KARL MARX

Dr Madhuri
Historical Materialism
•This concept is explored in ‘Contribution to the Critic of Political Economy 1859.
•It is a conception of society in terms of evolution from one state to another, which
Marx refers to as Modes of Production and Material or Economic factors have a
pivotal role in historical change.
•His theory is called Historical because analysis is in terms of evolution from one
state to another.
•It is called materialistic for two reasons –
Firstly, his conception of societies based upon materialistic and not metaphysical
factors which are understood in terms of material production.
•
Secondly, understanding of change is based upon changing material conditions and
not ideas.
TWO ASPECTS OF HISTORICAL
MATERIALISM
•Materialistic conception of society is in terms of
economic infrastructure and social superstructure
– this was created by Marx to understand the
modes of production of society.
•He understands the historical evolution process
in terms of a dialectic process where two
opposing forces interact with each other and new
structures are produced and the dialectic process
continues.
HISTORICAL OR DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM
•Marx was inspired by Hegelian notions of dialectical
materialism.
•Marx retained dialectical approach of Hegel but
replaced the idealism with materialism.
•Marx believed that material sources or conditions and
not ideas per se are important in the working of any
mode of production.
•Material world is characterized by its own independent
existence and is not a result of human thinking.
The Three Laws of Dialectical Materialism are:
1. Law of unity and struggle of opposites.
2. Law of transformation from quantity to quality.
3. Law of Negation of Negation.
Law of unity and struggle of opposites talks about the very nature or cause of social change.
The law of transformation from quantity to quality talks about the very manner of social change.
The law of negation of negation talks about the very direction of social change.
Change refers to any break in continuity that which existed is no longer found in existence. That
which did not exist is found in existence. If a change occurs then existing situation becomes altered. If
there is a thesis then there is Anti-thesis, then change must occur which is called synthesis.
Thesis—Anti-thesis—Synthesis.
Thesis suggests the very system, forms the very basis of social change. There is contradiction between
thesis and anti-thesis. Here Thesis means the position.
Anti-thesis means the opposition.
Synthesis means the combination.
Thesis is the being, Anti-thesis is no being and the synthesis is the change. It
is the being which determines one’s consciousness. But the consciousness does not determine the one
being. These three are talks about the coverage of social change.
FORCES OF PRODUCTION AND RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION
•In order to produce, man must enter into relations with others.
•Apart from relations, some forces of production are also required
which include tools technique, things, etc.
•Relations of production:
Relation between man and man – They pertain to the associations
which individuals form in order to undertake production. This
associations lead to stratification, like haves and have nots.
•
Relations between man and things – They are in the nature of
ownership and non-ownership of things required in the production. The
haves have control over the production process and the have nots are
non-owners in the production process.
MODE OF PRODUCTION
•Economic Infrastructure – it includes forces and
relations, i.e, men,things, classes, tools, etc.
•Social Superstructure – it includes all other
aspects of society like culture, law, family religion,
education and is largely shaped by economic
infrastructure.
•Economic infrastructure shapes social
superstructure which in turn helps in the
functioning of economic infrastructure.
CONTRADICTION BETWEEN OLDER AND NEWER FORCES OF
PRODUCTION
•In every society, there is centrality of one major thing.
•For example, in feudal society, land is central and in capitalist society, capital is
central.
•Forces of production also represents man’s control over nature.
•As history proceeds, man’s control over nature increases.
•Man and nature are also in a state of constant struggle and the development in
the forces of production can be seen in terms of man’s increasing control over
nature.
•A major contradiction in any production activity is that there is a conflict between
forces and relations of production.
•For example, in capitalist production, forces of production include collective
production by a large number of workers, yet they are privately controlled by the
capitalist. This leads to mutual antagonism.
THE CLASS STRUCTURE

The word ‘class’ originated from the Latin term ‘classis’ which
refers to a group called to arms, a division of the people. In the rule
of legendary Roman king, Servius Tullius (678-534 B.C.), the Roman
society was divided into five classes or orders according to their
wealth. Subsequently, the world ‘class’ was applied to large groups
of people into which human society came to be divided. Marx
recognised class as a unique feature of capitalist societies. This is
one reason why he did not analyse the class structure and class
relations in other forms of society. Marx’s sociology is, in fact, a
sociology of the class struggle.
This means one has to understand the Marxian concept of class in
order to appreciate Marxian philosophy and thought. Marx has used
the term social class throughout his works but explained it only in a
fragmented form. The most clear passages on the concept of class
structure can be found in the third volume of his famous work, Capital
(1894). Under the title of ‘Social Classes’ Marx distinguished three
classes, related to the three sources of income: (a) owners of simple
labour power or labourers whose main source of income is labour; (b)
owners of capital or capitalists whose main source of income is profit
or surplus value; and (c) landowners whose main source of income is
ground rent. In this way the class structure of modern capitalist society
is composed of three major classes viz., salaried labourers or workers,
capitalists and landowners
At a broader level, society could be divided into two major classes i.e. the
‘haves’ (owners of land and / or capital) often called as bourgeoisie and
the ‘have-nots’ (those who own nothing but their own labour power),
often called as proletariats. Marx has tried to even give a concrete
definition of social class. According to him ‘a social class occupies a fixed
place in the process of production’
Criteria for Determination of Class
In order to have a better understanding of the concept of class and class
structure, one must be able to respond to the question – “What are the
criteria for determination of class”? In other words, which human
grouping will be called a class and which grouping would not be
considered as Karl Marx class in Marxian terms. For this exercise, one
could say that a social class has two major criteria: (i) objective criteria (ii)
subjective criteria.
 Objective Criteria: People sharing the same relationship to the
means of production comprise a class. Let us understand it through
an example – all labourers have a similar relationship with the
landowners. On the other hand all the landowners, as a class, have
a similar relationship with the land and labourers. In this way,
labourers on one hand and landowners on the other hand could be
seen as classes. However, for Marx, this relationship alone is not
sufficient to determine the class. According to him it is not
sufficient for class to be ‘class in itself’ but it should also be class for
itself. What does this mean? By ‘class in itself’ he means the
objective criteria of any social class. Obviously, Marx is not simply
satisfied with objective criteria above. Hence he equally
emphasises upon the other major criteria i.e., “Class for itself” or
Subjective Criteria:
Any collectivity or human grouping with a similar relationship
would make a category, not a class, if subjective criteria are
not included. The members of any one class not only have
similar consciousness but they also share a similar
consciousness of the fact that they belong to the same class.
This similar consciousness of a class serves as the basis for
uniting its members for organising social action. Here this
similar class consciousness towards acting together for their
common interests is what Marx calls – “Class for itself”
Classification of Societies in History and Emergence of Classes
Marx differentiated stages of human history on the basis of
their economic regimes or modes of production. He
distinguished four major modes of production which he
called the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal and the bourgeois
or capitalist. He predicted that all social development will
culminate into a stage called communism. Let us simplify this
classification of societies or various stages of human history
into (i) primitive-communal, (ii) slave-owning, (iii) feudal, (iv)
capitalist and (v) communist stages. In this sub-section we
will discuss the first three stages.
The Primitive-communal System Class and Class Conflict

The primitive-communal system was the first and the lowest form
of organisation of people and it existed for thousands of years. Men
and women started using primitive tools like sticks and stones for
hunting and food-gathering. Gradually they improved these tools,
and learned to make fire, cultivation and animal husbandry. In this
system of very low level of forces of production, the relations of
production were based on common ownership of the means of
production. Therefore, these relations were based on mutual
assistance and cooperation.
These relations were conditioned by the fact that people with their
primitive implements could only withstand the mighty forces of
nature together, collectively. In such a situation, exploitation of
humans by humans did not exist because of two reasons. Firstly,
the tools used (namely, means of production) were so simple that
they could be reproduced by anyone. These were implements like
spear, stick, bow and arrow etc. Hence no person or group of
people had the monopoly of ownership over the tools. Secondly,
production was at a low-scale. The people existed more or less on a
subsistence level. Their production was just sufficient to meet the
needs of the people provided everybody worked. Therefore, it was
a situation of no master and no servant. All were equal.
Gradually with time, people started perfecting their
tools, their craft of producing and surplus production
started taking place. This led to private property and
primitive equality gave way to social inequality. Thus
the first antagonistic classes, slaves and slave owners,
appeared. This is how the development of the forces of
production led to the replacement of primitive
communal system by slavery.
The Slave-owning Society
In the slave-owning society, primitive tools were perfected and
bronze and iron tools replaced the stone and wooden
implements. Large-scale agriculture, live stock raising, mining
and handicrafts developed. The development of this type of
forces of production also changed the relations of production.
These relations were based on the slave owner’s absolute
ownership of both the means of production and the slave and
everything they produced. The owner left the slaves only with
the bare minimum necessities to keep them from dying of
starvation.
In this system, the history of exploitation of humans by humans and
the history of class struggle began. The development of productive
forces went on and slavery became an impediment to the expansion
of social production. Production demanded the constant
improvement of implements, higher labour productivity, but the
slaves had no interest in this as it would not improve their position.
With the passage of time the class conflict between the classes of
slaveowners and the slaves became acute and it was manifested in
slave revolts. These revolts, together with the raids from
neighbouring tribes, undermined the foundations of slavery leading
to a new stage i.e. feudal system
iii) The Feudal Society

The progressive development of the productive forces continued under

feudalism. People started using inanimate sources of energy, viz., water and
wind, besides human labour. The crafts advanced further, new implements
and machines were invented and old ones were improved. The labour of
craftspersons was specialised, raising productivity considerably. The
development of forces of production led to emergence of feudal relations of
production. These relations were based on the feudal lords’ ownership of the
serfs or landless peasants. The production relations were relations of
domination and subjection, exploitation of the serfs by the feudal lords.
Nevertheless, these relations were more
progressive than in slavery system, because they
made the labourers interested, to some extent, in
their labour. The peasants and the artisans could
own the implements or small parts of land. These
forces of production underwent changes due to
new discoveries, increasing demands for
consumption caused by population increase and
discovery of new markets through colonialism
. All this led to the need and growth of mass scale
manufacture. This became possible due to advances in
technology. This brought the unorganised labourers at one
place i.e. the factory. This sparked off already sharpened
class conflict leading to peasant revolution against
landowners. The new system of production demanded free
labourer whereas the serf was tied to the land, therefore,
the new forces of production also changed the relations of
production culminating into a change in the mode of
production from feudalism to capitalism
Intensification of Class Conflict under Capitalism

Large-scale machine production is the specific feature of the

productive forces of capitalism. Huge factories, plants and mines
took the place of artisan workshops and manufacturers. Marx and
Engels described the capitalist productive forces in the ‘Manifesto of
the Communist Party’. “Subjection of Nature’s forces to man,
machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture,
steam navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole
continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations
conjured out of the ground”.
In a century or two capitalism accomplished much more in
developing the productive forces than had been achieved in all the
preceding eras of human history. This vigorous growth of the forces
of production was helped by the capitalist relations of production
based on private capitalist ownership. Under capitalism, the
produces, the proletariat, are legally free, being attached neither to
the land nor to any particular factory. They are free in the sense
that they can go to work for any capitalist, but they are not free
from the bourgeois class as a whole. Possessing no means of
production, they are compelled to sell their labour power and
thereby come under the yoke of exploitation
Due to this exploitation the relatively free labourers
become conscious of their class interest and organise
themselves into a working class movement. This working
class movement intensified its struggle against the
bourgeois class. It begins with bargaining for better wages
and working conditions and culminates into an intensified
class conflict, which is aimed at overthrowing the capitalist
system. Marx said that the capitalist system symbolises
the most acute form of inequality, exploitation and class
antagonism. This paves the way for a socialist revolution
which would lead to a new stage of society i.e.
Class and Class Struggle

It is clear that according to Marx the mode of production or

economic structure is the base or foundation of society. Any change
in this infrastructure will cause fundamental changes in the
superstructure and consequently in a society. The changes in the
mode of production are essentially changes in the forces of
production and relations of production. In primitive communal stage
there was no surplus production and hence it had no inequality and
exploitation caused by the private ownership of means of
production.
The means of production were common property of the
community. With the development and improvements in
the forces of production there was increased
productivity. This caused private ownership of means of
production and change in the relations of production.
This marked the end of primitive-communal system and
thus began the long history of inequality, exploitation
and class conflict, coinciding with the emergence of
slave-owning society
In the slave-owning society the class conflict between the
slave owners and slaves reached a peak causing a change in
the mode of production from slavery to feudalistic mode of
production. Marx has said that the history of hitherto
existing society is a history of class struggle. This means that
the entire history of society is studded with different phases
and periods of class struggle. This history of class struggle
begins in the slave-owning society and continues through
feudal society where this class struggle is between classes of
the feudal lords and the landless agricultural labourers or
serfs.
Due to change in mode of production and class struggle a new stage
of society i.e., capitalism replaces the age-old feudal system. In the
capitalistic mode of production the class antagonism acquires most
acute dimensions. The working class movement begins to concretise
and reaches its peak. Through a class conflict between the class of
capitalists and the class of industrial labourers, the capitalist system
is replaced by socialism. This violent change has been termed as
revolution by Marx. This marks, according to Marx, the fifth stage of
social development
class antagonism an
HOMOGENISATION- ALINATION MONOT
PAPUPERISATION- EXPOLITATION
POLAIZATION- THERE IS NO BETWEEN HAVES AND HAVES NOT DUE TO MERGER AND ACQUSTION OF SMALL COMPANY BY BIG
COMPANY

When there is o counciouness regarding the exploitation the prolertait will not revolt that why karl marx is aginast religion he
said made you accept your pain

Based on the economy is the supporting religion, polity , literature , ethics, law

State will rule on the behalf of haves

There was no tussle because the haves not have no subjective relaisation of their objective situation. Until the proteliatist have
the relaization they are class in itself and when they realize they will become clas for itself and then the worker unite

This is one part of exploitation and second is related is human nature . Work is social in nature. People works because they want
to objectify their imganiation. But when worker think they are objectifying other thoughts. In a way you are alienated from your
labour
CLASS STRUGGLE AND REVOLUTION
Marx said that the class antagonism and subsequently the class
conflict in the capitalist system will usher in socialism in place of
capitalism through a revolution. Here the question arises what is
the basis of this antagonism? Marx’s answer is that the
contradiction between the forces and the relations of production
is the basis of this antagonism. The bourgeoisie is constantly
creating more powerful means of production. But the relations
of production that is, apparently, both the relations of
ownership and the distribution of income are not transferred at
the same rate.
The capitalist mode of production is capable to
produce in bulk, but despite this mass production
and increase in wealth, majority of the
population suffers from poverty and misery. On
the other hand, there are a few families who
have so much wealth that one could not even
count or imagine. These stark and wide
disparities create some tiny islands of prosperity
in a vast ocean of poverty and misery.
The onus of this disparity lies on the inequal, exploitative
relations of production which distribute the produce in
an inequal manner. This contradiction, according to Marx,
will eventually produce a revolutionary crisis. The
proletariat, which constitutes and will increasingly
constitute the vast majority of the population, will
become a class, that is, a social entity aspiring for the
seizure of power and transformation of social relations
Marx asserted that the progress of society meant the
succession of victories of one class over the other. He
assigned his life to planning a victory for the proletariat. In a
way, he became a commander, engaged in a campaign. With
his solitary aim of defeating the enemy, Marx stressed on
acquiring the knowledge of the history of society and the
laws that regulate its organisation. His monumental work,
Das Kapital (Capital, 1861-1879), provided an analysis in
which Marx was not concerned with arguments for a class-
war. He treated the necessity for such arguments as an
unnecessary task. He had no love for emotionalism and
humanitarianism and appeal to idealism etc.
He conceived of the class conflict on every front and proposed the
formation of a political party which would eventually gain victory and
be the conquering class. You do not have to imagine that it was Marx
who, for the first time ever, advanced the idea of conflict between
classes. Saint Simon wrote about human history as the history of
struggles between social classes. In the 1790s Babeuf, a French
political agitator, spoke of the dictatorship of the proletariat and
Weitling and Blanqui (Babeuf’s disciple) developed Babeuf’s ideas in
the nineteenth century. The French State Socialists worked out the
future position and importance of workers in industrial states. In fact
in the eighteenth century many thinkers advanced such doctrines.
Marx did the admirable task of sifting all this material and
constructed a new set of social analysis. His analysis of class struggle
was a unique mix of simple basic principles with down-to-earth
details. According to Marx, the bottom rung of the social stratification
is the proletariat. Below it there is no class and therefore
emancipation of the proletariat will, in fact, be the emancipation of
mankind. Marx accepts the right of the bourgeoisie to fight the final
war. But for the proletariat the battle is for its very survival and it has
to win. The revolutions of the proletariat will differ in kind from all
past revolutions. All the revolutions of the past were accomplished by
minorities for the benefit of minorities.
The revolution of the proletariat will be accomplished by the vast
majority for the benefit of all. The proletarian revolution will,
therefore, mark the end of classes and of the antagonistic character
of capitalist society. This would mean that the private ownership of
property will be abolished. The proletariat will jointly own means of
production and distribute the produce according to the needs of
the members of the society. This stage is called the stage of
dictatorship of proletariat. This stage will later on convert into a
stateless society where the communist system will finally be
established in the society. This will also end all kinds of social
classes and of all kinds of class conflicts for future. This will also
mean de-alienation of the proletariat
MARX’S CONCEPT OF ALIENATION
Alienation literally means “separation from”. This term is
often used in literature and Marx has given it a sociological
meaning. Marx has conceived of alienation as a
phenomenon related to the structure of those societies in
which the producer is divorced from the means of
production and in which “dead labour” (capital) dominates
“living labour” (the worker). Let us take an example of a
shoemaker in a factory. A shoemaker manufactures shoes
but cannot use them for himself.
His creation thus becomes an object which is separate
from him. It becomes an entity which is separate from its
creator. Class and Class Conflict He makes shoes not
because making shoes satisfies merely his urge to work
and create. He does so to earn his living. For a worker this
‘objectification’ becomes more so because the process of
production in a factory is decided into several parts and his
job may be only a tiny part of the whole. Since he
produces only one part of the whole, his work is
mechanical and therefore he loses his creativity.
 LABOUR

CO-
WORKER
Alienation
PRODUCT
Religion
SELF
A systematic elaboration of the concept appears
in Capital under the heading “Fetishism of
commodities and money”. But the ethical germ of
this conception can be found as early as 1844,
when Marx unequivocally rejected and
condemned “the state” and “money”, and
invested the proletariat with the “historical
mission” of emancipating society as a whole.
In Marx’s sense alienation is an action through which (or a state in which) a
person, a group, an institution, or a society becomes (or remains) alien
a) to the results or products of its own activity (and to the activity itself),
and/or
b) b) to the nature in which it lives, and/or
c) c) to other human beings, and in addition and through any or all of (a) to
(c) also
d) d) to itself (to its own historically created human possibilities). Alienation
is always self-alienation, i.e., one’s alienation from oneself through one’s
own activity. To quote Gajo Petrovic (1983: 10) we can say, “And self-
alienation is not just one among the forms of alienation, but the very
essence and basic structure of alienation. It is not merely a descriptive
concept, it is also an appeal, or a call for a revolutionary change of the
world”.
De-alienation
Mere criticism of alienation was not the intention of
Marx. His aim was to clear the path for a radical
revolution and for accomplishing communism
understood as “the re-integration of one’s return to
oneself, the supersession of one’s self-alienation”. Mere
abolition of private property cannot bring about de-
alienation of economic and social life. This situation of
the worker, or the producer does not alter by
transforming private property into state property.
Some forms of alienation in capitalist production have
their roots in the nature of the means of production and
the related division of social labour, so that they cannot
be eliminated by a mere change in the form of managing
production. Far from being an eternal fact of social life,
the division of society into mutually interdependent and
conflicting spheres (economy, politics, laws, arts, morals,
religion, etc.), and the predominance of the economic
sphere, are, according to Marx, characteristics of a self-
alienated society. The dealienation of society is therefore
impossible without the abolition of the alienation of
Alienation in the Marxian sense of the term cannot be overcome by the
reorganisation of the economy, however radical the programme of such Karl
Marx transformation may be. Alienation of the society and of the individual
are integrally connected. Therefore, the de-alienation of neither can be
carried out without the other, nor can one be reduced to the other. The
concept of alienation is a key tool of analysis in Marx’s thought. According to
Marx, one had always been self-alienated thus far. The bourgeoise relations
of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of
production causing alienation. At the same time, the production forces
developing in the womb of bourgeoise society create the material conditions
for the solution of that antagonism and alienation. This social formation
constitutes, therefore, the closing chapter of the “prehistoric” stage of
human society
CRITICISM
•Only focussed on material factors – a kind
of economic reductionism.
•He emphasized conflict and ignored the
social order aspect.
•He focussed primarily on macro
evolutionary aspect and ignored the micro
reality of social life.