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Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory Vol. 57, No. 122, Democracy and Exchange (March 2010) , pp. 51-91 (41 pages) Published By: Berghahn Books https://www.jstor.org/stable/41802465 Read and download Log in through your school or library Read Online (Free) relies on page scans, which are not currently available to screen readers. To access this article, please contact JSTOR User Support. We'll provide a PDF copy for your screen reader.With a personal account, you can read up to 100 articles each month for free. Get StartedAlready have an account? Log in Monthly Plan
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Abstract Friedrich Engels, in 1895, reissued Marx's 'The Class Struggles in France 1848-1850' (1850), with an Introduction endorsing peaceful political tactics. We review the primary evidence to bring order to a confusing picture that emerges from a range of conflicting interpretations of the document. Our conclusions are as follows: First, the 1895 Introduction does not signify a new position, considering Engels' recognition over several decades of political concessions by the British ruling class. Secondly, since from the 1840s Marx too had applauded the potential of the 'Social Democratic' route, at least under the appropriate conditions, we may be confident that he would have approved of Engels' Introduction. Thirdly, the case for universal suffrage was to set the foundations for a classless communist system; Engels, we show, would have found unacceptable a Parliamentary system generating a working-class majority unwilling to carry out a communist program, or a working-class electorate choosing to replace the party at the polls. Journal Information Theoria is an engaged, multidisciplinary and peer-reviewed journal of social and political theory. Published every quarter, its purpose is to address, through academic debate, the many challenges posed by the major social, political and economic forces that shape the contemporary world, especially but not only with regard to Africa, the global South, and their relations with the global North. Theoria wishes to promote discussion of and writing about social and political theory in any form and from any time and place, regardless of ideological perspective and methodological approach. It is particularly interested in how modern systems of power, and traditional and emergent forms of politics, bear on the central questions in social and political theory, such as democracy, freedom, equality, justice, race, gender and identity. Publisher Information Berghahn Books is an award-winning independent scholarly publisher of distinguished books and journals in the humanities and social sciences, headed by a mother (books) and daughter (journals) team. Its program, which includes 35 journals to date and 100 new titles a year, is focused on History, Sociology & Anthropology, International Politics & Policy Studies, Cultural and Media Studies, Jewish Studies, and Migration & Refugee Studies. A peer-reviewed press, Berghahn is committed to the highest academic standards; its publishing program is widely recognized for the quality both of its lists and of the production of its books and journals. Rights & Usage This item is part of a JSTOR Collection.
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Marx, one of the principle architects of modern social science, believed that history was made of up stages driven by class conflict. Famously, Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. ” Class struggle pushed society from one stage to the next, in a dialectical process. In each stage, an ownership class controls the means of production while a lower class provides labor for production. The two classes come into conflict and that conflict leads to social change. For example, in the feudal stage, feudal lords owned the land used to produce agricultural goods, while serfs provided the labor to plant, raise, and harvest crops. When the serfs rose up and overthrew the feudal lords, the feudal stage ended and ushered in a new stage: capitalism. Means of Production, Relations of ProductionAccording to Marx, the way society is organized depends on the current means of production and who owns them. The means of production include things that are necessary to produce material goods, such as land and natural resources. They also include technology, such as tools or machines, that people use to produce things. The means of production in any given society may change as technology advances. In feudal society, means of production might have included simple tools like a shovel and hoe. Today, the means of production include advanced technology, such as microchips and robots. At different stages in history, different groups have controlled the means of production. In feudal times, feudal lords owned the land and tools used for production. Today, large corporations own many of the means of production. Different stages have different relations of production, or different forms of social relationships that people must enter into as they acquire and use the means of production. Throughout history, the relations of production have taken a variety of forms—slavery, feudalism, capitalism—in which employees enter into a contract with an employer to provide labor in exchange for a wage. Modes of ProductionTogether, the means of production and the relations of production compose a particular period’s mode of production. Marx distinguished different historical eras in terms of their different modes of production. He believed that the mode of production was the defining element of any period in history, and he called this economic structure the base of that society. By contrast, he believed that the ideas and culture of a given stage were derived from the mode of production. He referred to ideas and culture as the “superstructure,” which grew up from the more fundamental economic “base. ” Because of his focus on the economic base over culture and ideas, Marx is often referred to as an economic determinist. In Marx’s dialectic, the class conflict in each stage necessarily leads to the development of the next stage. Marx was less interested in explaining the stable organization of any given historical stage than in explaining how society changed from one stage to the next. Marx believed that the class conflict present in any stage would necessarily lead to class struggle and, eventually, to the end of that stage and the beginning of the next. Feudalism ended with class struggle between serfs and lords, and gave rise to a new stage, capitalism. Instabilities in CapitalismMarx’s work focused largely on explaining the inherent instabilities present in capitalism and predicting its eventual fall and transition to socialism. Marx argued that capitalism was unstable and prone to periodic crises. Marx believed that economic growth would be punctuated by increasingly severe crises as capitalism went through cycles of growth, collapse, and more growth. Moreover, he believed that in the long-term this process would necessarily enrich and empower the capitalist class, while at the same time it would impoverish the poorer laboring class, which he referred to as the proletariat. Eventually, the proletariat would become class conscious—aware that their seemingly individual problems were created by an economic system that disadvantaged all those who did not own the means of production. Once the proletariat developed a class consciousness, Marx believed, they would rise up and seize the means of production, overthrowing the capitalist mode of production, and bringing about a socialist society. Marx believed that the socialist system established after the proletariat revolution would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, abolish the exploitative capitalist, ending their exclusive ownership of the means of production, and introduce a system of production less vulnerable to cyclical crises. For Marx, this eventual uprising was inevitable, given the inherent structural contradictions in capitalism and the inevitability of class conflict. Marx’s Communist Manifesto Illustrated by Cartoons: The Communist Manifesto gives an overview of Marx’s theory of class conflict and embraces his position that sociologists should also be publicly active social critics. In this video, the test of the manifesto is illustrated with cartoon clips that demonstrate the deep and enduring legacy of Marx’s philosophy for modern culture. Key Points
Key Terms
What did Karl Marx believe would happen between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie?Karl Marx was convinced that capitalism was destined to collapse. He believed the proletariat would overthrow the bourgeois, and with it abolish exploitation and hierarchy.
What is the conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat?Marx's version of conflict theory focused on the conflict between two primary classes within capitalist society: the ruling capitalist class (or bourgeoisie) who own the means of production, and the working class (or proletariat), whose alienated labor the bourgeoisie exploit to produce profit.
What did Karl Marx believe was happening to the bourgeoisie?Marx said that capitalists had alienated the worker from the results of his labor, forcing him to become "enslaved by the machine." This exploitation, argued Marx, would soon bring about a new class struggle that would end with the "violent overthrow" of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat.
What did Karl Marx believe about the proletariat?Marx defined the proletariat as the social class having no significant ownership of the means of production (factories, machines, land, mines, buildings, vehicles) and whose only means of subsistence is to sell their labor power for a wage or salary.
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What did Marx and Engels believe would be the outcome of the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat?
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