What makes something marxist

I will also soon provide an alternate menu option; for now, just scroll down. Visits to the site since July 17, Alienation Marx :. The creation of commodities need not lead to alienation and can, indeed, be highly satisfying: one pours one's subjectivity into an object and one can even gain enjoyment from the fact that another in turn gains enjoyment from our craft. In capitalism, the worker is exploited insofar as he does not work to create a product that he then sells to a real person; instead, the proletariat works in order to live, in order to obtain the very means of life, which he can only achieve by selling his labor to a capitalist for a wage as if his labor were itself a property that can be bought and sold.

Aristocracy aristocrat :. The dominant class during the feudal stage of economic development. See feudalism. Bourgeoisie bourgeois :.

Buying in order to sell at a higher profit. Capital transforms the simple circulation of commodities. In commodity exchange, one exchanges a commodity for money , which one then exchanges for some other commodity.

Money allows this formula to be transformed, however: now one can buy in order to sell at a higher price : M-C-M, which becomes for Marx the general formula for capital. In this second formula, "the circulation of money as capital is an end in itself, for the valorization of value takes place only within this constantly renewed movement. The movement of capital is therefore limitless" The aim of the capitalist thus becomes "the unceasing movement of profit-making" Indeed, the formula is reduced even further in the case of usury , when one loans money in return for the same money with interest, or M-M.

A similar process occurs on the stock market. A socio-economic system based especially on private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of the labor force. See especially the Marx module on stages of socioeconomic development and the module on capital.

The subordination of both private and public realms to the logic of capitalism. In this logic, such things as friendship, knowledge, women, etc. In this way, they are no longer treated as things with intrinsic worth but as commodities. They are valued, that is, only extrinsically in terms of money. By this logic, a factory worker can be reconceptualized not as a human being with specific needs that, as humans, we are obliged to provide but as a mere wage debit in a businessman's ledger.

See also commodity fetishism. An "external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind" Marx, Capital and is then exchanged for something else. When Marx speaks of commodities, he is particularly concerned with the "physical properties of the commodity" , which he associates closely with the use-value of an object. However, use-value does not automatically lead to a commodity: "He who satisfies his own need with the product of his own labour admittedly creates use-values , but not commodities.

In order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use-values , but use-values for others, social use-values " Commodities, therefore, "possess a double form, i. See Use-Value vs. This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy.

Based on the theories of Karl Marx and so influenced by philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , this school concerns itself with class differences, economic and otherwise, as well as the implications and complications of the capitalist system: "Marxism attempts to reveal the ways in which our socioeconomic system is the ultimate source of our experience" Tyson Theorists working in the Marxist tradition, therefore, are interested in answering the overarching question, whom does it [the work, the effort, the policy, the road, etc.

The elite? The middle class? It is true that these transitions were generally marked by periods of violent competition; but just like with Darwinism historical study has showed that the violent outbursts were not the chief or only means of change. In fact, decades, sometimes centuries, of smaller changes accumulated over time to put stress on existing systems and bring about major changes.

This is especially true of capitalism, which arose in Europe not all at once after the French beheaded enough nobles, but took place over an extended period beginning as far back as the fourteenth century.

The dictatorship of the proletariat does not mean revolutionary terror against class enemies and the death of freedom. It means something very simple: look around you. For Marxists, the dictatorship of the proletariat simply means a period where political power is held in common for the sole benefit of the working class.

Getting to this point requires the working class to realize it is in fact a single class, and acting in its own interests.

Dictatorship is bad. We live under a form of dictatorship today: a dictatorship on behalf of the capitalist class. Some people can own the means of production and the rest of us have to sell our labor to survive. The dictatorship of the proletariat just inverts this: it organizes the state to preserve the common ownership of the means of production.

Historically, the forces of production — the thing that determines human flourishing — had never been reordered through moral argument; it had required engaging in struggle — in political competition. There are three main reasons for this. First, to change the world for the better, the system must be reorganised for human need, not for profit. That would require ending the power of the capitalist class, which retains power by constantly accumulating profits.

Second, and related to this, parliaments are not set up to allow this to happen. They are tiny bureaucracies designed to cut off politicians from the majority of people and make them dependent on the big powers of capitalist society. We have to go through the process of figuring out what we want collectively, organising ourselves to achieve it, renouncing the ideas that stand in our way, and defeating those who want to defend the status quo.

By going through that process, an oppressed class, the members of which have been taught by capitalism to be distrustful of themselves and of each other, becomes a creative, collective movement that can organise a society based on equality and cooperation. From that, we can also glean the specific Marxist conception of a communist revolution: a dynamic mass movement that allows the working class to take control of its own destiny. Marxists argue that the working class has a responsibility to lead the socialist revolution.

They saw new modern factories spring up throughout Europe. In those factories, hundreds or thousands of workers were brought into contact with each other and given the power to threaten the new ruling class that was profiting from their labour. The strikes and riots of those workers combined economic power, a drive for equality and democracy, and an ability to learn collective organising through daily battles against the bosses.