Karl Marx

How did the division of labor develop?

-Each new productive force causes further development of the division of labor. -Leads to the separation of industrial and commercial from agricultural labor, resulting in the separation of town and country, as well as the conflict of their interests. -Determines the relations of individuals to one another with reference to the material, instrument, and product of labor.

What is labor power?

-A commodity, whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labor, and consequently, a creation of value. -The aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities he exercises whenever he produces a use value of any description.

What is surplus-value?

-The source of capital. -Circuit: M-C-M' -More money is withdrawn from circulation at the finish than was thrown into it at the start. -M' is where capital comes from, Money + Change in M.

Substantive significance:

-Centrality of labor -Crises of accumulation -The representation of inequality as a pervasive characteristic of the modern capitalist society.

Who are the bourgeoisie? What is the role of the bourgeoisie in the development of capitalist modes of production?

-Class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor. -Have the upper hand, they are the synthesis of the contradiction between the feudal landlords and the pleasantry. The relationship that they have over individuals is nothing but the fact that they can extract labor. -Able to convert time into wages, but no responsibilities of the workers whatsoever. -Overcoming of the feudalistic system which lead to the capitalist system. Feudalism was brought down by bourgeoisie as a revolutionary caste.

Who are the Proletarians? Summarize the various stages of development of the proletariat and the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

-Class of modern wage laborers who have no means of production of their own, and are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live. -Subject to earning wages, forced into factories, and can produce something for a collective use. -They own nothing of their own, and their role is to overcome the previous securities of individual property and make it collective (communistic ideas) -The contradiction between the two is what gave birth to the capitalist system, but also what will overcome capitalism. -Development of class struggles will result in the attack of the instruments of production. Through formation of unions and parties, bourgeoisie will have provided the elements to the proletariat to eventually abolish previous modes of production.

What is the circuit M-C-M?

-Commences with money and ends with money. Leads motive, and the goal that attracts it is therefore mere exchanging value. -Not producing capital, because despite you saving the money, you are not.

What is the fetishism of commodities?

-Commodities are not understood as socially constructed, even though we exchange an object, we never see that it's a person's work. We see the product. -When we exchange, it's a social relation. When we look at exchanges, we are looking at exchanges of socially invested time into commodities. Commodities suffice a need, therefore it's a social relation, however, people don't see the relation. They just see a commodity. -Makes people value things that have no value, and every social relation has economic interests at heart.

Summarize the emergence of the Capitalist Farmer in England

-Creation of long leases, influx of colonial metals, and farmers paid cheap leases and sold goods at prices after influx of colonial metals. -Contributing to concentration of wealth, farmers grew right "at the expense" of their workers and the landowners.

According to Marx, Use-Values are related to... A. The qualitative dimension of commodities B. The utility of a commodity. C. The physical properties of a commodity. D. All of the Above. E. None of the above.

-D. All of the above. -The qualitative dimensions of commodities. -The utility of a commodity -The physical properties of a commodity.

For Marx, Labor-power is... A. A commodity that expends value B. A commodity that destroys value C. A commodity that misuses value D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

-E. None of the above. -Labor-power (exchange-value) EXPANDS value.

Summarize the genesis of the industrial capitalist.

-England at the end of the 17th century embraced the colonies, national debt, modern mode of taxation, and the protectionist system. -Depended on brute force. Employing the power of the State, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power. -Discovery of gold and silver marked the beginning of conquest and looting and marked chief moments of primitive accumulation (trade of people for appropriation) -At the core of development of capitalism is the enslavement of black people and the trans-Atlantic trade for people to work for nothing. One of the engines of capitalism.

What was the reason for showing the Game of Thrones clip?

-Example of exchange-value, use-value, and value. -She doesn't realize that the wedding dress she wears is worth a lifetime of someone's life. -Money, finery, and power are just expressions of what is behind the time put into products.

What are the two conditions for labor-power to be offered as a commodity?

-Freedom from non-market relations of dependence (freedom to trade). -Freedom from means of production (freedom from other means of subsistence).

What is the real foundation of the legal and political superstructure?

-In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production. -The relations of productions (ways we interact) constitute the economic structure of society, providing a foundation, which creates the legal and political superstructure (the ideas and laws in society based on the relations of production) and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.

According to Marx, what are the problems of capitalism? (SUMMARY)

-Modern work leads to alienation (a feeling of disconnection between what you do all day and who you feel you really are, and what you are able to ideally able to contribute to your existence). -Modern work is insecure (makes workers feel expendable). -Workers get paid little while capitalists' get rich. Capitalists shrink wages as much as possible to increase the wealth gap (primitive accumulation). Capitalism = exploitation. -Capitalism is very unstable. Crises are dressed up as freakish and rare, but they are endemic. Caused by creating surplus far more than society can consume. -Capitalism is bad for capitalists: Forces people to put economic interests at the heart of their lives (commodity fetishism). Makes us value things that have no value. -Capitalist system makes us anxious, competitive, conformist, and politically complacent.

Why does Marx think that the laborer is free in a "double sense"?

-On the one hand, he can dispose of his labor power as his own commodity. Free because they own themselves. -But free because they have no other commodity to sell. They only have their labor to sell. No other means of production besides their labor.

Marx distinguishes between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production and the ideological forms (legal, political, artistic, or philosophic). Why does he affirm that "no social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it to have developed"?

-People develop the productive forces and materials in production change. The ideas will then follow the way we produce material. -We are subjects to our context. -Material productive forces enter in contradiction with relations of production, social revolutions are drive by changes in the economic foundation of society. -There is a contradiction in what people think, and the modes and materials of production, but it all starts with the productive forces.

Concrete Labor

-Produces use-value. It must, satisfy a definite social want.

Abstract Labor

-Produces value or exchange values. -It can satisfy the manifold wants of the individual producer himself, only in so far as the mutual exchangeability of all kinds of useful private labor is an established social fact. -Paying for objects through your time, not your money. Money is just an abstraction of labor through time.

What is Use-value?

-Service that it pays to the consumer. -Represents what is distinctive of a commodity (qualitative different). -Related to the usefuleness of a commodity (utility), and are limited to the physical properties of a commodity (tangible). -If there wasn't a use-value to items, we wouldn't buy them.

Methodological significance:

-Social relations are conflictive and antagonist relations. -The source of social change has to be found in the contradiction between forces of production and relations of production. -Men make their own history... but are under the influence of their existing circumstances. Context and the capacity that we have to choose, however, within a range. -Interpretation of the capitalist system as a mode of production that determined by the relation of productions and forces of productions which entails both labor force and the means of production, who are instruments and subjects of production.

Karl Marx's contribution

-Societies evolve through the development of the material forces of production. -Historical evolution is inherently conflict based and antagonistic. Teleological contribution. A history of class struggles. -Capitalism is an exploitative system with internal contradictions that reveal its finitude. -Marx falls into rational collectivist. Conscious choices, but coordination of society at a macro level.

What is the circuit C-M-C

-Starts with one commodity and finishes with another, which falls out of circulation and into consumption. -Consumption, the satisfaction of wants, in one word use-value, is its end and aim. -The formula for consumption.

What is value? What is the substance of value and how is it measured?

-The common substance that manifests itself in the exchange value of commodities whenever they are exchanged. -What determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the amount of labor socially necessary, or the labor time socially necessary for its production. Items that have higher values are those that required more investment of time. -In general, the greater the productiveness of labor, the less the labor time required for production, the less amount of labor crystallized in that article, and therefore, the less its value.

Explain Marx's "Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life"

-The ideas and beliefs that human beings are capable of forming are dependent on, and colored by, their social and economic circumstances. -The consciousness of people will be forced to change and establish a system based on what is going on in the world, rather than the world changing based on human being's beliefs. -Individual consciousness cannot be divorced from one's class or social-economic group. As a result, the consciousness of people is actually the consciousness of their social grouping. -It is not an individualized and isolated consciousness of men that determines their existence and sense of self, but a social existence based on socio- economic reality that defines their consciousness, or sense of self.

Why does he assert that "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness"?

-The material conditions impose themselves son the individual, and then the social consciousness follows. -The way we produce our society materially, guides what we are able to do legally. -There will be a certain stage in development where the material productive forces will come into conflict with the existing relations of productions, and these relations will become their metaphoric shackles. -Thus, resulting in a social revolution, which will transform the entire immense superstructure, and in short, men will become conscious of this conflict and will fight it out.

What is the root of political and legal relations?

-The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political, and intellectual life process in general.

What is primitive accumulation?

-The process which takes away from the laborer the possession of his means of production. -Creation and dispossession in producing wage-laborers. -Divorcing the producers from the means of production. -Makes capitalists richer, while the workers are stuck being poor; since capitalists are paying them the bare minimum needed.

Why are commodities a "mysterious thing" for Marx?

-The reason we can invest money, is because qualitatively, we invest the same thing. Time.

Why does Marx conclude that "the difference between labor, considered on the one hand as producing utilities, and on the other hand, as creating value, resolves itself into a distinction between two aspects of the process of production."?

-The value of labor power (exchange-value) and the value which that labor power creates in the labor process (use-value), are two different things. -A source of not only value, but of more value than it has itself (surplus-value). -The fact that one can produce more than one can actually consume, is the source of wealth in the capitalist system. -You get paid a certain amount of money for the amount of time you are producing, however, it is set up, so that you only get paid half the amount of money for the amount of production you created.

What is the process of expropriation of the agricultural population from the land?

-Transition from the 15th to 16th century. -Conflicts with kind and parliament, the great feudal lords created an incomparably larger proletariat, resulting in the usurpation of the common lands. -Process of forcible expropriation of the people, the Catholic church was a feudal proprietor of a great part of the English land. Abolishing the feudal tenure of the land, and "indemnified" the State by taxes on the peasantry. -Finally, the clearing of estates, the sweeping men off them.

What are the three stages of the division of labor?

-Tribal: Underdeveloped stage of production, confined to the family (patriarchal). Supported by slavery. -Communal: Union of several tribes. Private property is subordinated to communal ownership (conflict between town and country). Class relation between citizens and slaves. -Feudal: Landed property based on the enserfed small peasantry (not slaves). Little division of labor but emerging guilds in towns.

Marx's Limitations

-Underestimates social cohesion and social divisions -Focuses on distributive power at the expense of collective power. -Dismisses the constitutive power of ideas and political relations.

What is Exchange value?

-the dimension that we can compare two commodities. Represent what is equivalent of a commodity (quantitative dimensions). -Related to the exchangeability of a commodity (measure), and are not limited to the physical properties of a commodity (intangible).

From his intellectual context, we can conclude that Marx... A. Believed in the historical progress of reason. B. Believed in the historical progress of modes of production C. Believed in the historical progress of religion D. A and C E. B and C

B. Believed in the historical progress of modes of production.

According to Marx, forces of production... A. Are independent of our will. B. Constitute the economic structure of society. C. Condition the legal and political superstructure. D. All of the Above. E. None of the Above.

D. All of the Above. -Are independent of our will, constitute the economic structure of society, and condition the legal and political superstructure.

The capitalist mode of production requires... A. Force and violence. B. Dispossessed workers C. The concentration of the means of production in the hands of the capitalist. D. All of the Above. E. None of the above.

D. All of the above. -Force and violence. -Dispossessed workers. -The concentration of the means of production in the hands of the capitalist.

In the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx reflects on... A. The revolutionary role of the Bourgeoisie B. The revolutionary role of the Proletariat C. The inherent crises of capitalism D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

D. All of the above. -The revolutionary roles of the Bourgeoisie and Proletariat, as well as the inherent crises of capitalism that emerged from their contradicting classes.

As a method of analysis, historical materialism suggests... A. Studying the collective consciousness of an epoch. B. Studying productive forces as the result of political relations C. Studying the division of labor to understand social relations. D. A and C E. B and C

E. -Studying productive forces as the result of political relations. -Studying the division of labor to understand social relations.

These are examples of primitive accumulation: A. Colonialism B. Rationalism C. Slave trade D. A and B E. A and C

E. Colonialism and the slave trade.

According to Marx, what is the general formula of capital? A. C-M B. M-C C. C-M-C D. M-C-M E. M-C-M'

E. M-C-M'