Presented By: Eisha Arif

Karl Heinrich Marx 1818-1883

• Born in a bourgeois Jewish family in Trier,

Prussia.
• Father converts the family to Lutheranism in
order to advance his law practice.
• Mediocre philosophy student at several
universities, “mail order PhD” from Jena.
• Young Hegelian, materialists, journalist.
• 1843-48 in Paris and Brussels, meets
Friedrich Engels.
His major works:
1. Critique of Political Economy
2. Communist Manifesto (with Engles)
3. Das Kapital
4. Poverty of Philosophy
5. The German Ideology
6. The Economist and philosophic manuscripts of 1844.
Hegelianism vs Marxism

• Hegelianism is the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel which can be

summed up that "the idea alone is real“. For the idealist, the
mind--or the spirit, in the form of God--is the origin of all
material things.

• Marx rejects idealistic explanation. For the materialist, all of

reality is based on matter, including the human brain which is
itself a result of the organization of matter in a particular way.
In this view, the abstract idea of "tree" was developed by
humans from their experience of actual tree.

(PAUL D'AMATO November 5, 1999, issue of Socialist Worker)

• Historical Materialism
According to Marx, social, cultural and political phenomena are
determined by the mode of production of material things.
When mode of production changes, history enters into a new
age.
Marx outlined a number of societal stages of development:

1. Primitive communism (hunting and gathering societies)

People were strongly bound by natural constraints, but socially
very equal.
If you put a hemming bird in middle of the forest, he will
go on collecting nectar and live his life
Natural constraint to social constraint
2. Slavery (beginning of private property and division of labour).
3. Feudalism (beginning of agriculture and nobility).
4. Capitalism (labour rose as chief commodity; clear-cut division
of owners and labourers).
5. Socialism (classless society with no private property)
Society Structure
Marx argued that dominant ideas are the result of material or
economic condition and class relation.

• Economics made of :
1. Super Structure ( Social Institutions and ideas, the system of
law, of morality and education, politics religion, culture and
even families).

2. Sub-Structure ( that is the form of the productive system

(how production is organized, who has things like food or
money and who doesn’t).
Modes of Production:

The key to understand a society at any point in history is to focus

first on the “modes of production”, the way production is
organized by:

1. Forces of production (basically are the technical, scientific

and material parts of the economy tools, buildings, material
resources and human labor that makes them go on”

2. Relations of production (how people organized themselves

around labour).
Conflict theory
• Conflict theory is the basic idea of looking at power dynamics
and analyzing the ways in which struggles over power drive
societal change, as all kinds of groups, not just workers and
owners, fight for control over resources.

Classes and class conflict

The social relations of production involve different classes. The
basic determinant of one’s class is one’s relationship to the
means of production.
1. The owners of the means of production….. Bourgeoisie
2. Those who only own their labour, the workers….Proletariat
3. Small firms and family farms and shops are usually struggling,
only providing their with low income….. Petty Bourgeoisie
The labour theory of value
• Marx argue that the value of things should be calculated in
terms of the amount of labour that went into their production.

Surplus and exploitation

• When a capitalist sells something his worker made and he
receives more for the item than he paid for the inputs.
• It was capitalist who decides what to do with surplus (profit).
Crisis
The bourgeoisie will always be looking to make profits as large
as possible, both by driving down wages and by driving up
productivity.
• And this leads to one of the big problems with capitalism:
crises. Specifically, crises of overproduction.

Revolution
Proletariat want change. They want the further development of
the forces of production – of which their labor makes up a large
part – and they want a complete change in the relations of
production.
• They want an end to exploitation and they want the surplus to
benefit them.
• In short, they want revolution.
Antonio Gramsci was a founding member of
the Communist party of Italy.

Hegemony

• Marx questioned “how does the bourgeoisie maintained their

power so effectively”?
• Gramsci answered this with theory of “Hegemony”
• “ He argued that the ruling class stays in power, in part,
through Hegemony culture. A dominant set of ideas that are
all pervasive and taken for granted in a society”.
 Ideology: a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms
the basis of economic or political theory and policy. Louis
Althusser used the concept of ideology . Ideology includes
religion, education, law, politics, media, etc.

hegemony: leadership or dominance, especially by one country

or social group over others. Ideology operates as an instrument
of hegemony.  Hegemony captures the entire society.

Advertising
• Advertising is targeted to all walks of society, and is a direct
invention of capitalism to maximize profit and exploit the
working classes.
• Advertisements are now designed to implant an idea into the
audiences mind, and make them think that they need the
product.
Class implication in Pakistani society
• Jobs in Pakistan show the clear difference of upper and lower
class the worker.
• Hospitals explain one of the greatest examples of class
differences usually in government hospitals .
• Class concept in villages shows the relationship between
peasants and landlords.