Characteristics Of Marxist Economics

Marxist Economics

This is a school of thought in the field of economics that has developed from Karl Marx’s writings (1818-1883). It is very dissimilar to conventional economics, presenting a vital analysis of capitalism while identifying the essentially exploitative and conflictual nature. This does not mean that the body of work is homogenous. There is significant debate and diversity on the interpretation of Marx’s work and the legitimacy of the varied ways it has been developed. Some of the contributions of Marxist thought include the social and intellectual turmoil since the death of Marx, the difficulty of getting connection between practice and Marx’s theory, the varying economic and political conditions and the demise and development

It stressed on the difference between the appearance and essence of things. Marx saw that economic and social systems developed set of ideologies and ways of seeing them that were self-justifying. He stressed the importance of going beyond how things presented themselves and identifying the underlying realities. A good example is that capitalism looks like it is based on free labor, but it actually focuses on exploiting, and a monopoly of the production means. Workers, on the other hand, cannot work without the production means since their freedom really is a chance to starve or work. He also put emphasis on treating economic procedures as social and historical. Economic laws were specific historically for Marx, contrary to the classical search for collective laws (Marx & Kamenka,

His work focused on production and transformations happening so as to industrialize Britain. There was exploitation of labor by capitalists who had monopoly over the production means by managing and controlling labor. Most recently, there have been arguments about how things are changing in production with moves to flexible production methods with workers taking of few tasks (Fine, 2012).

Most of the latest developments in Marxist economics are seen to reflect on the resurgence of interest in the matter owed to distorted economic situations since the 1970s. During the golden age, after the war economic boom, Marxist analysis of capitalism development with the conflict and crisis seemed irrelevant and old-fashioned. This crisis in the 1970s caused by the oil prices shock revived the interest in Marxist economy since it seemed to fit best with the new economic turmoil.

Marxist economics has therefore improved the analysis by Marx in dealing with the actuality of capitalism in the current century. There are extensive debates from varied interpretations and perspectives, but this mirrors the potential and vitality of the approach while rejecting dogmatism and Stalinist orthodoxy of earlier years. Undoubtedly, Marxist economy will go on making crucial contributions to our perception of development and nature of a capitalist society (Fine,