Of this he wrote in 1853 that ‘England is broking down the entire framework of Indian society’ and that ‘this loss of his old world, with no gain a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindoo’. But to Marx this was a necessary misery. Unlike Orientalists, he did not believe in a ‘golden age of Hindostan’ as India’s past was full torment and its history only consisted of invasions and myths. For this reason it was socially like Ireland because it was ‘a world of voluptuousness and a world of woes’. Marx attributed this to the village system, or Asiatic mode of production. This was a system of small self-sufficient, insular villages, which had an absence of private land. It also had a combination of small-scale agriculture and home industry with a traditional division of labour. The problem with this was that it led to stagnation and Marx believed India had exhausted its capacity for progress, and in this he seems to have been influenced (as so many were) by James Mill’s The History of British India and his ideas of passive immobility and the Indians relying on astrology instead of science. This system therefore had to be broken, and the ‘brutal surgery’ of colonialism was the best way to get rid of ‘Asia’s senseless torpor’. The British were best at doing this because there had been a shift in approach as the millocracy wanted turn India into a market for its goods, rather than plunder it. There was therefore huge investment being ploughed into India in the 1850s including the introduction of railways and telegraphs. Marx saw this as an epoch in Indian history, writing that ‘British steam and science uprooted....the union between agriculture and manufacturing industry’, and that railway...
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...ires, which were not dissimilar from other thinkers, in that they were unjust, expensive, benefited only a few greedy individuals, and caused wars. It is this aspect of his ideology that most remember and draw upon when criticising later imperialism. Therefore, over the course of his life, Marx was not by any means the harshest critic of the British Empire, but he never saw it is anything more than the lesser of two evils, with the greater evil being stagnation. Once he could not confidently claim that it would bring about the change he had hoped, Marx advocated other mechanisms of change that would bypass the capitalist stage of history he was becoming more and more despondent about. He was able to do this as the most important things to Marx were progress, his economic theories, and class solidarity. All matters he considered merely moulded around this world view.
Marx’s ideals of communism were drawn from the realization that the cycle of revolutions caused by the class struggles throughout history lead society nowhere. Society as a whole was more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes that were directly facing each other—bourgeoisie and proletariat. According to Marx, in order for society to further itself a mass proletarian revolution would have to occur. The bourgeois, who were the employers and owners of the means of production, composed the majority of the modern capitalists. It was these individuals that controlled the capitalist society by exploiting the labor provided by the proletariats. For example, the bourgeoisie make property into a right because they are the ones with the property. However, without their power force of labor behind them, the bourgeoisie class would crumple. To accomplish a revolution, the workers (proletariats) would need to rise up against the bourgeoisie and take back the factors of production. Marx believed that after the inevitable revolution of the proletariats against the oppressive force of the bourgeoisie, a communistic form of government would take hold.
Not only did the inequality and separation of the Indian society frustrate the citizens of India, but the imperialism Britain had upon them as well. In the early 20th century, Indian nationalists wanted to take a stand against the British rule and make India independent. The British created unfair laws that created a nationalist movement in India to regain their freedom. He believed that there should not be a Caste System because of one’s birth.
Karl Marx 's writing of ‘The Communist Manifesto’ in 1848 has been documented by a vast number of academics as one of the most influential pieces of political texts written in the modern era. Its ideologically driven ideas formed the solid foundation of the Communist movement throughout the 20th century, offering a greater alternative for those who were rapidly becoming disillusioned and frustrated with the growing wealth and social divisions created by capitalism. A feeling not just felt in by a couple of individuals in one society, but a feeling that was spreading throughout various societies worldwide. As Toma highlights in his work, Marx felt that ‘capitalism would produce a crisis-ridden, polarized society destined to be taken over by
Karl Marx is living in a world he is not happy with, and seems to think that he has the perfect solution. I am a strong believer in his ideas. We are living in a time period with a huge class struggle. The Bourgroise exploits and the proletariat are being exploited. Marx did not like the way this society was and searched for a solution. Marx looked for “universal laws of human behavior that would explain and predict the future course of events" (36). He saw an unavoidable growth and change in society, coming not from the difference in opinions, but in the huge difference of opposing classes. He speaks of his ideal society and how he is going to bring about this utopia in his book The Communist Manifesto. I am going to share with you more on his ideas of this “world-wide revolution” (36) that would put an end to social classes and allow people to live with equal sharing which would result in a harmonious and much peaceful world.
Though these many excepts have discrete arguments, they also share several underlying themes. Of these several themes, of fundamental importance is one of work in philosophy and social science bringing about real change in the world. Throughout his writing he continues to focus upon the individuals that from the world, particularly the oppressed, not just the powerful on whim the lens of social science and particularly history is often pointed. Even for those who do not agree with Marx on his prescription for the world, his determination to improve the conditions of the oppressed is a model we should all strive to emulate.
Marx’s perspective was not based on the conflict of ideas, but rather on the conflict of classes. This conflict is the results of a new mode of production. According to Marx, history would consist of epochs of modes of production. He states that these modes of production are: primitive communism, slave society, feudalism, capitalism, and then socialism and communism.
Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in order to give a voice to the struggling classes in Europe. In the document he expressed the frustrations of the lower class. As Marx began his document with "the history of all hitherto societies has been the history of class struggles" he gave power to the lower classes and sparked a destruction of their opressors.1 He argued that during the nineteenth century Europe was divided into two main classes: the wealthy upper class, the bourgeoisie, and the lower working class, the proletariat. After years of suffering oppression the proletariats decided to use their autonomy and make a choice to gain power. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century the proletariats were controlled and oppressed by the bourgeoisie until they took on the responsibility of acquiring equality through the Communist Manifesto.
Marxist criticism is inherently existentialist. One cannot know anything without having been exposed to it as some sort of life experience. There is no knowledge a priori, as some of the ancient philosophers would have us believe. Rather, knowledge is accumulated a posteriori, through actual experience. Therefore, there is almost nothing that is inherent and absolute in our knowledge. It can never be purely objective, as knowledge is absorbed through the grid of our own perceptions, and that grid is in turn formed through our youthful socialization within our particular culture. For this reason, Marxist analysis does not allow gut-feeling or individual bias to play too great a role in the debate. It is more important to determine how exactly these "common sense" reactions are formed.
British political economy was brought about by the social analysis of early capitalism by writers such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo. (Bilton, Bonnett, Jones, 2002, p.476) Using these concepts as a base to his theories, Marx further argued against the capitalist regime and was a firm believer of the revolution of the workers which would one day bring about the destruction of capitalism. Marx was also influenced by the philosophical ideas of Georg W.F. Hegel. However, unlike Hegel who was an idealist Marx was a materialist as he believed that the processes of reality as real, concrete existences in the social world. Hegel believed that although these processes were dynamic, they were an expression of development rather than being solid.
Kymlicka lists three primary arguments that Marxists use for the abolition of private property. They are exploitation, needs, and alienation, the last of these seeming to be to be the strongest. Exploitation is a fairly reasonable argument, though there are many valid and sound criticisms of it and furthermore there seems to be a loophole. If private property is equalized, not entirely eradicated like the Marxist would like, then it appears as though exploitation can be avoided. However, this equalization still does not deal with the problem of alienation.
Inspired by the works of Karl Marx, V.I. Lenin nonetheless drew his ideology from many other great 19th century philosophers. However, Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” was immensely important to the success of Russia under Leninist rule as it started a new era in history. Viewed as taboo in a capitalist society, Karl Marx started a movement that would permanently change the history of the entire world. Also, around this time, the Populist promoted a doctrine of social and economic equality, although weak in its ideology and method, overall. Lenin was also inspired by the anarchists who sought revolution as an ultimate means to the end of old regimes, in the hope of a new, better society. To his core, a revolutionary, V.I. Lenin was driven to evoke the class struggle that would ultimately transform Russia into a Socialist powerhouse. Through following primarily in the footsteps of Karl Marx, Lenin was to a lesser extent inspired by the Populists, the Anarchists, and the Social Democrats.
This crucial opening to The Communist Manifesto holds the key to understanding Karl Marx's conception of history. Marx outlines history as a two dimensional, "linear" chain of events. A constant progression of class divisions being created and overthrown, one after the other, until the result is the utopian endpoint, otherwise known as communism.
Workers of the World Unite: You Have Nothing to Lose but Your Chains. Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto. Karl Marx had very strong viewpoints in regards to capitalism, making him a great candidate for this assignment. People constantly debate over whether his ideology holds any grain of truth to them. I believe that although not everything Marx predicted in his writings has come true (yet), he was definitely right on a lot of issues.
Implementation of political and economical theories often alters from writer to practice. This alteration is often due to the incompatible environment in which the model is put into exercise or the idealistic nature of the concept. Within Marxism, socialism signifies a definite historical period of economic development and its consequential social relations that replace capitalism in the plan of historical materialism (Habib, 1993: 5). To progress into socialism, according to Marx, a state must undergo the struggles of the working class against the attacks of the capitalist class to establish its own collective control over production; these are the fundamental basis of a socialist society (Habib, 1993: 5). Examples of this lack of implementation of socialism have been perceived in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Both republics have not sufficiently developed into the socialist phase due to their prominently peasant societies. Economic and political situations in the USSR almost parallel those in the PRC, both states were weakened by wars and political turmoil, however, how each addressed their peasant difficulty are somewhat contradictory. This paper will examine the peasant conditions of the USSR and PRC and how they attempted to adjust to it whilst progressing into socialism.
My previous understanding of Marxism was this ideology of creating an equal society with the issues surrounding the class struggles has the motivating force behind wanting the change. I was taught to see Marx as a materialist and that he had an interest in why there was a division between people, i.e. the rich and the poor. I was also taught that Marxism is a form of socialism, where the lower class rises up and begins to work for themselves and ultimately all workers would be owners as well creating equality amongst all people. Basically my understanding of Marxism is the opposite of what capitalism provides a society. My new profound knowledge of Marxism greatly expands on these ideas. According to Merriam-Webster the definition of Marxism is the political, economic and social theories that includes the belief that the struggle between social classes is a major force in history and that there should eventually be a society in which there are no classes.