Marx And Bourgeoisies

For many years, sociological theorists have severally examined the issue of social inequality, particularly its roots and effects on society. Karl Marx, for instance in his conflict theory argues that society is mainly made up of two classes: the proletariat and bourgeoisie (Weeden & Grusky, 1723). He further explains that the bourgeoisie are mainly individuals who own the means of production, for example vital equipment, businesses and factories. He refers to the workers who work or in these firms as the proletariat. Marx observed that the “material production forces” which exist in such societies result in conflicts and ultimately result to inefficiencies inequality, class struggle and stratification. By cutting down social benefits, pursuing military aggression and driving down wages, the owners of the means of production compensate for any fall in profit, mainly caused by unsustainable living standards and subsequent low purchasing power of the population.

As the philosopher Karl Marx once said “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Briefly, this means that all of the conflicts in the world revolve around the struggle between the two social classes. The Bourgeoisie, known as the rich, are able to sit back and employ struggling Proletarians, the working class. Today the Bourgeoisie have money to go around. Yet they can’t support the working class. Welfare is a system created by the government to support the ones who cannot provide enough for themselves. Money is snatched from the paychecks of the middle class and the rich all around the country. The wealthy are extremely powerful and have a booming voice. They can avoid welfare taxes. This leaves the middle class, a group of citizens that work hard for what they earn. Only to have it thrown away and used as a crutch for the poor. Therefore, the middle class does not have a voice when it comes to paying welfare taxes.

The Manifesto teaches us about the hardships that the proletarians face at the opposition of the bourgeoisie. We learn about the mindset of the working class, instead of the logistics of their labour. In Engels and Marx’s view, the proletarians have lost all of their individuality and have been reduced to simply cogs of a machine. Unfortunately for the proletarians, their availability of work and the amount of their income are directly tied to the market, and the supply and demand factor. We are told that they are “slaves of the bourgeoisie class” and “privates of the industrial army.” What Marx and Engels are trying to convey is the dependence that the proletariat class has on the market, with no payoff. This is why the authors predict an uprising of the proletarians, and their eventual rule. The authors have some background for this claim, as they have known of revolutions brought on by the lower class. From a historic perspective, the communists must have thought that the proletariat were strong in numbers and ready for dramatic

In 1847, a group of radical workers called the "Communist League" met in London. They commissioned Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who had recently become members, to write a manifesto on their behalf, soon known as the Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels are best known for their revolutionary writings about Communism. Of all the documents of modern socialism, it is the most widely read and the most influential. It is the systematic statement of the philosophy that has come to be known as Marxism.

Karl Marx was an economist and philosopher. He was born in Prussia (Germany) to a middle-class family in 1818. As an adult, Marx spent much of his life in London, England, with Friedrich Engels and published various works. He also married Westphalen, Marx and von Westphalen had seven children, but poor conditions caused only three survived to adulthood. His most well-known was the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto. His work has since influenced intellectual, economic, and political history. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in history, and his work has been both accepted and criticised. His work in economics helped the understanding of labor and its relation to capital. Many intellectuals, labour unions, artists

Karl Marx viewed social power by focusing on economics and capital. He explained that capital is a social product in a social system, therefore capital is not personal, but rather a social power. Because of this idea, Marx believed that society is split into two classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletarians. Personal worth was measured by someone’s exchange value, or capital they had. Therefore, social power was given to the bourgeoisie, who owned the most capital in society. The bourgeoisie was a result of development, in which they “destroyed all relations that were feudal, patriarchal, and idyllic” (??).Through each development, there was a specific political advancement, earning them the social power they had. The bourgeoisie focused more on their monetary values, rather than values of people in society. The bourgeoisie continued to gain its capital and power by rapidly transforming the means of production. “In scarcely one hundred years of class rule the bourgeoisie has created more massive and more colossal forces of production than have all preceding generations put together” (Marx 17). These changes allowed the bourgeoisie to dominate the world by creating a world market in which all nations, regardless of their level of development, participated in. National industries were forced to become international; goods were not made just for their own country, but was used all over the world. As a result, nations were no longer

Developed in the 19th century by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was a theory called Marxism. In dictionary terms one can say that Marxism is “a system of economic, social, and political philosophy based on ideas that view social change in terms of economic factors.” (Business Dictionary)

On page 150 of The German Ideology, Marx states “As individuals express their life, so they are.” This essay will explain how Marx did not believe in a single trans-historical human nature. His conception of an unstable state of human nature, combined with the modes of production, produces a cycle of tools and needs in which our lives and the lives of future generations are continually changed and shaped.

Throughout Karl Marx writings, capitalism is described as one of his major works. He defines capitalism as constantly revolutionizing amongst goods. Marx defines capital as the capitalist mode of production, a form of exchange, and a commodity. Marx asserts that the exchange of commodities is the beginning point of capitol. One other thing that Marx points out is the importance of money to capitol. In Marx’s writings he explains the difference of money as money and money as capitol. Another thing Marx describes in his writings is labor being an essential part of capitol. One thing labor leads to is valorization which is the process through which one starts with money and ends up with more money. This process of valorization leads to surplus

In accordance with Karl Marx and Max Weber, the two most powerful sociologists of the nineteenth century, “class consciousness” has varying approaches. Initially, class consciousness is the capability of members from the same social class to self-understand their situation, to position and to figure out the correspondence in their everyday life. Marx’s concluded that it is generated due to the struggles and grievances they go through and share and thereby awareness is generated. As for Weber, there was a minor change from Marx’s approach. He stated that class awareness isn’t only born from facing the same problems which from his point of view is mainly economical issues. Instead he specified certain issues and added a new structural category

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. Since capitalists are trying to gain as much profit as possible, there are no adjustments made in their conduct and decisions even though their actions are worsening the economic growth and social well-being in the country as a whole. Thus, capitalists keep competing with one another instead of cooperating with each other to solve the problems arising from their

Through the development of class consciousness, the economic conditions of capitalism united the masses and constituted them into “a class for itself’….. (Abraham and Morgan. Page: 37.)

Generally class struggle means conflict between the upper class and lower class the idea of Class struggle is long-used mostly by socialists and communists, who define a class by its relationship to the means of production such as factories, land, and machinery. From this point of view, the social control of production and labour is a fight between classes, and the division of these resources basically involves conflict and causes damage. Societies are socially divided based on status, wealth, or control of social production and distribution, and in this division of class conflict arises. It is important to know Karl Marx theory on class struggle; he viewed the structure of society in relation to its major classes, and the struggle between them. His aims were to revolutionize the concept of work through creating a classless society built on control and ownership of the means of production. Marx believed that Economic Determinism, Dialectical Materialism and Class Struggle were the three principles that explained his theories. The Bourgeois (Dominant class who control and own the means of production) and Proletariat (Subordinate class: Don’t own and control the means of production) were the only two classes who engaged in aggressive interaction to achieve class consciousness.

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Karl Marx used the word “struggle” repeatedly for the social changes in describing how society move forward. In his theory, a commodity is something that is bought and sold, or exchanged in a market. It has a “use – value” determined by the qualities of things and the purposes or needs because the commodity can satisfy human’s need and it also has a “exchange – value” determined by quantities of things and what can be gotten for them. As use – values, commodities have all of different qualities, but in terms of exchange – values, they are just different quantities and do not contain the use – value. Marx emphasized that the labor and work are quantified; in

Resulting from a series of political revolutions such as the 1789 French Revolution and the 1760 Industrial Revolution, and a series of historical developments such as the subsequent rise of capitalism, Enlightenment thinkers sought to combine reason with empirical research in an effort to produce bodies of rational thought. These bodies of rational thought arose from the thinkers’ belief in using reason and research to comprehend and control society; focusing on the relationship between the individual and society to comprehend how society is possible. There was the growing concern of the impacts of such changes that is, the transition from pre-industrial economies to industrialized societies, on society and individuals. The founding