Postmodernism: Karl Marx

Karl Marx• born May 5, 1818, Trier, Rhine

province, Prussia [Germany]

• revolutionary, sociologist, historian, and economist.

Society

• Conflict/Marxist theory – views the society as an arena of constant struggle between the upper class (bourgeoisie; the oppressor) and the lower class (proletariat; the oppressed); proposes revolution to eliminate oppressive economic and political conditions; a theory underlying social organization, disorganization, social change and social institutions.

• "Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand."

Man

• As a natural being and a living natural being, he is endowed on the one hand with natural powers, vital powers . . . ; these powers exist in him as aptitudes, instincts. On the other hand, as an objective, natural, physical, sensitive being, he is a suffering, dependent and limited being . . . , that is, the objects of his instincts exist outside him, independent of him, but are the objects of his need, indispensable and essential for the realization and confirmation of his substantial powers.

Man and Society

• Materialism• In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from

heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, or imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men and on the basis of their real life process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life process." 

Man and Society

• Historical Materialism• It is a theory of socioeconomic development according to which changes in material

conditions are the primary influence on how society and the economy are organised.

• It is not the consciousness of men which determines their existence; it is on the contrary their social existence which determines their consciousness.

• Looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans collectively produce the necessities of life. Social classes and the relationship between them, plus the political structures and ways of thinking in society, are founded on and reflect contemporary economic activity.

Man and Society

• The basis of human society is how humans work on nature to produce the means of subsistence.

• There is a division of labour into social classes (relations of production) based on property ownership where some people live from the labour of others.

• The system of class division is dependent on the mode of production.

• The mode of production is based on the level of the productive forces.

• Society moves from stage to stage when the dominant class is displaced by a new emerging class, by overthrowing the "political shell" that enforces the old relations of production no longer corresponding to the new productive forces. This takes place in the superstructure of society, the political arena in the form of revolution, whereby the underclass "liberates" the productive forces with new relations of production, and social relations, corresponding to it.

Man and Society

• Dialectic Materialism• the dialectical nature of history is expressed in class struggle. (bourgeoisie vs.

proletariat)

• “The bourgeoisie produces its own grave-diggers. The fall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable”

• Individuals can gain knowledge of things only through their practical interaction with those things, framing their ideas corresponding to their practice; and social practice alone provides the test of the correspondence of idea with reality—i.e., of truth.