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Karl Marx and Marxism

Since Adorno and Horkheimer base a lot of their ideas for the “Culture Industry” essay off Marxism, this
may be a useful background to get acquainted with.

19th century German philosopher and revolutionary socialist Karl Marx published The Communist
Manifesto and Das Kapital, anti-capitalist works that form the basis of Marxism.
Born in Prussia on May 5, 1818, Karl Marx began exploring sociopolitical theories at university among
the Young Hegelians. He became a journalist, and his socialist writings would get him expelled from
Germany and France. In 1848, he published The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels and was
exiled to London, where he wrote the first volume of Das Kapital and lived the remainder of his life.
(Source: http://www.biography.com/people/karl-marx-9401219#related-video-gallery)

Key points of the political-economy philosophy called Marxism:

In 1859, in the preface to his Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy), Marx wrote that the hypothesis that had served him as the basis for his analysis of
society could be briefly formulated as follows:

In the social production that men carry on, they enter into definite relations that are indispensable
and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of
development of their material forces of production. The sum total of these relations of production
constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political
superstructure, and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of
production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and intellectual
processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men which determines their existence; it is on the
contrary their social existence which determines their consciousness.

1. Underlying everything as the real basis of society is the economic structure. This base structure
includes (a) the “material forces of production,” that is, the labor and means of production, and
(b) the overall “relations of production,” or the social and political arrangements that regulate
production and distribution. Although Marx stated that there is a correspondence between the
“material forces” of production and the indispensable “relations” of production.
2. Above the economic structure rises the superstructure, consisting of legal and political “forms
of social consciousness” that correspond to the economic structure. Marx says nothing about the
nature of this correspondence between ideological forms and economic structure, except that
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through the ideological forms individuals become conscious of the conflict within the economic
structure between the material forces of production and the existing relations of production
expressed in the legal property relations. In other words, “The sum total of the forces of
production accessible to men determines the condition of society” and is at the base of society.
“The social structure and the state issue continually from the life processes of definite
individuals . . . as they are in reality, that is acting and materially producing.” The political
relations that individuals establish among themselves are dependent on material production, as
are the legal relations.
(Excerpted from the Britannica Encyclopedia)

The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century radically transformed England and other countries in Europe
by replacing agrarian economies with factories in the cities as new hubs of the capitalist economy. So,
countries in Europe moved from agrarian feudalism (landlord farmers who hired peasant laborers) to
capitalist modes of mass production that reorganized labor:

Marx saw the types of jobs resulting in inequities of both the distribution of wealth as well as the access
to political power, arising from capitalism. People were divided into classes based on the types of jobs
they did and the wages they earned. Each class had a social life that was determined by the resources
they could afford to access, that in turn, also influenced their class-based ‘taste’, and therefore, we refer to
each category as a socio-economic class. For e.g. people who have enough money (upper middle class or
elites) would be able to subscribe to many information and media sources, move in circles of influential
and well-informed people, be the first to try the latest technology, be well-versed in the arts and literature
(if they chose to), have holidays in exotic destinations, be able to afford designers to do up their upscale
homes, etc.

People at the lower end of the scale, on the other hand (lower middle class and working class), may find
that they have to budget more and therefore depend more on public resources (public transport, public
schools, even enrolling in the ROTC/military as a way of going through college). They may have little
exposure to the fine arts and literature, with TV and Hollywood movies being their main entertainment.
They may be dependent on free social media sources for news information, or on free news networks.
Holidays may be road trips or camping.

The different socio-economic classes identified by Marx were:

Elites – those who had economic and political power (business owners, political leaders)
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Bourgeoisie – Those who were middle managers, doctors, teachers, lawyers (white collar
workers who had education, and therefore di non-physical work for wages).
Bourgeoisie is a noun describing a socio-economic group. Bourgeois is an adjective,
qualifying or adding to the description of a noun. For e.g. ‘bourgeois society.’
Proletariats – The working class or blue-collar class that does physical labor (factory workers,
construction workers, miners, electricians, plumbers, etc.). Still wage earners.
Lumpen proletarists – those who were below the level of wage earners – homeless, the poor,
the mentally ill, criminals, etc. In other words, people who were disempowered and
‘invisible’ because they had no earning power and were therefore of ‘no value’ within
capitalism.

Marx argued that in the late 19th century, when we moved to ‘mass production’ (Fordist economy), we
transitioned to an assembly line of production where each worker repetitively performed one aspect of the
entire production process.
Unlike the farmer, or artist, or craftsman, who were responsible for the fruits of their labor from
start to finish, the factory worker is only required to do one small part of the entire production process,
and therefore, feels alienated from his labor.
Alienation means that the worker feels estranged or separated from their surroundings (in this
case, the workplace), the work itself, the product (since the worker doesn’t ‘own’ the production in its
entirety), or a connection to a meaningful self. Where the farmer, artist, or craftsman felt a sense of
identity through his labor (and its products), here, the factory worker, is a cog in the process, one that can
be easily replaced and therefore, the worker substitutes the sense of self through labor, with a sense of self
through consumption.
The wages made by the factory worker are spent on commodities (objects produced for sale, and
that have monetary value) to alleviate or reduce their alienation and distract them from the stress of the
dissatisfaction of such work and working conditions. Thus, the money made by the worker (wages) now
goes back to the business owner, retrieved as the price of the commodities that the workers consume.
This is the trap of consumerism. The rich grow richer because they can markup profits on commodities
made on the back of labor, and for which the laborers now pay a price again.

Commodities have three types of value:

1. Use value – the functional value of the commodity; what it is used for. E.g. a pair of shoes is used
as footwear to protect the feet and make walking comfortable.
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2. Exchange value – what the price of the commodity should be to cover all costs of producing it
(overheads -- such as renting/owning space, factory machinery, electricity, raw materials, water,
etc. – labor, and packaging.). Let’s say that the exchange value or actual cost of manufacturing a
pair of shoes is thus $2 in a sweatshop in Vietnam. This means that if I sell the pair at $2, I cover
my cost of production, but I do not make a profit.

3. Surplus value: This is what customers are prepared to pay for the commodity because of the
perceived added value through marketing and branding. Now the pair of shoes with a an added
brand label, celebrity advertising, and a ‘magical’ brand promise – ‘If you wear this pair of shoes,
you will be a star athlete like the celebrity in the ad’ – is made so attractive to the consumer that
the latter will pay $200 dollars for a $2 pair of shoes. Marx explains this effect as a result of
commodity fetishism:
 Commodity fetishism suggests that the product is a substitute for something that we
believe is ‘missing’ or lacking in ourselves, and that the product can fill in for us.
 Through commodity fetishism, the product is now believed to have ‘magical’ properties
of transformation that can improve the consumer’s life.

Neoliberalism or late capitalism

Please read,
1. Monbiot, George. “Neoliberalism – The Ideology at The Root of All Our Problems.” The Guardian,
U.K. 15 Apr. 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-
george-monbiot. Accessed 20 Jan. 2017.

2. Standing, Guy. “Who will be A Voice for The Emerging Precariat?” The Guardian, U.K. 01 June
2011, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jun/01/voice-for-emerging-precariat. Accessed 20 Jan.
2017.

3. Quart, Alyssa. “‘Middle Class’ Used to Denote Comfort and Security. Not Anymore.” The Guardian,
U.K. 07 July. 2016, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/07/middle-class-struggle-
technology-overtaking-jobs-security-cost-of-living. Accessed 20 Jan. 2017.