PSIR Optional

Marx short notes PSIR

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  1. Marx calls his theory “Praxis” – 
    1. Combination of theory and action.
    2. Action should be based on theory.
  2. Capitalism dehumanises man.
  3. Marx calls socialist before him as utopian coz –
    1. They lacked scientific understanding of socialism.
    2. They lacked viable program of action.
  4. “Violence is mid-wife of change. There has been no birth without blood.”
  5. Marxist Socialism – Communism.
  6. Aim of Marxism – To achieve communism.
  7. “Workers of the world unite”.
  8. “You have nothing to loose accept your chains”. Chains – nation, religion, False Consciousness.
  9. Young Marx – Economic and Philosophic Manuscript, Alienation, Neo-Marxist.
  10. Mature Marx – Communist Manifesto, Revolution, Orthodox Marxist – Marxism – Praxis (Revolutionary Doctrine).
  11. Reductionist – Monocausal explanation – Weber’s criticism to Marx explanation of history.
  12. History – Dialectical movement of material.
  • Proposals of socialism –
    • Social ownership over means of production.
    • Production for need and not for greed.
  • Objectives of socialism –
    • Minimise inequality, and maximise equality.
  • Main value of socialism – Equality.
  • Socialist before Marx –
    • Louis Blanc
    • Charles Fourier
  • Communist revolutions are also knows as – Bloody Revolution.
  • Communism – 
    • Classless and stateless society.
    • No private ownership.
  • Marxist believe in “Proletariat Nationalism”.
  • State – 
    • Hegel (Idealist) – god, worship
    • Marx (Materialist) – instrument of coercion, destroy/revolt
Influences on Marx – 
  1. French Revolution – 
    1. Socialist ideas emerged for first time.
  2. British school of political economy – 
    1. Adam Smith –
      1. Critic of Mercantilism (Protectionism) – Because it leads to wealth of kings.
      2. Exponent of laissez faire.
  3. German Philosophy – 
    1. Influenced by Hegel and also criticises Hegel.
    2. Influenced by Materialism of Feuerbach.
    3. Thoughts of Hegel – 
Hegel – Official Philosopher of Prussia (Germany)
  • “State is march of god on earth”.
  • Reason for Marx’s criticism of Hegel – As Hegel establishes state as march of god, so if Marx has to inspire working class to revolt against state he has destroy Hegel’s theory.
  • “False Consciousness”, “Hegel is standing on his head, he has to stand on his feet to understand reality of state” – Marx proves that “State is an instrument of capitalist class”.
  • State and god are same. Because god gives us security, protection, fulfil our needs, aspirations and this is exactly what state does.
  • “Real is Rational. Rational is Real”. 
    • 1st Statement – Epistemology. Whatever understood is only by use of reason is real. Therefore god is an absolute idea and Idea is real.
    • 2nd Statement – Polity. He equates state with god. State perform all such functions that we expect from god.
  • Hegel’s philosophy of history – Evolution of human history.
  • Idea moves in a dialectical form.
  • History – Dialectical movement of idea.
  • Dialectics – 
    • Contradiction of opposition.
    • History ends as dialectics end.
  • State is march of god.
                Dialectics of ideas  
  • To understand dialectical movement, Hegel gives three laws of dialectics –
    • Unity of opposites – To every idea or thing of universe exist its opposition.
    • Negation of Negations – Higher truth will move ahead, lower truth will die.
    • Quality changes into quantity – Change happens gradually, initially quantitative change happens and finally complete change takes place.
  • Proof of state is a march of god on earth –
    • In different things we see different amount of reflection of god, but max is seen in state.
    • The state which emerge victorious in war is considered nearest to god.
Historic Materialism – Economic interpretation of History/Economic Reductionism –
  1. Means whatever happens in history, it is due to economic factor.
  2. He wanted to create history. He wanted to end once stage of history i.e capitalism and bring new stage of history i.e communism.
Ways of interpreting history – (Acc to Marx)
  1. Scientific – Marx – Value free, not biased, pure facts – Inductive – From particular to general.
    1. Acc to Marx – “In order to think, man has to live, in order to lice man has to eat, in order to eat man has to produce.”
  2. Ideological – Hegel – Biased, pre-defined purpose, – Deductive – General to particular (Conclusion is predetermined).
    1. Philosophical – Teleological, purposive.
  • “It is not our consciousness that determine our existence, it is our existence that determine our consciousness.” – Marx
  • Origination of Society – 
    • Production.
    • Production is a social activity.
    • People came together for the sake of production.
    • On this explanation man is productive, creative, since production can’t be done in isolation therefore man is social.
  • Ideologies – 
    • Capitalist – Utilitarian, individualistic.
    • Socialist – Creative and social.
Base and Superstructure Model – 

  • Nature of economic structure will shape nature of institution which are present in superstructure.
Theory of Class and Class Struggle – 
  • “The history of all hitherto existing societies have been a history of class struggle.” – Marx
  • Economic structure/Mode of Production –
  • Types of relation of production – Their relationship is dialectical –
    • Owners (Exploiters)
    • Non-owners (Non-Exploiters)
  • Implication of theory of class – 
    • Real Identity – Identity of his class.
    • Only two class – Owners and Non Owners.
    • No compatibility between rich and poor – Rich understand it and poor ignore it.
Stages of history explained by Marx – 
  1. Pre-historic – Primitive communism – Initially property was owned collectively. Powerful becomes state.
  2. Slave Society (First historical age) – Two classes – Masters and Slaves. Class struggle existed, therefore state existed.
  3. Feudal Society – Two classes – Lords and Serfs. Class struggle exist hence state exist.
  4. Capitalist Society – Two classes – Capitalist and Workers – Class struggle exist hence state exist.
    These societies have been existing before revolution.
    After Revolution – 
  1. (1) Socialism – “Dictatorship of Proletariat”. Two classes exist – Workers and capitalist. Transitional stage – Acc to ability to acc to work.
  2. (2) Communism – Classes end, Class struggle end, state will “wither away” – Acc to ability to acc to need.
  • Capitalism to Socialism – Revolution – Capitalist will not give property willingly.
  • Socialism to Communism – Evolution – Property is already controlled by workers.
    • State will announce that private property is abolished. Therefore communism is established leading to end of state and classes.
  • Perfect Democracy – Since democracy means empowerment of masses. Therefore communism is perfect democracy.
    • System of Democracy – From each acc to his ability, to each acc to his need.
  • Freedom for Marx – When man can do what he wants.
  • Marx on History – 
    • Matter is a moving force of history.
    • History changes when mode of production changes.
    • Historical change means structural change, means total change.
  • Explaining change in mode of production – 
    • Unity of opposites – Within capitalism exists its contradiction.
    • Negation of negation – 
      • Capitalism gets negated.
      • Socialism comes into existence.
    • Quantity changes into quality – 
      • Change doesn’t occur overnight.
      • Old gives rise to new.
      • Both can’t coexist for longer.
      • Old becomes “fetter”, once old destroys, new age begin.
  • Contradictions of Capitalism – 
    • Contradictions between –
      • Man and society
      • Freedom and equality
      • As it creates man inhumane.
    • Man’s labour becomes means of his own exploitation.
Theory of Capitalism – 
  • Capitalist dig their own graves – destroys itself.
  • In order to make profit capitalist have to keep cost of production low, which results in lower wages of workers.

Theory of Revolution – “Do or Die”
  1. Revolutionary consciousness – When exploitation reaches extreme. Opposite to false consciousness.
  2. Two type of consciousness – Level of consciousness is directly proportional to level of exploitation.
    1. Class in itself – Low level. Workers understand that their class is different from that of capitalist.
    2. Class for itself – Heightened level. Interests are also different. They will take up arms.
  3. Unique features of Marxist Revolution – 
    1. Communist revolution is only meant for the countries where capitalism is advanced, because only there people will understand contradictions of capitalism.
    2. Marx never supported idea of CP, because he wanted people to be their own leaders.
  4. Lenin’s take – He brought revolution in Russia which was primarily feudal not advanced capitalist.
    1. Lenin believed that people won’t develop consciousness on their own.
    2. Members of CP will inject consciousness.
    3. Contrary to Marx ideas Lenin brought –
      1. Middle class individuals.
      2. Peasantry (Lacks consciousness)
    4. After revolution CP became new exploiters.
    5. Marx was more harmed by his own admirers.
Theory of Surplus Value – 
  • Surplus Value – Difference between cost of production and exchange value.
  • As capitalist do not share surplus with workers capital keeps accumulating leading to increase in bargaining power of capitalist and decrease in bargaining power of workers.
  • Capitalism is a system where workers work for their own exploitation.
Hegel’s Theory of State – 
  • State is representative of god. Because god and state take care of us.
  • Acc to law of dialectics negativity gets negated.
  • Marx’s Explanation – 
    • Hegel is standing on his head.
    • State is not an instrument of altruism, the law of the state is only meant for the capitalist class.
    • State is superstructure hence it is not autonomous.
  • Ideas of young Marx – 
    • Theory of Alienation – Feeling of estrangement. In capitalism there is no scope for true happiness. True happiness (when we do what we really want to do) is liked to true freedom.
    • Pre-requisite for freedom – Man can enjoy freedom only when society takes care of his basic needs. Only possible in socialism, because distribution is based on needs.
    • Source of influence on Marx – 
    • Hegel – Alienation – Estrangement from god.
      • In this world we do not enjoy real happiness, because we get separated from god, however separation ends as we follow state.
    • Fuerbach – Materialist, Marx + Fuer – Young Hegelians.
      • Feurbach held that god is a sorrow of alienation. It means god is a source of sorrow.
      • If we want to be happy we have to come out of influence of god, god reminds of our weakness.
  • Marx’s View – Rejects theory of Hegel.
    • Hod has not made man, man has made god.
    • Man will not find any freedom in religion, because religion is opium of masses.
    • Alienation can end only when capitalism end and communism gets established.
  • Essential features of human nature – 
    • Man is created by nature.
    • Man is social by nature.
  • Capitalism does not allow man, the fulfilment of these essential qualities of human nature.
  • Explanation of alienation in four stages – 
    • From act of production – “Cog in the wheel.” Man does not decide what to produce, he can be easily replaced by machines.
    • Product of labour – Due to development man can’t even visualise that what shape his labour has taken.
    • Alienation from himself – Cumulative effect of all three stages is that man gets alienated with himself. Acc to Marx alienation is also experienced is also experience by capitalists.
Mature Marx – 
  • Politician, Revolution, orthodox marxists, Historical Materialism, class struggle, dialectics and revolution are core principles of Marx. Soviet marxist tried to project his as god bound to come true.
Young Marx – 
  • Philosopher, meaning of true freedom, recognise consciousness, man feels alienation, humanist.
Neo-Marxist – 
  • Who believed in alienation rather than revolution is the main idea.

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