Marxism and neo marxism

History,
Mode of Production.
Karl Marx
Friedrich Engels
Alienation Theory
Capitalism

1. Irliany Marwah Dwipa 16 SAS C MARXISM AND NEO MARXISM

2. Marxism is an understanding that follows the views of Karl Marx. Marx compiled a great theory relating to economic systems, social systems, and political systems. Followers of this theory are called Marxists. This theory is the basis of the theory of modern communism. Marxism is Marx’s form of protest against capitalism. He assumed that the capital accumulated money at the expense of the proletariat.

3. Class struggle originates out of the exploitation of one class by another throughout history. During the industrial age the struggle was between the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie) and the industrial working class (the proletariat). In a capitalist system, the proletariat is always in conflict with the capitalist class. This confrontation, according to Marx, will finally result in replacing the system by socialism. One of fundamental concepts of classical Marxist thought is the concept of base and superstructure which refers to the relationship between the material means of production and the cultural world of art and ideas. There is a straightforward deterministic relation in this concepts between base and superstructure, so that literary texts are seen as causally determined by the economic base.

4. Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. Marx was born on 5 May 1818 at Brückengasse 664 in Trier, a town then part of the Kingdom of Prussia's Province of the Lower Rhine. Was died on 14 March 1883 (aged 64) London, England, United Kingdom . Marx was ethnically Jewish. KARL MARX

5. 28 November 1820 - 5 August 1895. Was a German philosopher, communist, social scientist, journalist and businessman. Friedrich engels

6. According to Marxists, literature reflects social institutions out of which it emerges. Therefore, literature also reflects an author’s own class or analysis of class relations. Literature itself is a social institution with a particular ideological function. The Marxist critic regards literature as the product of material/historical conditions. A text reflects the existing ideology of the certain society. It also shows the relationship between the ideology and people . MARXISM ON LITERATURE

7. To Marxism, ‘ideology is the ruling ideas of the ruling class’ or the belief system, and all belief systems are the products of cultural conditioning. For example, capitalism, communism, religion, etc. are not ‘innocent’ but are ‘determined’ (shaped) by the nature of the economic base known as economic determinism.

8. In the process of production, human beings work not only upon nature, but also upon one another. They produce only by working together in a specified manner and reciprocally exchanging their activities. In order to produce, they enter into definite connections and relations to one another, and only within these social connections and relations does their influence upon nature operate (where production take place). Classes emerge only at a certain stage in the development of the productive forces and the social division of labour. Marx distinguishes the classes in society into Bourgeoisie, Proletariat, Lumpenproletariat, Landlords, and Peasantry and Farmers . Classes

9. A. Bourgeoisie The class of people in bourgeois society who own the social means of production and buy labour power from the proletariat, thus exploiting the proletariat. Petite bourgeoisie are those who work and can afford to buy little labour power . B. Proletariat The class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live . C. Lumpen proletariat The outcasts of society such as the criminals, vagabonds, beggars, or prostitutes without any political or class consciousness. D. Landlords A historically important social class who retain some wealth and power. E. Peasantry and Farmers A scattered class incapable of organizing and affecting socio-economic change, most of whom would enter the proletariat while some would become landlords.

10. The value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour contained in it or by the amount of socially necessary labour-time spent in producing it from start to finish. By socially necessary is meant the amount needed to produce, and reproduce, a commodity under average working conditions. For Marx, the labour theory of value is a form of consciousness which is “natural” on the basis of social relations founded on commodity production. Example: Nike shoes, produced by sweated labour in “free trade zones” by people who do not earn enough in a week to buy one pair of the shoes they produce in five minutes, while Michael Jordan (whose name is used for product name in the brand) is paid more than the entire Indonesian labour force for lending his name to the product. Labour Theory of Value

11. Alienation is the process whereby people become foreign to the world they are living in. Marx had a specific understanding of the very sharp experience of alienation which is found in modern bourgeois society. Marx insisted that it was human labour which created culture and history, not the other way around . Marx went on to show that the specific form of labour characteristic of bourgeois society, wage labour, corresponds to the most profound form of alienation. Since wage workers sell their labour power to earn a living, and the capitalist owns the labour process, the product of the workers’ labour is in a very real sense alien to the worker. It is not her product but the product of the capitalist. The worker makes a rod for her own back . Alienation

12. 1. From the Product The labourers are not able to purchase the product they make for their company/employer. Company hires labourers, or employees, to craft or assemble products for them. In exchange for the labour lent by the employees, the company would pay wages. But the amount of nett wages paid to the employees are not the same value as the products made during the work, so the employees are still not able to consume the product they make at work. Kinds of alienation of labourers

13. 2. From Labouring This happens when labourers do not work willingly, or hate their job. They work only because they have only two options: work there or starve . 3. From Other Labourers Labourers would see other labourers as their competitor in the working society, because they are “lending” their labour power for the same thing: wages. Labourers would compete with other labourers for higher wages, in order to fulfill their need of commodities . 4. From Gattungswesen (species-essence) This happens when labourers are unable to do what they want to achieve what they want. Labourers work to generate value for their employers, not for themselves, and they do works assigned to them, not the works , that they want to do. In short, labourers are alienated from their logic of intentions.

14. Marx identifies production as essential for human existence , because production is a social activity. He articulated the concept of mode of production: “The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and spiritual processes of life ” “modes” of production = different type of society T he system of class division is dependent on mode of production . Mode of Production

15. Marx considered that the way people relate to the physical world and the way people relate to each other socially are bound up together in specific and necessary ways: “ men [who] produce cloth, linen, silk...also produce the ‘social relations’ amid which they prepare cloth and linen”. People must consume to survive, but to consume they must produce and in producing they necessarily enter into relations which exist independently of their will.

16. In the writings of Karl Marx and the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production is a specific combination of the following : Productive forces : these include human labour power and means of production (e.g. tools, productive machinery, commercial and industrial buildings, other infrastructure, technical knowledge, materials, plants, animals and exploitable land). Social and technical relations of production : these include the property, power and control relations governing society's productive assets (often codified in law), cooperative work relations and forms of association, relations between people and the objects of their work and the relations between social classes.

17. Base Base refers to the forces and relations of production—to all the people, relationships between them, the roles that they play, and the materials and resources involved in producing the things needed by society. Superstructure Superstructure, quite simply and expansively, refers to all other aspects of society. It includes culture, ideology (world views, ideas, values, and beliefs), norms and expectations, identities that people inhabit, social institutions (education, religion, media, family, among others), the political structure, and the state (the political apparatus that governs society). Marx argued that the superstructure grows out of the base, and reflects the interests of the ruling class that controls the base (called the “bourgeoisie”). The Social Superstructure

18. From a sociological standpoint, it’s important to recognize that neither the base nor the superstructure is naturally occurring, nor are they static. They are both social creations (created by people in a society), and both are the accumulation of social processes and interactions between people that are constantly playing out, shifting, and evolving . So, base shapes the social Superstructures and controlled by ruling class

19. Type of M ode of Production 1. P rimitive C ommunism Marx and Engels often referred to the "first" mode of production as primitive communism that can be defined as a concept where all hunter-gatherer societies are traditionally based on social relations and shared ownership. In Marx's model of socioeconomic structures, societies with primitive communism had no hierarchical social class structures or capital accumulation.

20. In a primitive communist society, all able bodied persons would have engaged in obtaining food, and everyone would share in what was produced by hunting and gathering. There would be no private property, which is distinguished from personal property such as articles of clothing and similar personal items, because primitive society produced no surplus; what was produced was quickly consumed . All work together for common good .

21. The Asiatic mode of production first used to explain pre-slave and pre-feudal large earthwork constructions in India, the Euphrates and Nile river valleys (and named on this basis of the primary evidence coming from greater "Asia"). The Asiatic mode of production is said to be the initial form of class society, where a small group extracts social surplus through violence aimed at settled or unsettled band and village communities within a domain . The ruling class of this society is generally a semi-theocratic aristocracy which claims to be the incarnation of Gods on earth . The forces of production associated with this society include basic agricultural techniques, massive construction, irrigation, and storage of goods for social benefit (granaries). 2. The Asiatic Mode of P roduction

22. The primary property form of this mode is the direct religious possession of communities (villages, bands, and hamlets, and all those within them) by the gods: in a typical example, three-quarters of the property would be allotted to individual families, while the remaining quarter would be worked for the theocracy

23. 3. Ancient (slave ) Mode of Production Classical Greek and Roman societies are the most typical examples of this antique mode of production. The forces of production associated with this mode include advanced (two field) agriculture, the extensive use of animals in agriculture, industry (mining and pottery), and advanced trade networks. It is differentiated from the Asiatic mode, in that property forms included the direct possession of individual human beings(slavery); while the ruling class usually avoids the more outlandish claims of being the direct incarnation of a God and prefers to be the descendants of Gods , or seeks other justifications for its rule, including varying degrees of popular participation in politics. It was, however, not democracy but rather the universalising of its citizenship that eventually enabled Rome to set up a Mediterranean-wide urbanised empire, knit together by roads, harbours , lighthouses, aqueducts, and bridges, and with engineers, architects, traders and industrialists fostering interprovincial trade between a growing set of urban centres with Slaves do most of work.

24. 4. Feudal Mode of Production (Feudalism) The fall of the Western Roman Empire returned most of Western Europe to emerged the Feudal production mode which characterized by the production of material goods by exploited peasants. Between the 9th and 15th centuries, during the Middle Ages, feudalism was developed in Western Europe as a social, political and economic system. It expanded to Eastern Europe when the Modern Age arrived, between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries . These goods were produced by serfs and peasants, who were exploited by their masters and owners of the lands. The feudal system was characterized by decentralizing the political power of the king or emperor. The aristocratic class became autonomous and thus the nobility was founded.

25. Economic Base : Forces of production  Agricultural Production Relations of production  Landlords and peasants For Marx, what defined feudalism was the power of the ruling class (the aristocracy) in their control of arable land, leading to a class society based upon the exploitation of the peasants who farm these lands, typically under serfdom and principally by means of labour , produce and money rents. Marx thus defined feudalism primarily by its economic characteristics.

26. 5. Capitalist Mode of Production Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the feudal system was increasingly punctuated by the growth of free cities, the change of money from slave labor, the replacement of feudal hosts by mercenaries, and the divorce of ownership of land tenure. The capitalist mode of production refers to the systems of organizing production and distribution within capitalist societies. Private money-making in various forms (renting, banking, merchant trade, production for profit and so on) preceded the development of the capitalist mode of production as such. The capitalist mode of production proper, based on wage- labour and private ownership of the means of production and on industrial technology, began to grow rapidly in Western Europe from the Industrial Revolution, later extending to most of the world

27. Under the capitalist mode of production: Both the inputs and outputs of production are mainly privately owned, priced goods and services purchased in the market. Production is carried out for exchange and circulation in the market, aiming to obtain a net profit income from it. The owners of the means of production (capitalists) are the dominant class (bourgeoisie) who derive their income from the surplus product produced by the workers and appropriated freely by the capitalists. A defining feature of capitalism is the dependency on wage-labor for a large segment of the population; specifically, the working class (proletariat) do not own capital and must live by selling their labour power in exchange for a wage • Capitalism’s Economic Base Force of P roduction Relations of productions - Industrialism - Capitalist and proletarians

28. The Marxist definition of socialism is a mode of production where the sole criterion for production is use-value and therefore the law of value no longer directs economic activity. Marxist production for use is coordinated through conscious economic planning, while distribution of economic output is based on the principle of to each according to his contribution. The social relations of socialism are characterized by the working class effectively owning the means of production and the means of their livelihood, through one or a combination of cooperative enterprises, common ownership, or worker's self-management. 6. Socialist Mode of Production No classes : Equality

29. 7. Communist Mode of Production Socialism is the mode of production which Marx considered will succeed capitalism, and which will itself ultimately be succeeded by communism - the words socialism and communism both predate Marx and have many definitions other than those he used, however - once the forces of production outgrew the capitalist framework. Communism is the final mode of production that happened based on the conflict between the working class and the capitalist class as the root of all problems in society; and that this situation will ultimately be resolved through a social revolution . The revolution will put the working class in power and in turn establish social ownership of the means of production, which according to Marx, is the primary element in the transformation of society towards communism. Ways of thinking: the end of ideologies, truth emerges

30. From capitalism to communism: Revolution • The forces of production develop, this leads to a change in relations of production • Capitalism riddled with contradictions • The proletariat come to know that they are exploited, they organize themselves and overthrow the bourgeois class and the capitalist system in a revolution Economical Base in Communism Forces of production Highly developed Machine doing a lots of work Humane working freely and creatively together Relation of production Classes abolished All work together in cooperation All contribute to society, everyone gets what they need

31. Dialectical Materialism

32. Dialectics means two or more things are constantly affecting each other, back and forth, until they reach a culmination of some sort. In idealism, this culmination is the synthesis of a thesis and antithesis. In materialism, this culmination is revolution as a result of contradictions in the means and relations of production. Revolution occurs when internal contradictions within a society’s base create “dissenting forces” within the superstructure. When these dissenting forces reach critical mass, they will destroy the old base and replace it with a new one . This is why social movements and ideologies that challenge the base are often crushed the dominant powers of the superstructure. For example, the hippie movement, Black Lives Matter, etc. This cycle of contradiction, tension, and revolution must continue: there will always be conflict between the upper, middle, and lower (working) classes. This conflict will be reflected in literature and other forms of expression: art, music, movies, etc.

33. Marxist follows a process of thinking called the material dialectic. This belief system maintains that what drives historical change are the material realities of the economic base of society, rather than the ideological superstructure of politics, law, philosophy, religion, and art that is built upon that economic base. Materialism in this sense means that the world and human society is made up of material things. This was Marx’s alternative to Hegel’s Idealism, which holds that things are the way they are because of our ideas. Idealism holds that there is no “objective reality” and that reality is in some way dependent on the human mind .

34. For example, idealists might posit that Europeans were able to colonize the rest of the world because Europeans are somehow inherently superior, or ordained by God to do so. That is a form of idealism as it is based on “ideas” about the world, and about people. The materialist explanation for European imperial/colonial domination is that European cultures, due to their close proximity to each other which facilitated trade, exchange, and competition, reached higher levels of technological achievement than most other parts of the world, which they then leveraged into military domination.

35. reification and class consciousness. (13 April 1885 - 4 June 1971)

36. Lukács sees literature as reflecting socio-economic reality, but he rejected the view that there was a simple deterministic relationship between the two. He argues that the greatest literary works do not merely reproduce the dominant ideologies of their time but include in their form a critique of these ideologies. Like other Marxist, Lukács was concerned with all the people. He didn't want novels about one person's petty problems; he wanted novels that explored big social, political, and economic issues. Lukacs also focused on some of the nitty gritty issues in Marxism, such as the alienation of people in a capitalist society, the class struggle, and other pet subjects .

37. “ Reification ” is a process in which social relations are considered as inherent attributes of the people involved, or attributes of some products of the relationship, such as commodities traded . Reification occurs when human creation is specifically misunderstood as "natural facts, the results of cosmic law, or manifestations of divine will.” Reification

38. Lukács commenced with the Marxian concept of commodity fetishism, which he characterized as “the central, structural problem of capitalist society ”. A commodity is at base a relation among people that, they come to believe, takes on the character of a thing and develops an objective form. People in their interaction with nature in capitalist society produce various products, or commodities (for example, bread, automobiles, motion pictures). Commodity fetishism is a perception of social relations involved in production not as a relationship between people, but as an economic relationship between money and commodities exchanged in market trade. Thus, commodity fetishism changes subjective aspects, abstracts from economic values ​​into objectives, real things that people believe have intrinsic value. The crucial difference between the fetishism of commodities and reification lies in the extensiveness of the two concepts. Whereas the former is restricted to the economic institution, the latter is applied by Lukács to all of society—the state, the law, and the economic sector.

39. The same dynamics apply in all sectors of capitalist society: P eople become convinced that social structures have their own lives, and as a result the structure finally has an objective character. Lukács describes this process : Man in capitalist society confronts a reality “made” by himself (as a class) which appears to him to be a natural phenomenon alien to himself; he is wholly at the mercy of its “laws”; his activity is confined to the exploitation of the inexorable fulfillment of certain individual laws for his own (egoistic) interests.

40. As he saw it, Bourgeoisie only cared about economic comforts. They could only understand the world through their own limited perspective, which means that they saw the proletariat only through middle-class eyes, which made the working class not people with imaginations and perspectives of their own but "reified" objects. For the bourgeoisie, the workers were just makers of things, entities who were valued to the extent that they were able to produce commodities and make the rich richer. In fact, the bourgeoisie saw everything as an object and a commodity.

41. In 1923, History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics made Lukács career that is talk about how each social class has its own consciousness to which it aspires. Every class has a false consciousness opposed to class consciousness. If you're a member of the bourgeoisie, this probably means that you're all into the idea of having two kids, some nice furniture, and a nicer car than the Joneses . Class consciousness is what happens when you get rid of this false consciousness and come to an understanding of your class's place in the overall process of history . Class Consciousness

42. If you are not born with class consciousness—you have to struggle to achieve it. The proletariat was lucky because it had a how-to guide with the Communist Manifesto, which could guide them to a life opposed to capitalism and help them understand their place in history. As for the bourgeoisie—they were on their own, with their false ideals and illusions.

43. The author as producer Walter Benjamin 15 July 1892 - 26 Sept 1940

44. Benjamin argues that a truly revolutionary art must break radically with traditional forms since even works which use conventional techniques to attack capitalism will tend merely to be consumed by a bourgeois audience. In “”The Author as Producer”,” Walter Benjamin seeks to define the role of the author as a member of a society who inexorably must address class struggle. To Benjamin, the concept of the author must be rethought since s/he is part of an industry whose framework is defined by mode of production. Unable to escape the class conflict that circumscribes the writing process, the author, whether s/he is aware of it, chooses sides .

45. Benjamin clearly calls for the author to choose one side “ [The author’s decision], made on the basis of a class struggle, is to side with the proletariat” (220). In its totality, Benjamin’s essay underscores the ways in which the author can successfully side with proletariat without compromising his/her intentions.

46. Illusion and reality Christopher Caudwell 1907 - 1937

47. The subject of his theory is poetry The development of class society breaks down the old collectivity and the artist becomes differentiated from the group. Individual artists replace group art. Art is divorced from the nitty-gritty of everyday economic concerns Caudwell thinks it is because the economic base of developing capitalism which the first group represents (the bourgeois foundation) is reflected in their works. They are spokesmen of their times when the feudal world view was under attack by a new economic class whose outlook they reflected .

48. To sum up, while Benjamin thinks that writers have to produce a work that the audience, the bourgeois, would enjoy, Caudwell thinks that writers can produce a work to what they desire; based on what they currently feeling or thinking. This rather makes his argument a writer-oriented one.

49. Louis Althusser (16 October 1918 - 22 October 1990)

50. He combined Marxism with the scientifically oriented methods of Structuralism in his essay, Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses (1970) and analysed how the dominant systems enforce their control by subtly forming their subjects through ideology. Althusser did not agree with Engels concept of Ideology as “false consciousness ”. He defines ideology as “ representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence .” He adds that a great work of literature is not merely a product or reflection of ideology; it creates for the reader a distance from which to recognise and expose “the ideology from which it is born… from which it detaches itself as art, and to which it alludes .

51. In Althusser’s opinion, the social structure is not monolithic, but consists of a variety of “ nonsynchronous ” social formations or “Ideological State Apparatuses” (ISAs), various of institutions in ideological practice including religious, political, educational, media, legal and literary institutions and agents which our values, desires, and preferences are embedded in people . The ISAs function in a concealed and a symbolic manner. No single ISA produces the belief in people that they are self-conscious agents; instead, they gain this belief in the learning process of what it means to be a daughter, a schoolchild, a black and so forth .

52. ISAs foster an ideology that will be sympathetic to the desires of the state and conducive to the political status quo. Thus, the power of the state is maintained by the ISA in a very subtle manner through the internal aggreement or ‘willing compliance’ of the citizens. In contrast to ISA, there are the working of RSAs (“Repressive State Apparatuses”) or “repressive structures” which produce involuntary compliance by direct external force. An example of RSA are institutions as the Police force and the army.

53. The RSA functions as a unified entity, an organized whole, as opposed to the ISA which is diverse and plural even when they are united by the fact that they are ultimately controlled by the ruling ideology. . The most distinguishable difference between ISA and RSA is that the RSA functions predominantly by means of repression and violence and secondarily by ideology whereas the ISA functions predominantly by ideology and secondarily by repression and violence.

54. Towards a science of the text Terry Eagleton February 22, 1943

55. Terry Eagleton is a Marxist critic of long standing but his more recent work has engaged with Althusserian Marxism and post-structuralism without rejecting traditional Marxian concepts. Thus, he retains the Marxian concept of ideology but modifies traditional Marxian formulations and argues that the relation of the literary text to ideology should be seen in terms of ' overdetermination '. Terry Eagleton brought out a Marxist account of Emily Bronte‘s Wuthering Heights in his book, Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontes . In Criticism and Ideology (1976), he argues that a literary text is not merely an expression of ideology, but the production of ideology. By “ideology”, he does not necessarily mean political or Marxist ideology, but the whole systems and theories of representation that would make up the picture of a person’s experiences. Also, he examines various ideologies outside the text and the particular ideology of a text.