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7/29/2019 The Basic Tenets of Marxism Power Point
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The Basic Tenets of Marxism
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”
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I. History and Class Struggle(Historical Materialism)
• Human history is the history of class struggles among the classesin society.
• A class is defined by the relations of its members to the means of production .
• Me ans of productio n - the combination of the means of labor andthe subject of labor used by workers to make products.
- Means of labor include machines, tools, factory andequipment, infrastructure, and so on:
- Subject of labor includes raw materials and materialsdirectly taken from nature.
- Means of production by themselves produce nothing -- labor is needed for production to take place.
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I. History and Class Struggle(Historical Materialism)
• The class struggles that define humanhistory in each of its stages is betweenthose that own the means of production
and those that work the means of production.
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I. History and Class Struggle(Historical Materialism)
Stages of History:• Primitive communism – equalitarian hunting and
gathering / tribal organizations
• Slave society – largely agricultural production done byslaves for slave owners
• Feudalism – largely agricultural production done byserfs, indentured servants, slaves for large landowners
- within feudalism, trade expands leading tomerchants (bourgeoisie) / increased use of money
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I. History and Class Struggle(Historical Materialism)
• Capitalism - Economic system in which most of the means of production are privately owned, and production is guided andincome distributed largely through the operation of markets.
- Based open competition, profit motive.
- Encourages private investment and business,compared to a government-controlled economy.
- Investors in these private companies (i.e.shareholders) also own the firms and are known as
capitalists.
- The first Industrial Revolution took place under capitalism.Marx lived from 1818-1883.
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I. History and Class Struggle(Historical Materialism)
• Under capitalism , the capitalists own themeans of production , the proletariat ownonly their capacity to work.
• Landlords rule the land, and the peasants are less significant than workers and aretrapped in the idiocy of rural life .
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I. History and Class Struggle:Class Consciousness
• Prior to the overthrow of capitalism the proletariat mustdevelop its own class consciousness . Other classes havetheir own forms of class consciousness.
• Television, literature, art, music and other forms of culture tend to reflect the class ideology of the class towhich the artist belongs. However, the ideology of otherclasses can also affect the artist.
• Class hatred is good. Class collaboration is a bad.
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II. Revolutionary Change
• New classes usually win power by revolution .Revolutions are violent, because the dying ruling classdoesn't give up power without a desperate struggle.
• The capitalist class wins power over the feudal class by abourgeois democratic revolution . A bourgeois democraticrevolution is a progressive step in the right direction.For Marxists, it is not an end-all stage.
- French Revolution
- Revolutions of 1830 / 1848
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II. Revolutionary Change
• The proletariat wins power by a proletarian revolution. According to Marx and Lenin, this revolution must beviolent, because the bourgeoisie won't give up power byelectoral means.
• The proletariat will then begin constructing socialism,destroying the bourgeoisie and eliminating classdifferences in the process.
- This period is also known as “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
• The final stage, the end of history is a classless society – communism .
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II. Revolutionary Change
• Socialism - The main feature is mixed ownership of the means of production (with an emphasis on public),distribution and exchange .
- In the first stages of socialism the state is adictatorship of the proletariat., i.e. theproletariat rules the other classes byforce.
- The socialist slogan is "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."
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II. Revolutionary Change
• Communism - a system of social organization in which property(especially real property and the means of production) is held incommon.
- the movement that aims to overthrow the capitalist order
by revolutionary means and to establish a classless society inwhich all goods will be socially owned.
- a system of government in which the state plans and controlsthe economy and a single, often authoritarian party holdspower, claiming to make progress toward a higher social
order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
- The communist slogan is "From each according to his ability,to each according to his needs."
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II. Revolutionary Change
• Originally, proletarian (socialist) revolutions weresupposed to occur first in the most advancedcapitalist countries, e.g. Germany, Great Britain,the United States, France, Belgium, the
Netherlands.
• It wasn't supposed to occur first in a backward
country like Russia, where capitalism barely took root, there was a tiny proletariat, anunderdeveloped bourgeoisie and no bourgeoisdemocratic revolution.
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II. Revolutionary Change
• None of the former or current socialistcountries (Russia, China, Cuba, NorthKorea, Vietnam) had undergone a
bourgeois-democratic revolution when thecommunists seized power. Thecommunists tried to build socialismanyway, and some of their leftist rivals
used the missing bourgeois-democratic revolution to predict that communistpower would end badly.
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III. Marxist Economics
• Under capitalism, workers "tend" to bepaid the bare amount required for them tosupport their families and reproduce. This
is because of competition for jobs fromthe reserve army of labor , i.e. theunemployed.
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III. Marxist Economics
• The capitalist sells the product of theworkers' labor at a price proportional to itsvalue , which is the socially necessary labor
required to produce it.
• The difference between what the product
sells for and what the workers are paid issurplus value and is appropriated by thecapitalist.
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III. Marxist Economics
• Because the workers can't buy the full product of theirlabor and the capitalists don't consume all the surplusvalue, there tend to be recessions.
- This is one of the major reasons why capitalistcountries sought overseas colonies during theIndustrial Revolution > Imperialism.
• The steady increase in labor saving machinery createsunemployment and drives down wages. This emphasizesthe tendency for there to be economic recessions.
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III. Marxist Economics
• The tendency to pay the workers bare subsistencewages leads to the increasing impoverishment of the proletariat .
• As a small number of people become super wealthy, aneven greater number become impoverished, polarizingthe classes.
- “The middle classes must increasingly disappear until the world is divided into millionaires and paupers.”
(Friedrich Engels)
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IV. The State
• The state is the means whereby the ruling class forcibly maintains its rule over the other classes.
• During socialism, the workers will take control of the state to begin the construction communism> “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
• Communism , which evolves peacefully fromsocialism, is a classless society under which thestate will wither away.
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V. Religion
• God is created in the image of man, not man in the image of God.
• Organized religions have been used to give the poor and oppressedhope that their afterlife will be better than their current one.
• Religion and the Church have been used as forms of social controlto preserve the power of the ruling class.
• With the establishment of communism, the necessity to believe inGod and a better life in heaven will disappear. “Heaven will becreated on Earth.”
- Marx believed religion would eventually wither away. Violentmeans to suppress organized religion need not be taken.
- “Religion is the opiate of the masses.”
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VI. Marxist Revisionists:Trade Unionists
• Trade unions are good as training groundsfor the class struggle, but it is capitalistideology to suppose that they can make
any permanent improvement in thecondition of the proletariat.
• The belief that trade unions can make apermanent difference is a heresy calledeconomism or trade-unionism.
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VI. Marxist Revisionists:Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932)
• Argued that it waspossible for workers towin power peacefully bywinning elections.
Revolution was notnecessary.
• This was revisionism and
the orthodox Marxisthave used revisionism asan epithet ever since.
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VII. Marxism-Leninism
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VII. Marxism-Leninism
• Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism.
- The working class in the mother countries isbribed to keep it passive by exploiting the labor
of the colonies . This explains why theworking class became more prosperous in the late19th and early 20th centuries instead of becoming more miserable as a direct reading of Marxist theory might suggest.
- The rivalry of the colonial countries becomes moreand more intense leading to imperialist wars . WWIwas a prime example.
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VII. Marxism-Leninism
• The working class needs to be led by avanguard party , i.e. the Communist Party which in turn is led by professional
revolutionaries.
• The leadership of the working class by thevanguard party continues into the periodof socialism.
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VII. Stalinism
• Socialism in One Country
- The Soviet Union should concentrate its forces on building
socialism within the country first because worldwide
revolution is not imminent.
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VII. Maoism
• Mao believed that in a country likeChina, the revolution couldproceed first in the countrysidewhich would surround the cities.
• The peasants, not the workers,could lead a socialist revolution.
• emphasized class struggle withinsocialism and its evolution
towards communism to be playedout in a series of cultural revolutions .
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VII. Leninist Revisionists:Fidel Castro & Che Guevara
• Socialist revolution DOESNOT have to be led by aCommunist Party.
• Socialist revolution can beled by peasants.
• Soviet Union is obligated to
aid all revolutionary socialistcountries looking to break away from imperialistdomination (Guevara).
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VII. Marxist-Leninist Revisionists:Kim Il Sung
• Juche – “self -reliance”
• A blend of Marxism-Leninism withKorean nationalism.
• Adaptation of Marxism-Leninismto Korean conditions.
• Self-reliance--the need to rely ondomestic resources, heightenvigilance against possibleexternal challenges, andstrengthen domestic politicalsolidarity.
• Sacrifice, austerity, unity, andpatriotism became dominantthemes