.
WRONG!
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The Situation in 1848

• workers-including children-spent 14 hours a day,
  6 days a week on the job
• factory work was unsanitary and unsafe with no
  guarantee of compensation for injury or illness
• 80 of factory workers lived in poverty huddled
  in ghettos and tenements
• business cycles made workers the victims of
  either high inflation or high unemployment

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How Did This Happen?

• All wealth is a direct result of combining Labor
  with the other Tools of Production

LABOR THEORY OF VALUE

• The concept of Private Property has seperated the
  worker from access to the other Means of
  Production

ALIENATION

• Private Ownership allows the Capitalist to seize
  the Surplus Labor Value of the worker as Profit
  by paying Subsistence Wages

EXPLOITATION

• There is a Contradiction between actual
  production and rewards of that production evident
  in the existence of Social Classes

FRAGMENTATION
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Dialectical Materialism
DIALECTICS

• All history is the struggle between opposites

historical inevitability
class struggle

• All societies are organized around the production
  of goods

materialism

• All conflict arises from the inequitable
  distribution of wealth

• Revolutionary change cannot be avoided

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Alternatives Considered 1

• government
• intervention

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Alternatives Considered 2

• Union Organization

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Alternatives Considered 3

• REVOLUTION

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Marxs Vision for the Future

• IDEALISM
• MAJORITARIANISM
• UTILITARIANISM
• PRAGMATISM
• PROGRESSIVISM

Human Beings are naturally Cooperative and
Benevolent
The Will of the Masses must be Respected
SOCIALISM
Public Ownership of the Means of Production
The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number
Elimination of Class and Creation of the New Man
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Summary

• There is Conflict and Contradiction between Mans
  desire to Produce for Use and his desire for
  Possession
• Private Property creates Alienation and
  Exploitation through the Expropriation of Surplus
  Labor Value
• Socialism is Historically inevitable following a
  Revolution led by the Industrial Proletariat

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THATS ALL, FOLKS!