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Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

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Page 1: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

Marx & Engels

Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

The German Ideology

The Communist Manifesto

Page 2: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

Marx & EngelsBiographical BackgroundDialectical MaterialismThe Critique of CapitalismThe Critique of LiberalismThe Communist Future

Page 3: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

Biographical Background

Karl Marx

1818 - 1883

Freidrich Engels

1820 - 1895

Page 4: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

Biographical BackgroundMarx

Born in Trier, Prussia, large Jewish family who converted to Lutheranism

Entered U of Bonn (1835) drops out

Entered U of Berlin (1836) for Law Degree

Engels Born in Barmen,

Germany Father owned textile

company with connections in England

Sent to England (1840 or so) to work as unpaid clerk in family firm

Page 5: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

Biographical BackgroundMarx

Gets doctoral degree (1841)

Becomes editor of left-wing newspaper

Leaves paper to protest censorship and heads to Paris (1844)

Engels Starts writing On the

Condition of the working class in England (1840)

Meets Marx briefly in Paris

Page 6: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

Biographical Background Begin life long

collaboration writing in 1845

Engels returns to England (1850) to run family business and supports Marx and his family while Marx writes and conducts research

Page 7: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

Biographical Background

researching Das Kapital

and engaging in radical politics

Marx spends most of his life

writing (including a 10 year stint with the New York Tribune)

Page 8: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

Biographical Background Marx dies in 1883,

buried in Highgate Cemetery, London

Engels continues to write and publish both original material and edited versions of Marx’s work until his death in 1895

Page 9: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles…”

The Communist Manifesto

Page 10: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

Marx and Engels try to distinguish their approach to socialism from More and the “utopian” tradition by grounding their insights in a scientific methodology

In order to come to a “scientific” as opposed to a “philosophical” or “ideological” understanding of human life, we need to examine how people actually live and produce the means of that existence

Marxist Methodology

Page 11: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism“Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organization. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.”

-- The German Ideology

Page 12: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism But in addition to assembling the “facts”

of existence, we need to understand how to arrange and interpret those facts.

They propose that we need a “dialectical” understanding of the world.

Page 13: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

Thesis

Page 14: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

Thesis Antithesis

Page 15: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

Thesis Antithesis

Synthesis

Page 16: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

Thesis Antithesis

Synthesis

Becomes the new thesis…

Page 17: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

Process repeats with a new antithesis emerging to challenge the thesis, reaching a new synthesis, which becomes the next thesis… and so on

How does this help us understand human social life?

Page 18: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism The dialectical method provides us with a

powerful tool for both organizing and understanding social life.

Marx and Engels’ real insight is that this dialectical method, whose roots go all the way back to Plato, can be put to good use only when we strip it of its “ideological” trappings to focus on the realities of the physical world (hence the “materialism”)

Page 19: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical MaterialismWe need to focus on the real material

conditions of existence; the factors/forces which shape and drive human social interaction:

Page 20: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

“The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity…” -- The German Ideology

Page 21: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical MaterialismThese “real premises” then include the

way we make a living (that is, how we keep ourselves alive as biological beings). These are the “means of production”

Page 22: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical MaterialismMarx & Engels claim that it is these

material factors which shape the ideas we have and hold:

“Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.” -- The German Ideology

Page 23: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

Or, as they’ll claim in the Manifesto:

“What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.”

Page 24: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism We also need to

examine how these means of production are mobilized and organized to actually produce the means of subsistence They refer to these

as the “forces of production”

Page 25: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical MaterialismFinally, we need to know how the

various members of the society stand in relation to the means of production. Class – defined as one’s position vis-à-vis

the means of production Broadly, you either own the means of

production or you labor on the means of production

Page 26: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

Proletariat(Workers)

Bourgeoisie(Capitalists)

Page 27: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

“The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living individuals.” -- The German Ideology

Page 28: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

“The various stages of development in the division of labor are just so many different forms of ownership, ie., the existing stage in the division of labor determines also the relations of individuals to one another with reference to the material instrument, and product of labor.”

-- The German Ideology

Page 29: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical MaterialismWhen we look back at history we see

certain patterns emerge. Primitive Communism Slave Labor Feudalism Capitalism

Page 30: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical MaterialismBut remember the connection between

the material conditions of existence and the ideas of “the age.”

As they note in the German Ideology…

Page 31: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: ie., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production”

Page 32: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

I. Dialectical Materialism In other words, in capitalism, we shouldn’t be

surprised to find media and other institutions extolling the virtues of the market and the factors that contribute to its existence

For example, “Freedom” in capitalism means we are all “free” to say or print anything, but that means whoever has more money has more freedom

Page 33: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 1 In capitalism, the 2 main classes are:

(proletariat)

Workers Capitalists

(bourgeoisie)

Page 34: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

Critique of Capitalism

Workers Capitalist

Labor time

Wages

During the work day, the above exchange seems to occur

Page 35: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

Critique of Capitalism

Workers Capitalist

Labor time

Wages

Page 36: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism

Workers Capitalist

Labor time = 8 hours

Wages = $/hour worked

Page 37: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism

Workers Capitalist

Labor time = 8 hours

Wages = $/hour worked

Where does the capitalist’s profit come from?

Page 38: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism

“If one day’s work were necessary in order to keep one worker alive for one day, then capital would not exist, because the working day would then exchange for its own product, so that capital could not realize itself and hence could not maintain itself as capital…”

Page 39: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism

“If, however, only half a working day is necessary in order to keep one worker alive one whole day, then the surplus value of the product is self-evident, because the capitalist has paid the price of only half a working day but has obtained a whole day objectified in the product; thus has exchanged nothing for the second half of the work day.

Page 40: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism

“The only thing which can make him into a capitalist is not exchange, but rather a process through which he obtains objectified labour time, i.e., value, without exchange.”

-- The Grundrisse(1857/58)

Page 41: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism

Workers Capitalist

Labor time = 8 hours

Wages = $/hour worked

Page 42: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism

Workers Capitalist

The worker is exploited by the capitalist

Worker labors 8 hours… But produces value worth 12 hours

Capitalist pays for 8 hours, gets 4 hours free!

Page 43: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 1

“The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion the devaluation of the world of men.”

-- 1844 Manuscripts

Page 44: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 2AlienationBy alienation, Marx & Engels mean that

we feel estranged from ourselves, that we no longer feel any connection to the basics of our life

Page 45: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 2“…[T]he object which labor produces – labor’s product – confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer. The product of labor is labor which has been congealed in an object, which has become material: it is the objectification of labor.”

-- 1844 Manuscripts

Page 46: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 2“It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces– but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty– but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines– but some of the workers it throws back to a barbarous type of labor, and the other workers it turns into machines. It produces intelligence– but for the worker idiocy, cretinism.”

-- 1844 Manuscripts

Page 47: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 2Recall the earlier point about the

importance of labor in the evolution of the human species.

It is labor which helped separate human beings from nature; it is a creative, essential part of our being

Page 48: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 2But in capitalism, the nature of the work

day experience makes us hate and detest this essential human activity; such that…

Page 49: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 2“As a result, therefore, man (the worker) no longer feels himself to be freely active in any but his animal functions – eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc....”

Page 50: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 2

Or, as Marx & Engels note in the Manifesto:

“Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman…

Page 51: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 2 “He becomes an

appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him… as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases.”

-- The Communist Manifesto

Page 52: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 2Not only are we estranged from

ourselves, but capitalism also severs our connection with each other

Page 53: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 2

“The bourgeoisie … has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment.’ It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation…”

Page 54: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism 2“In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation… The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-laborers.”

-- The Communist Manifesto

Page 55: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism

“[Capitalism] compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image...”

Page 56: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

II. Critique of Capitalism“The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.”

-- Communist Manifesto

Page 57: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

III. The Communist FutureSo, where do we go from here?Recall the dialectical methodWithin capitalism itself, we see the

seeds of its own destructionThe Proletariat is the first “universal”

class

Page 58: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

III. The Communist Future“All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.” -- The Communist Manifesto

Page 59: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

III. The Communist FutureUnlike all previous classes in history,

the proletariat is the only class that doesn’t need the existence of other classes

Human history has been moving, inexorably, towards a communist future

Page 60: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

III. The Communist Future

We need to abolish the division of labor, the system of wage-labor, and private property in general*

*Not small-scale private property, but private control of the meansof production. “Capital is, therefore, not a personal, it is a socialpower.” -- The Communist Manifesto

Page 61: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

III. The Communist Future

“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.”

-- The Communist Manifesto

Page 62: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

III. The Communist Future By that, Marx &

Engels mean to create a classless society that is free of exploitation and alienation

And the source of the problemis the division of labor so essentialto capitalist development

Page 63: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

III. The Communist Future

“The division of labor offers us the first example of how… man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him…

Page 64: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

III. The Communist Future

“For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic, and must remain so if does not want to lose his means of livelihood…”

Page 65: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

III. The Communist Future“while in a communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic.”

-- The German Ideology

Page 66: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

III. The Communist FutureA communist society is then based on

the following principle:

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

Page 67: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

III. The Communist Future In other words, we’ll establish a system

where: “In place of the old bourgeois society,

with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

-- Communist Manifesto

Page 68: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”

Thesis XI

Theses on Feuerbach

Page 69: Marx & Engels Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto

ConclusionHow do we get there?