Marxism

How have Marxism and

neo-Marxism contributed to
our understanding of society
today?
Questions From a Worker Who Reads
Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
And Babylon, many times demolished
Who raised it up so many times? In what houses
of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live?
Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finished
Did the masons go? Great Rome
Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song
Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis
The night the ocean engulfed it
The drowning still bawled for their slaves.
The young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Did he not have even a cook with him?
Philip of Spain wept when his armada
Went down. Was he the only one to weep?
Frederick the Second won the Seven Year's War. Who
Else won it?
Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors?
Every ten years a great man?
Who paid the bill?
So many reports.
So many questions. By Bertolt Brecht 1935
Introduction

Functionliasm is not “before” Marxism. Marxism has a more

established history - at the time when Durkheim was beginning to
propose the principles which would later become Functionalism,
Marx and Engels had already developed a complete and coherent
theory on the nature of society.
BUT Functionlaism has a long-standing dominance over sociology.
Not until the 1960s did Marxism really rise to prominence in a
backlash against the excessively positive tendencies of
functionalism’s analytic framework - simply treating serious social
problems (e.g. poverty) as “functional” thus legitimising them
rather than bringing about change and improvement.
Two phases in the development of Marxist theory:
 C19 work of originators - Marx and Engels - a body of theory
conventionally referred to as classical marxism.
 Resurgence in the 1960s, and comprises a number of distinct sub-
perspectives we collectively call neo marxism.
Classical Marxism
Like Durkheim, Marx was heavily influenced by debates within philosophy –
especially on the nature of social change.
 Hegel’s (C19) concept of dialectics - social change is a product of new
ideas and these new ideas originate out of a contradiction (conflict) in the
old ideas.
Marx’s uses the dialectical model of change but turns the concept on
its head (“standing Hegel on his feet” he says)
 Marx’s concept of dialectics - ideological change is a product of a new
way of organising society (action not ideas) which originates out of a
conflict (contradiction) within the old society and then changes the way
people think
Hegel’s model of dialectics holds that people’s ideas influence how
they live and the ways in which society organises itself. (Idealism)
Marxian dialectics flips this argument; holding that society’s
organisation impacts on the way people live - which in turn shapes
the ways in which they think: “Life determines consciousness”
(Materialism)
 Social Structures
 All human thought and action is rooted in the way society is organised
 Providing for basic needs is the most important priority of any society –
survival – without this no human activity or social institution is possible
…the way in which society organises production - the economy - is the
basis for all other human activity and social structure. “There cannot be
philosophers without food, clothing and shelter”
…Marx proposed a model of society in which the economic base
(infrastructure) forms the foundations that the rest of society
(superstructure) is built on. So all institutions and ideas in a society are
ultimately shaped by the way in which production is organised.
This mode of production consists of two components:
- means of production - the raw materials and methods of producing
goods
- relations of production - how people are organised in
workplace/economy
The relations of production could leave one group, class, in control:
their needs and ideas projected on the rest of society - on institutions.
Historical Materialism
 This principle of materialism (society ultimately depends on its economic
organisation), produced an historical explanation of the way in which the
mode of production has changed and how this has affected society
 He identified different epochs (stages of social development) each
(except the first and last) characterised by the exploitation of one group
by another (class conflict) and each containing the seeds of its own
destruction (revolution) bringing about the next stage…
Primitive Communism - the 1st stage of human history, egalitarian hunter-
gatherer society. After the development of settled agriculture class
society emerged…
Tribal Societies – When societies produced a surplus of food – above
subsistence – not all members need to spend their whole day producing
food. Certain groups, e.g. warriors or people in charge of food emerged.
Their existence was sustained by the work of others, yet they had more
power in the society. Ideologies, such as early religions, emerged to
justify this situation e.g. the first priests in Mesopatamia were the people
who controlled granaries.
 Feudal Societies
In medieval times lords controlled land, which peasants were allowed to
farm. They paid a proportion of their produce in tribute to the Lord and
send their children to fight in the Lord’s army.
Marx and Engels argued that the feudal superstructure could be traced
back to this economic base: Societies were very static and rigid. This
fitted with the static hierarchical worldview of the Catholic church
which claimed that monarchs had a divine right to rule. It also explains
why families in feudal times were extended - many generations of
peasants stayed in the same village. It also explains the nature of
peasant revolts (e.g. Wat Tyler in 1381) - peasants would often march
on the King demanding lower taxes but - their ideas limited by their
lack of power - would generally settle for slightly lower taxes or slightly
more land.
Feudal societies also sewed the seeds of their own destruction.
Networks of merchants began to grow - for whom money was more
important than land. Technological developments meant that
manufacturing – e.g. textiles – could generate more wealth for rich
townsmen than a lord could earn from his land
 Capitalist Society - Bourgeois revolutions against
feudalism brought about the today’s system:
The separation of workers from the means of production - Whereas peasants had
owned their land, workers do not. The exploitation changed (to wage-labour) -
while workers are freer than peasants, they are also entirely reliant on capitalist
owners of the means of production for food and shelter. The process by
which people were separated from the land was a long and violent e.g. the
Enclosure Acts - Proletarian literally means propertyless.
The dynamic nature of capitalism - it offers mankind escape from starvation and
poverty. It is the class nature of capitalist society that means this potential is not
realised – e.g. HIV treatment. Capitalism is also characterised by ‘creative
destruction’ - whole areas can be decimated or regenerated as different sectors
of industry decline and grow e.g. miners towns closed down, or silicon valley
flourishing.
The cooperative nature of production - While peasant families each worked their
own plot of land, capitalist production requires the cooperation of thousands of
workers, often on a global scale. This affects how revolt takes place in capitalism
- whereas peasants could each go home with a little more land, striking
Heathrow workers cannot each take home a piece of the runway - revolt is more
collective under capitalism.
 Capitalist Society –
Features of today’s Society
Alienation - Workers produce the wealth under capitalism but do not
control how it is used. While they cooperate to produce it, they have to
compete with each other for wages.
“It is true that labour produces marvels for the rich, but it produces
privation for the worker. It produces palaces, but hovels for the worker.
It produces beauty, but deformity for the worker. It replaces labour by
machines, but it casts some of the workers back into barbarous forms
of labour and turns others into machines. It produces intelligence, but it
produces idiocy and cretinism for the worker.” Marx 1844
The potential for a classless society – Those who produced wealth
could collectively seize control of how it was used - this would be
revolution.
Bourgeois Ideology - “The ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling
class” Marx thought that individual freedom was a cover for the fact
that while everyone appears free to trade in the marketplace, it is an
unequal relationship - workers trade their labour while capitalist trade
their profits.
Summarise the difference between Hegelian and Marxian dialectics
For each of these epochs, identify the mode of production, and the exploited
and exploitative classes. (Why did I leave out tribal society?)
Social Mode of Exploiting Class Exploited Class
Epoch Production
Primitive
Communism
Ancient
Society
Feudalism
Capitalism
Communism
Social Epoch Mode of Exploiting Exploited Class
Production Class

Primitive Hunter- N/A N/A

Communism Gatherer

Ancient Society Plantation Landowners Slaves working

Agriculture and “Citizens” land

Feudalism Peasant Lord Peasants/Serfs

Agriculture A class of proto-capitalists
also emerged, who had
economic wealth, but
lacked political power.

Capitalism Industrial with Capitalists Workers

wage-labour

Communism Industrial but N/A N/A

collectively
controlled
The Labour Theory of Value
Marx’s work includes historical analysis of each of the stages of social development but his
focus was capitalism and the processes of exploitation of this stage.
Capitalist society is based on class conflict between the bourgeoisie (the owners of the
means of production - the industrial infrastructure), and the proletariat. Exploitation occurs
under this system because, in order to survive, the proletariat must sell the only thing
they own; their labour. This alone is not an exploitative relationship - however, the
“cards are stacked” in favour of the ruling classes, and workers are therefore not paid
fairly. Profit (what Marx calls surplus value) is actually the difference between the
worth of the proletariat’s labour and what they are actually paid for it. So, the
exploitation in Capitalism is not as dramatic and overt as in Ancient Society or Feudalism
but nonetheless ever-present.
Ideological Control
Why - if the relationship between proletariat and bourgeoisie is so clearly exploitative - do
the workers not revolt immediately? The solution lies in Marx's model of society: as the
bourgeoisie control the economic base and can manipulate the superstructure, they are
able to ensure that the proletariat tend to believe that the existing social structure (the
status quo) is natural, legitimate and fair. Consequently, ideologies (projected through
institutions like education, religion, etc.) ensure that the proletariat is kept in a state of
false (class) consciousness.
 Crisis of Capitalism (Today)
The Communist Revolution
Capitalism is driven by the need to accumulate more profit. In feudal society there was a limit
to how much wealth a Lord could own, in a capitalist society wealth can be reinvested
In order to make more profit capitalists have to either invest in labour-saving technology (and
sack workers) or cut workers’ wages. This will lead to workers resisting.
Capitalism is a system driven by blind competition, with no overall plan: Imagine a race where
everyone is looking behind them or to their side to see what their competitors are doing..
Whereas crises in feudalism tended to result from bad harvests - crises in capitalism involve
overproduction. People want jobs, workplaces exist, raw materials exist to work on and
markets exist for goods - but it is simply not profitable to produce so production stops
The periodic crises and attacks on workers’ wages, jobs and living conditions, will force
workers to fight back, and they will realise they have common cause against the
capitalists and discard the ‘ruling ideas’ that they have been brought up to believe.
Capitalism “creates it’s own gravedigger”: not only will workers be given reason to fight back,
but they have the power to do so. All the capitalists do is direct production towards profit -
it is the workers who produce. If the workers collectively seize control of the means of
production they could direct it towards human need rather than profit. Because workers
are a majority class, this revolution would be unlike previous ones where minorities (such
as the bourgeoisie) came to power - it would be in the interests of all.
In such a society, workers would no longer be alienated from the products of their labour
(they would control these products democratically), there would be no ruling class that
spread oppressive ideas to divide and rule, inequality and indeed the state would wither
away. Marx called such a society communism.
 Neo-Marxism

Marxism only really gained popularity in sociology during

the 1960s. During this resurgence, reinterpretations
led to a group of distinct subgroups evolving within the
perspective - collectively referred to as Neo-
Marxism. All of these sub-schools are based in
Marx's original theories, and all were impressed by -
and set out to explain - the ability of capitalism to
persist far beyond the timescale within which Marx
expected revolution to occur. It is possible to
distinguish very generally between two forms;
 Humanistic Neo-Marxists, such as Gramsci and
Marcuse, draw on Marx's early work - and concentrate
on the ways in which ideology is produced and
maintained.
 Structural Neo-Marxists - such as Althusser - draw
on Marx's later work, and emphasise that way in
which human action is determined by social
 Humanist neo-Marxism (Gramsci)
How are people's ideas are manipulated through the superstructure?
Gramsci’s hegemony - for the ruling class to remain powerful, they must engineer
consent by ensuring that their ideas are seen as “common sense”.
A Sheikh was looking at buying a factory in Manchester. The manager was
showing him the production line from a balcony when a bell rang out. The
workers downed tools and left the shop floor. He screamed “Your slaves - they
are running away”. “Don’t worry, it’s just lunchtime” the manager replied. Sure
enough, an hour later, another bell rang out and the workers returned. The
Sheikh told the manager “I do not want your factory, but how much for the bell
that makes your slaves come back?”.
- Modern capitalism rule tends to be secured by consent (not coercion)
In order to be ideologically dominant (or hegemonic) ruling class ideas must
therefore be somehow tied to popular culture of the working class. E.g.
Newspapers like the Mail and the Sun translate capitalist ideas into a language
that relates to ordinary people.
Institutions, such as the media, come to represent ruling class opinions - even
though the people who work within them are not part of the ruling class. These
alliances could be bought (e.g. giving favourable media groups more access) or
forced (e.g. through threats of job losses).
 Humanist neo-Marxism (Marcuse)
Herbert Marcuse - the ruling class have financial control over institutions which
produce knowledge (e.g. schools) - workers are excluded from producing
“common sense”.
Gramsci and Marcuse are implying that the superstructure has a degree of relative
autonomy from the economic base. Institutions are more than just reflections
(or epiphenomenons) of the needs of the economy, as was the case in Marx’s
original model. They must be "won over" before they can perform ideological
functions (some are more easily won e.g. police Vs universities). So, in order for
revolution to occur, the alliances between the bourgeoisie and the agencies in
the superstructure must be broken down. A fight takes place within the
superstructure for workers’ hearts and minds - between ‘common sense’ and
revolutionary ideas and culture (‘good sense’).
This makes change possible because superstructural institutions have to appeal to
workers and can be subverted for workers’ own ends. In fact, institutions such
as religion can produce proletarian intellectuals, who can actively lead
revolutions to overthrow the status quo (e.g. Liberation Theology in Latin
America). So this fight within the superstructure can end up overturning the
economic base of society.
Structural neo-Marxism
Humanistic Neo-Marxism emphasises human agency and the alliances between
people which maintain the capitalist system. Structural Neo- Marxism rejects
this – arguing human actions are ultimately the product of social structures.
Althusser - society is made up of three levels - the economic, political and
ideological. Like in Classical Marxism, the economic level forms the base of
society, like the foundations of a building. The political and ideological levels
rest on the economic - forming the first and second floors. However,
Althusser rejects the idea that the economy determines the other two levels -
in the same way that it would be odd to argue that the foundations of a
building “cause” the floors above them. Each level of social structure has
relative autonomy - and although the economic level tends to set restraints
and limits on the rest of society, it “hands power” to each of the other levels at
different points in time. This means that any of the three levels can be
dominant at any particular time.
E.g. in feudal society, exploitation occurs when serfs hand over some of their
profits to the lords who own the land where they live. The state forces or the
church persuades them to - so, the political and ideological levels are active.
In capitalism, the bourgeoisie automatically receive surplus value - this is
structured into the mode of production - so, only the economic level is active.
…Structural neo-Marxism
Two processes are involved in ensuring that the needs of the economic level are
met: force and persuasion. Two broad types of institution evolve to provide
these processes:
 Repressive state apparatus maintain control through force or the threat of
force.
 Ideological state apparatus ensure obedience by controlling how people
think.
These structure the lives of individuals to correspond with the needs of the
economy.
To produce a revolution against capitalism, you need more than just the conflict
between worker and employer. Contradictions must appear within each of the
levels of society at the same time which, together, reinforce each other -
overdetermination. The need for this combination explains why revolutions
did not occur first in those countries which had developed industrialised
capitalism earliest – i.e. the West - but in countries such as Russia and
China.
Summarise the relationship
between the Economic Base
and Superstructure for Marx
and Gramsci.
According to Marx’s model,
what would be the role of
education? How does Item B
contradict your answer to
question?
How would Gramsci interpret
this item?
Give two examples of each of
ideological and repressive
state apparatus.
 Provides a coherent analytic framework through which a wide range of
institutions and social processes can be understood.
 Can deal with conflicts and inequalities – it is central to the theory’s
model of social development and change.
X Determinism - implies that individuals are passive puppets of society
- moulded by social structures and brainwashed by ideologies. In
particular economic determinism - reduces the shape of every social
institution, every human thought and action, and every relationship to the
needs of the economy. ( However, Marx does state “men make their
own history, but not under circumstance of their own choosing”).
X Overemphasises social conflict and exploitation - overlooks
consensual elements of society and social order from which all people in
society benefit.
X Focuses exclusively on social class - is it relevant in contemporary
society? distinctions between different socio-economic groupings have
blurred. Also ignores other sources of exploitation and oppression e.g.
gender, ethnicity and sexuality
X The nature of communism - proletarian revolutions did not occur where
expected – e.g. Russia and China, rather than “developed” industrialised
capitalist nations. And where communism did occur, it was characterised
by oppression and exploitation far worse than that under capitalism.
X Karl Popper- It can never be falsified; when the proletarian revolution
does not occur, advocates simply set its date further in the future - this
means that the theory does not have the rigour of a scientific theory.
Homework

6/03 “Marxism, as a theory of social conflict, is

irrelevant to an understanding of modern
society” Assess the extent to which
sociological arguments and evidence support
this view (33 mark)