"What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable" (Marx, 1848). Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels famous work ‘ The communist manifesto’ is on of the most influential doctrines on the theory of Marxism. Marxism, as concluded from Marx and Engels is a conflict theory, which means that it believes that society is based on inequality and unequal distribution of power and wealth. The Marxist methodology uses economic and sociopolitical inquiry and employs that to the critique and analyse the development of capitalism and the role of class struggle in systemic economic change.
It can be inferred that the person would be in favour of a revolution for equality rather than the passive method of distribution of wealth. This proposes the best way to create equality and prosperity for society is to destroy the social structure. The source, regarding the issue of the status quo in society, is a resolve that connects to communism. Communism is a rejection of liberalism, meaning that it proposes violence in order to create change. In the source, the man contains collectivist ideals, explaining that a laissez-faire economy causes problems within the working class.
Whereas Marx tends to focus on economic influences. Weber generalises the political to the economic. He stressed that economics, individually, couldn’t explain the class system. (Max Weber, An intellectual portrait page 86) In contrast, Marx argues that during capitalism the Bourgeoisie exploited the Proletariats for their ‘surplus value, this is the extra revenue made after paying the Proletariats for their labour. Marx stated that the ruling class control all the power and use it to undermine and exploit the working class.
These two stand apart as art has its own laws and is the essence as well as the image of reality. Art, according to Adorno, is not photographic imitation of reality. Art brings out the negativity prevalent in the society in its own way. The followers of Frankfurt school of Marxism follow Modernism and believe it to be a critique of late Capitalism as Modern works depict and expose alienation which is caused by Capitalism. According to Adorno, the wall between the high and the low will soon break down and this will be caused by the introduction of media in the forms of films, television and other forms of mass media as these forms will render the common man the elite and esoteric art which was then only limited to the elite class.
Ideology is a demonstration of power. It hides its exploitation of the lower class by concealing the discrepancies in which capitalism is based, thus endorsing a system of differing class
Social organization could be referred by relations of production. On the other hand, using natural sources is one of best feature of human as distinct from an animal. For Marx, history is dependent on the existence of human beings, who produce their own means of subsistence, and the resulting means of production determines their way of life. Society can only develop, history can only progress, and ideology and power can only work if every cycle of production is followed by another cycle of production. To what extent does social structure related with production relations?
Ruling elites might use political ideas to contain opposition and restrict debate through the process of ideological manipulation. It was obvious in regimes that possessed official ideologies such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In both cases, official or political reliable beliefs dominated political life and all other social institutions in such a way that opposing views were strictly censored or suppressed. However, some argue that a more subtle form of ideological manipulation occurs in all societies. This can be seen in the Marxist belief that the culture of capitalist societies is prevailed by ideas with the interests of the economically dominant class (Heywood 2003, 5).
He claims that the culture industry promotes domination by destabilizing the psychological development of the mass of people who primarily live in capitalist societies. Adrono’s writing on individuality is relevant here as he assumed that within the culture industry, the idea of individualism was a myth, “In the culture industry the individual is an illusion not merely because of the standardization of the means of production. He is tolerated only so long as his complete identification with the generality is unquestioned. Pseudo individuality is rife…” (Max HorkHeimer and Theodore W. Adorno, 1977, “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, New York, Continuum, Page 154). This quote shows us that Adorno strongly held that within the culture industry people must conform to the “generality”.
Take North Korea as an example, the farmland and food production are under the control of the government. In modern usage, it is written with a capital C and aims to overthrow the capitalist order; on the other hand, the capitalist conditions gave rise to modern Communism. It wants to revolutionise by establishing a classless society, which everyone is equal. In other words, Communism and Socialism do have something in common, which is the objective— eliminating private ownership and the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, they also use the same symbol, which is hammer and sickle.
The theory believes that agency and social, political and economical rhetoric is what surrounds international relations theory. Therefore if you cite the agency of which is produced for example in capitalist sense then from a historical perspective you can question the agency. Notably one of the most acknowledge constructivist scholars, Alexander Wendt discusses how anarchy effectively something formed of discourse surrounding international relations theory (Wendt 391-425). Similarly in Teschke article he writes how ‘Dissatisfaction with universalizing IR theories has made room for arguing the historicity of international organization by inquiring into the nature of the political order that preceded the European absolutist and capitalist states systems’ (Teschke 6). The correlation between constructivism and Marxism is apparent when looking at the criticism of capitalist theory.