POL 315 MODULE 3
Collective production will remain but the relations of production will be
transformed. Ownership of the means of production will be collective
rather than individual, and members of society will share the wealth that
their labor produces. No longer will one social group exploit and
oppress another. This will produce an infrastructure without
contradiction and conflict. In Marx's view this would mean the end of
history, since communist society would no longer contain the
contradictions which generate change.
Exploitation is a matter of surplus labor - the amount of labor one
performs beyond what one receives in goods. Exploitation has been a
socio-economic feature of every class society, and is one of the principal
features distinguishing the social classes. The power of one social class
to control the means of production enables its exploitation of the other
classes.
In pre-capitalist economies, exploitation of the worker was achieved via
physical coercion. In the capitalist mode of production, that result is
more subtly achieved; because the worker does not own the means of
production, he or she must voluntarily enter into an exploitive work
relationship with a capitalist in order to earn the necessities of life. The
worker's entry into such employment is voluntary in that he or she
chooses which capitalist to work for. However, the worker must work or
starve; thus, exploitation is inevitable, and the "voluntary" nature of a
worker participating in a capitalist society is illusory. For Marx
exploitation and oppression of the working class by the bourgeois will
continue to be the basis of its power in society.
4.0 CONCLUSION
The theory of Marxism provides you with the opportunity to gain
mastery and in-depth understanding of dialectic method as concepts and
as tools of analysis in political science.
5.0 SUMMARY
It has been suggested that Karl Marx- probably after Jesus Christ and
prophet Mohamed, is the most popular man that has ever lived. Marx
propelled scientific socialism as a programmatic alternative towards
resolving conflict in society. Socialism was perceived as an alternative
system that will eliminate age long challenge of scarcity and distribution
of resources in society. Towards the turn of the century at least one third
of the world was living under one form of socialism or the other.
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