POL 315
THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MARXISM
working class as a just and a viable means of restoration of dignity of
mankind.
The starting point is that Marx maintains that in society only labor
produces wealth. Wealth in capitalist society is produced by the labor
power of the workers. However, much of this wealth is appropriated in
the form of profits by the capitalists, the owners of the means of
production. The wages of the workers are well below the value of the
wealth they produce. There is thus a contradiction between the forces of
production, in particular the labor power of the workers which produces
wealth, and the relations of production which involve the appropriation
of much of that wealth by the capitalists.
A related contradiction involves the technical organisation of labor and
the nature of ownership. In capitalist society, the forces of production
include the collective production of goods by large numbers of workers
in factories. Yet the means of production are privately owned, and the
profits are appropriated by individuals. The contradiction between the
forces and relations of production lies in the social and collective nature
of production and the private and individual nature of ownership.
Marx believed that these and other contradictions would eventually lead
to the downfall of the capitalist system. He maintained that, by its very
nature, capitalism involves the exploitation and oppression of the
worker. He believes that the conflict of interest between capital and
labor, which involves one group gaining at the expense of the other,
could not be resolved within the framework of a capitalist economy.
Marx saw history as divided into a number of time periods or epochs,
each being characterised by a particular mode of production. Major
changes in history are the result of new forces of production. Thus, the
change from feudal to capitalist society stemmed from the emergence,
during the feudal epoch, of the forces of production of industrial society.
This resulted in a contradiction between the new forces of production
and the old feudal relations of production.
Capitalist industrial society required relations of production based on
wage labor rather than the traditional ties of lord and vassal. When they
reach a certain point in their development, the new forces of production
will lead to the creation of a new set of relations of production. Then, a
new epoch of history will be born which will sweep away the social
relationships of the old order. However, the final epoch of history, the
communist or socialist society that Marx believed would eventually
supplant capitalism will not result from a new force of production; rather
it will develop from a resolution of the contradictions contained within
the capitalist system.
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