Marx intended to give a scientific analysis of capitalist contradictions. Living in several European countries, he had a clear insight into the relations between social classes.
Marx’s dialectic was materialist and based on the “contradictions” within a mode of production.
Marx also noticed the inequality while living in England, and his rigorous philosophical and economic training in German idealism and British political economy led to his conclusions about the course of history.
Marx’s focus on the Bourgeoisie and Proletariat, the two great hostile camps, was derived from his analysis of the industrialization process.
In 1848, Marx and his friend Engels published the "Communist Manifesto". Let’s see how this theory appears in the Manifesto itself:
QUOTE - The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another,
carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other, the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. - END QUOTE
In a later footnote, Engels explained: "By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour.
By 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."
That was Marx's belief: history was the story of constant class struggles, which eventually would lead to a classless society.
A few more quotes from the Manifesto: QUOTE: The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property.
But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, which is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. - END QUOTE
Did history develop according to Marx's ideas? Not in the highly industrialized countries like the US and England. Yet his philosophy had a profound influence on historical developments.
Maybe we'll learn something from 20th-century revolutions that actually occurred in Russia, China, and Cuba, for instance, in the next lecture.
Main Sources:
MacMillan The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition
of Economic Thought (2012)
TABLE OF CONTENT -----------------------------------------------------------------
1 - 100 Philosophers 9 May 2009 Start of
2 - 25+ Women Philosophers 10 May 2009 this blog
3 - 25 Adventures in Thinking 10 May 2009
4 - Modern Theories of Ethics 29 Oct 2009
5 - The Ideal State 24 Febr 2010 / 234
6 - The Mystery of the Brain 3 Sept 2010 / 266
7 - The Utopia of the Free Market 16 Febr 2012 / 383
8. - The Aftermath of Neo-liberalism 5 Sept 2012 / 413
9. - The Art Not to Be an Egoist 6 Nov 2012 / 426
10 - Non-Western Philosophy 29 May 2013 / 477
11 - Why Science is Right 2 Sept 2014 / 534
12 - A Philosopher looks at Atheism 1 Jan 2015 / 557
13 - EVIL, a philosophical investigation 17 Apr 2015 / 580
14 - Existentialism and Free Will 2 Sept 2015 / 586
15 - Spinoza 2 Sept 2016 / 615
16 - The Meaning of Life 13 Febr 2017 / 637
17 - In Search of my Self 6 Sept 2017 / 670
18 - The 20th Century Revisited 3 Apr 2018 / 706
19 - The Pessimist 11 Jan 2020 / 819
20 - The Optimist 9 Febr 2020 / 824
21 - Awakening from a Neoliberal Dream 8 Oct 2020 / 872
22 - A World Full of Patterns 1 Apr 2021 / 912
23 - The Concept of Freedom 8 Jan 2022 / 965
24 - Materialism 7 Sept 2022 / 1011
25 - Historical Materialism 5 Oct 2023 / 1088
26 - The Bonobo and the Atheist 9 Jan 2024 / 1102
27 - Artificial Intelligence 9 Feb 2024 / 1108
28 - Why Am I Here 6 Sept 2024 / 1139
The Discussion
[13:14] herman Bergson: Leaves us with the question....was Marx's analysis of society correct?
[13:15] herman Bergson: Did everyone fall asleep?
[13:15] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): no i was thinking
[13:15] Max Chatnoir: Sorry, I had to catch up.
[13:15] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): looking through everything one more time
[13:15] Stranger Nightfire: From what I know of it, he was pretty much right on target
[13:16] Max Chatnoir: Do Marx's two classes include everybody?
[13:16] herman Bergson: If you take it literally, I'd say no, Max
[13:17] Stranger Nightfire: Well there are self-employed people
[13:17] herman Bergson: The big struggle was between the owners of the means of production and the workers, the capitalists and the exploited people.
[13:17] Max Chatnoir: But that defines the classes that are in opposition? Owners and laborers.
[13:17] Stranger Nightfire: Not an easy thing to do, though in a capitalist system like ours
[13:18] herman Bergson: It is not a complete view of society...what to do with writers, artists etc?
[13:18] Stranger Nightfire: If you're self-employed business ends up with one employee You've technically become a capitalist
[13:19] herman Bergson: yes
[13:19] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): the way the system works
[13:20] Stranger Nightfire: I was a capitalist once, and at times I didn't like what it did to me
[13:20] Max Chatnoir: So if you work for somebody else, you're a laborer. If you get paid directly by customers, you're a capitalist/
[13:20] herman Bergson: Despite this class struggle, revolutions didn't happen in industrialized countries.
[13:21] Stranger Nightfire: Well they didn't succeed
[13:21] herman Bergson: That is not exactly clear, Max
[13:21] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): people were scared to loose their jobs if they said something negative about the owners
[13:21] Max Chatnoir: If you're a writer, you have to publish your work. So are the publishers the capitalists?
[13:21] Stranger Nightfire: There were some attempted revolutions major European cities but they didn't last long
[13:22] herman Bergson: The publisher would be a capitalist indeed...he possesses the means of production
[13:22] Max Chatnoir: how about gallery owners and artists?
[13:23] Stranger Nightfire: Gallery owners of course are artists could be self employed
[13:23] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ah
[13:23] herman Bergson: yes, the division of society into bourgeois and proletariat isn't perfect
[13:24] Stranger Nightfire: are capitalist that is
[13:24] herman Bergson: This may be one of the reasons that there were all kinds of interpretations of Marx's ideas
[13:25] Stranger Nightfire: There's quite a bit of Gray area nuance
[13:25] herman Bergson: Take Lenin and Mao for instance....
[13:25] Stranger Nightfire: I mean by a strict definition I suppose you could say a wealthy CEO was a worker
[13:26] herman Bergson: Marx never produced an all-inclusive blueprint for a communist society
[13:26] herman Bergson: CEO as a slave of the shareholders :-)
[13:27] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): was wat Lenin and mao did the orginal idea of Marx?
[13:27] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): true indee Herman
[13:27] herman Bergson: I don't think so
[13:27] herman Bergson: But I'll look into it in more detail in the next lecture...
[13:28] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): ok:)
[13:28] Stranger Nightfire: It's my suspicion that a lot of the things done by Russian and Chinese Communists for instance probably had marks rolling in his grave
[13:28] Max Chatnoir: In a big factory, who decides how much the workers are paid?
[13:28] herman Bergson: The basic idea of a premantn class struggle makes sense....we all see the inequality in our society
[13:28] Stranger Nightfire: They actually set up a very class-stratified society, simply replacing the capitalists with government bureaucrats
[13:29] herman Bergson: Ahh that is an interesting one Max....
[13:29] herman Bergson: Not a simple one....
[13:30] herman Bergson: on the one hand, the worker has to earn enough to be able to live a decent life
[13:30] herman Bergson: on the other hand, the big factory focuses on maximization of profits...
[13:30] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): What is a decent life? is it in every country the same?
[13:31] herman Bergson: so there must be a kind of balance between these two interests
[13:31] Stranger Nightfire: In the very brilliant music video from the band Rammstein call Deutschland there is a brilliant sequence satirizing the decadent luxury in which the leaders of communist East Germany were living
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm ok
[13:31] Stranger Nightfire: Sorry that was W Germany
[13:31] herman Bergson: A decent life... it will differ per country
[13:32] Stranger Nightfire: Darn no I had it right the first time
[13:32] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): lol Stranger
[13:32] Stranger Nightfire: My dyslexic brain
[13:32] herman Bergson: yes, East Germany :-)
[13:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[13:32] herman Bergson: Just look at Putin.... seems to possess four or five palaces
[13:33] herman Bergson: The top always takes good care of itself
[13:33] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): oh yes
[13:34] herman Bergson: And they even don't have any moral issues with it....
[13:35] herman Bergson: Just look what a CEO earns compared with the lowest worker in the factory
[13:35] herman Bergson: and these discrepancies seem to increase only
[13:35] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): well Both Puti and Trump are mass murderers, and these usually dont have ay morale
[13:36] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): any
[13:36] Max Chatnoir: That would seem to be a simple solution. increase the wages.
[13:36] Stranger Nightfire: Somebody pointed out that it was a slander Ceos pirates
[13:36] Stranger Nightfire: A slander to the pirates that is
[13:37] herman Bergson: Doesn't work, Max, it would reduce the profits and thus annoy the shareholders who want their dividends
[13:37] Stranger Nightfire: A pirate captain was only allowed by to take twice as much of the divided up booty as any average seaman
[13:37] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): of course
[13:37] Max Chatnoir: So pay them just enough to keep them at work?
[13:38] herman Bergson: That was the idea
[13:40] herman Bergson: Well, on Thursday we'll have a look at what has become of Marx's ideas....
[13:41] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): I think Lenin and Mao added their own ideas to it
[13:41] herman Bergson: They did
[13:41] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ok
[13:41] Max Chatnoir: I'd like to know what some of the real numbers are. How do you determine what a fair profit is?
[13:41] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm
[13:43] herman Bergson: A fair profit is obtained by the price you can sell your product for.
[13:43] herman Bergson: and related to the competition
[13:43] Stranger Nightfire: What does the word fair mean in that context
[13:43] Max Chatnoir: But how should that be distributed?
[13:44] herman Bergson: do you possess a patent on the product and it is a life-saving pharmaceutical, you can ask whatever you like, I guess
[13:44] Plant Liesje: I need to be watered! My moisture level is 40%.
[13:44] Stranger Nightfire: By that Definition it would be fair Price gouged during an emergency for instance
[13:44] herman Bergson: There is no fair price, there is only profits in capitalism
[13:44] Plant Bergie: I need to be watered! My moisture level is 40%.
[13:44] Plant Beertje: I need to be watered! My moisture level is 40%.
[13:45] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): such thigs shoul be avaible for everyone, not just the rich
[13:45] Plant oola: I need to be watered! My moisture level is 40%.
[13:45] herman Bergson: That is a moral judgement, not a capitalist one, Bejiita
[13:46] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): the expense of medicare in like US say clearly, your value as human is only determined by the size of your wallet, be rich and you will be allowed to survive
[13:46] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): because non rich wot be allowed to afford it and thus will ie
[13:46] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ddie
[13:46] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): it feels like that in at least
[13:46] Stranger Nightfire: From what I here people get ridiculed in university business classes, even using words like fairness or morality
[13:47] herman Bergson: I can imagine, Stranger
[13:47] Stranger Nightfire: Voice dictation keeps dropping words
[13:48] herman Bergson: We'll see in future lectures if capitalism has any morality in it at all
[13:49] Stranger Nightfire: Of the monstrous military industrial complex gives us a hint about that
[13:49] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): can capitalism have morality? or just the capitalists?
[13:49] herman Bergson: oh my.....yes
[13:49] Stranger Nightfire: Endless death and destruction for
[13:49] Stranger Nightfire: profit
[13:50] herman Bergson: capitalism and morality don't go together well, I think
[13:51] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): indeed Stranger
[13:51] herman Bergson: Let me thank you again for your participation.....
[13:51] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): no limits, like how Trump starts WW3 now just to get the oil - i think that is his true motive
[13:52] herman Bergson: We still have some terrain to cover....
[13:52] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): oil - profit
[13:52] Stranger Nightfire: Maybe Donald Trump is indeed a fitting poster child for capitalism
[13:52] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): thank you Herman for this interesting lecture
[13:52] herman Bergson: Let's end with a smile ㋡
[13:52] Max Chatnoir: Yes, Herman, thanks for lighting up our brains. :-)
[13:52] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): I say so yes, for capitalism without morale whatsoever
[13:52] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): 😀
[13:53] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): aaa aother good one Herman
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