Marxist Critique: Dehumanization, Ideology, and Class Struggle
Dehumanization in Capitalist Society
It can be argued that true human potential is unattainable within capitalist societies. Both private property and the ruling class erode authentic human character. The worker’s alienation from their labor results in a loss of self, leading to dehumanization.
- Marx defines work as human production, the production system being the foundation of social organization.
- Everything else is explained by these production systems.
Production is the activity that creates goods to meet needs. It consists of the labor process, which yields a product, and the production relations, which determine social class and constitute the economic structure of society. This economic structure is the infrastructure upon which rises a superstructure: a set of ideas, beliefs, customs, and norms that shape social consciousness and can be legal-political and ideological.
Ideology and False Consciousness
Marx introduces the concept of ideology as a false consciousness of the proletariat regarding the true reality of their situation. This false consciousness is caused by the division of labor and private property. Ideology serves as an instrument of persuasion at the political level (government manipulation and false authority over the proletariat) and the religious level (consolation of the people to accept their lot; “Religion is the opium of the people”).
Historical Evolution and Dialectical Process
Social structures have been shaped historically through specific production relations. Historical evolution is dialectical, governed by a logic that determines causes and effects in a recognizably scientific manner. The production system contains a split that serves as the social engine of historical progress:
Class Struggle and Social Revolution
Society is divided into social classes: those who dominate the production system and, consequently, the superstructure (including ideology and manipulation), and the dominated class. When the contradictions within a production system become too great, tensions rise, leading to social revolution, which destroys a particular mode of production. The mode of production is the way material goods are produced in different societies, such as primitive, slave, feudal, capitalist, and socialist societies.
The Motor of History
This revolutionary process is observed in the class struggle, which is the motor of history. It is the contradiction between productive forces and production relations that leads to the realization and freedom of humanity, which will occur with the transformation of capitalism into a communist society and the disappearance of classes.
Marx’s Materialism vs. Hegelian Idealism
In contrast to Hegel’s idealism, Marx proposed understanding and overcoming contradictions through reality, leading to the eradication of idealism and the proposal of a radical materialism (based on material reality). This method takes from Hegelian idealism but rejects its conception of the state (an apparatus that legitimizes oppression).
The Dialectical Method
The dialectical method involves evolving, affirming, and denying until a synthesis is reached. This means discovering the problem (thesis: the oppressive bourgeoisie), confronting the problem to reach the antithesis (the proletariat), and solving the problem through synthesis (revolution). This method constitutes a law of development of historical reality (in its economic structure), the transition from capitalism to communism, and all that it entails.