Marx, my love

 1. Provide Marxian definitions for the following concepts.

a. Ideology: Unlike Hegel, Marx proposed that economic forces shape society by creating systems of ideas, ideology. They consciously represent the production relations, classes and material relationships and shape our perception of reality.

b. Alienation: According to Marx, labor is how humans support their social lives against the world of nature, and it should be the expression of the whole personality. In a capitalist society we become “separated” from the objectification of our personality, the product of our labor, by allowing it to become someone else’s. Alienation is therefore the source of human unhappiness.

c. Surplus value: Is the profit gained by the capitalist after the workers have created surplus labor (more labor than is necessary to pay the cost of hiring their labor-power). In capitalism, profit is only made by the trade of things that are under-valued, this is, more work was put into the products than the producer is being paid for.

d. Dialectic: The constant contradiction of a thesis and an anti-thesis, which results on a higher state of the combination of both, the synthesis. This becomes a thesis which will eventually be counterbalanced by its opposition, another anti-thesis.  For Marx, it is a description for change within a society where development is given by the perpetual conflict between classes, which is a material expression of economic quarrel. This fight would result in revolution and re-constitution (higher state).

e. Means of production: All those things with the aid of which man acts upon the subject of his labor, and transforms it. It includes physical instruments of production, methods of production and knowledge or skills used to produce. The monopolization of these is the source of class struggle.

f. Social relations of production: Coercive bonds necessary for material production between owners of the means of production and those who work to produce. The roles assumed by individuals in these relations are the product of the class system.

g. Forces of production: Capacities in things and persons to be set into use for purposes of production. It is the combination of means of production and labor itself.

h. Use value: The unique quality and ability a commodity has to satisfy specific human needs. Use value is therefore connected to function, thus becoming untradeable and incomparable.

i. Exchange value: When a comparison between two commodities is made in terms of value, both lose their use value and start having an exchange value. This allows a common element to be found between commodities by turning their value into a quantitative value.

j. Asiatic Mode of Production: Regarded by Marx as the first form of civilization (class society based on exploitation). The ruling class of this society is a semi-theocratic aristocracy which claims to be the incarnation of gods on earth. The forces of production associated with this society include basic agricultural techniques, massive construction and storage of goods for social benefit (granaries). This mode of production would be lying between tribal and ancient society on the line of social evolution.

k. Abstract labor: A conception of labor that arises from useful labor (skill put into the production of an object which gives it use value) as a quantitative idea rather than a qualitative. To transform the objectification of our skills in a tradable product by establishing that its value is set on a rate (common element) instead on the skills of the laborer. The value of a product depends on the amount of abstract human labor that's necessary to produce it, and not the needed skills.

l. Exploitation: For Marx, the employers were exploiting the proletarian by making them create surplus value through surplus labor, this is, producing more than the value equivalent of the wage they are being paid. This way, the owner would get the wages which justly would belong to the worker.

m. Communism: According to Oxford English Dictionary, communism is a “political movement that believes in an economic system in which the state controls the means of producing everything on behalf of the people. It aims to create a society in which everyone is treated equally.”

n. Socially necessary labor: The portion the workday necessary for workers to produce in wages the wages of their own maintenance. Every single extra hour is called surplus labor and creates value not for the worker, but for the capitalist.

o. Contradiction: The opposition of two incompatible things, physically observable in class struggle. Contradiction is the central assumption for Hegelian and Marxian dialectic (change and development are the resolution of contradictions).

p. Superstructure: Arises from the economic base with defines the emotional product of class struggle. It consists on spheres of intellectual and cultural life, as family, government, art, philosophy, ethics and religion, created as an expression of class interest. They exist to provide controlled releases (either by force or persuasion) of the tensions that arise from the class struggle.

q. Surplus labor: Portion of the workday which exceeds the amount of labor required for workers to maintain their physical needs without economic compensation. This surplus labor creates surplus value for the capitalist and is therefore a form of exploitation.

r. Class: “Term which defines a large social group in relation to the means of production it controls, thus reflecting its attitude (and position) to the social system in force.” (WILCZYNSKI, J. (1981). An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Marxism, Socialism and Communism. The Macmillan Press LTD, London, England). 

s. Commodity fetishism: Fetish normally refers to some type of fixation. According to Marx, money and commodities are fetishes which prevent the masses from clearly look upon economics and exploitation and merely be motivated by profit.

t. Reification: “The act (or result of the act) of transforming human properties, relations and actions into properties, relations and actions of man-produced things which have become independent of man and govern his life.” Basically, it is a stage of social development when society becomes independent of the individual because it no longer reflects its personality, but the economic forces instead. (BOTTOMORE, Tom (1983). A Dictionary of Marxist Thought.  Basil Blackwell Publisher Limited, Oxford, England).

2. What are the basic postulates (or assumptions) of historical materialism?

Historical materialism is a philosophical, economical and sociological doctrine, which defines an empirical approach to understand human history. History only exists when humans transform nature into means of production which allow them to adapt to their material needs. Therefore, history is the concrete result of human activity. Additionally, the economic (material) base, also called mode of production, defines human consciousness and variations in the superstructure (social, political, intellectual, and religious). For this reason, society is the product of men’s reciprocal action, for he both influences and is influenced by the society he creates. Modes of production develop nonetheless through the interaction of forces of production (how we produce means) and relations of production (how means are appropriated and distributed), and are fueled by class struggle and consequent feelings of alienation. For this reason, history is progressive and motivated by antagonisms (dialectic), having a purpose and a direction, insofar as it follows economic development. Its direction is Communism, the final and higher mode of production – no private property. Communism would end social antagonisms and begin the emancipation of individuals by giving them the opportunity to express themselves freely through their labor, since this is, in fact, what makes us human.

3. List Marx’s modes of production in ascending order of complexity.

1.      Primitive Communism (Least complex)

2.      Asiatic

3.      Antique

4.      Feudalism

5.      Capitalism (Early and late)

6.      Post-capitalism (socialism and communism) (Most complex)

4. For Marx, how do labor and surplus value relate to exploitation?

The capitalist only gets profit if the employee works and produces more than he is paid for, beyond his necessary labor. That extra labor is called surplus labor, which creates surplus value. Because the worker is not being rewarded for his effort, he is being exploited by the factory owner.

5. Describe the four aspects of alienation connected to labor, according to Marx.

According to Marx, there are four types of alienation. First, the worker becomes alienated from the product of his labor because what he is producing, and should be an objectification of is whole personality, is merely a mean to survive which will later be sold. Second, the worker is alienated from the world, for he is producing a world outside of him which he cannot possess. Third, the worker is not fulfilling his purpose as part of a “species-being”, or human identity, defined as the transformation of objects (labor) as expression of the whole personality, therefore he becomes alienated from humanity in its most fundamental achievement. The final form of alienation is the estrangement from man to man, when the worker regards the owner of the product he created as hostile and alien.

6. How do the forces of production relate to the means of production and the social relations of production ?

While creating a product, the worker is using the means of production available to him, either knowledge, material tools or methods. Because each person as access to different types of means of production, different people have different functions, which falls into the division of labor and the creation of relations of production between them. Forces of production are the unity of relations and means of production by labor, ultimately what allows production to exist.