Karl Marx: Historical Materialism, Class Struggle, and Alienation
Karl Marx: Historical and Sociocultural Framework
Karl Marx: It was a time of major political, social, economic, and scientific revolutions (stemming from the Industrial Revolution). Society stratified by classes replaced the aristocracy. These classes differed in socioeconomic status, based on whether or not they possessed the means of production. Social classes included the bourgeoisie and proletariat, with the aristocracy and peasantry in dispute. The proletariat began a movement of reaction (associations, unions, etc.). Currents of thought arose, including liberalism, socialism, and anarchism.
Philosophical Framework
- Marxist thought is indebted to German philosophy (Hegel).
- Experimental Sciences and positivist thinking influenced Marx.
- Post-Hegelian currents: Right Hegelians and Left Hegelians. Feuerbach’s critique of religion addressed alienation.
Thought: Dialectical Materialism
Marxism holds a view of reality that considers nature as the only reality. All social organization is the result of a historical process. This reality is dialectical, a dynamic field that transforms from contradictory elements, according to certain laws: the law of unity and opposition of contraries, the law of qualitative leaps, and the law of negation of the negation.
Historical Materialism
Historical materialism is the Marxist explanation of history based on a dialectical and materialist conception. By matter, Marxism meant the whole of production relations and property. This system of production determined beliefs, values, and the culture of society. History progresses dialectically. The class struggle is the engine of history and begins a new mode of production. The ruling class uses the superstructure to maintain its dominance.
Basics of Historical Materialism:
- Relations of production: (property of the means of production).
- Productive forces: composed of people, machines, and technologies.
- Mode of production: (all the relations of production and productive forces) constitutes the infrastructure (economic structure), which determines the superstructure (the set of cultural values, political and moral ideas that society defends). The new economic and social system is communism.
Critique of Capitalist Society
- Capitalist: provides goods and money (capital) and owns the means of production.
- Worker: brings labor power in exchange for pay (but it does not match the value of the product of labor in the market; the difference, the added value, remains with the capitalist). The work product is a source of unequal wealth, exploitation of the employee (workers), alienation, and enslavement.
Alienation
Alienation exists in the proletariat as a result of socio-economic conditions. The alienated worker views the product of their work as something alien to themselves, leading to alienation and dehumanization.
Types of Alienation:
- Economic: The worker feels like a commodity, has no power over their work, and increasing inequality widens the gap between classes.
- Socio-political: The state represents the interests of the ruling class.
- Religious: Religion is the opium of the people, providing a false comfort to misery and preventing people from struggling to transform their living conditions.
The Revolution of the Proletariat
The bourgeoisie had played a revolutionary role against the feudal system. But the new system that emerged, capitalism, also carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. The tension between the two antagonistic social classes leads to the revolution of the proletariat.
Three Stages of Revolution:
- Transition: The dictatorship of the proletariat seizes the means of production.
- Socialism: The abolition of private property occurs.
- Communism: Class divisions disappear, securing true freedom for human beings and their fulfillment.
Ethics
Marxist work contains an ethical perspective, a critique of bourgeois double standards. The capitalist system proclaims equality and freedom but is a society based on the exploitation of man by man, institutionalized selfishness, and human manipulation. The principle of distributive justice is “to each according to their needs.”
The Human Being in Historical Materialism
Work is the element that defines the human being and is developed in the economic structure. The human being is distinguished from animals by using nature to transform it and by recreating material products of science and art, developing their abilities and potential. The goal of historical progress is for humans to control their destiny. When suffering alienation, the worker becomes a commodity with market value.