FREE ESSAY ON MARXISM

MARXISM

Marx as Modern
Marx's theoretical work is the understanding of the nature of human beings and how they
have constructed their historical world. Marx is considered a modernist because his views
and theories fit the meaning of Modernity, which are human freedom and the right to free
choice. To Marx, Capitalism is a barrier to the notion of human freedom and choice. Five
aspects of his political theory which are modern is how he views human nature, effects of
Capitalism on human natures with emphasis on significance of labor, class struggles
within Capitalism, the demise of Capitalism and the need for the transition to Communism.

Marx belief of human nature is that it changes over time; it is historical and dynamic.
In understanding human nature, it is important to understand what part labor plays in
human nature. "To be Human is to labor," (88) therefore Marx believes that Humans work in
the world with other Humans in exchange with nature to get what they desire. Thus since
human nature is dynamic so are humans' wants and desires. In order to achieve one's wants
and desires one must labor with others around them and with nature. Since labor is the
activity of a group, the ever-changing world created through the labor of those groups
also creates the humans themselves and directly affects them. Through labor, humanity
creates and is responsible for the world that they live in. 
Marx suggests that Capitalism leads to the centralization and concentration of living
spaces of where people lives, means of production, monopolies and the distribution of
more power to the bourgeoisie. The success of Capitalism is directly connected to capital
and wage labor. Capitalism's goal is to increase profits called accumulation; profits
then reinvested else where to make more capital. " . . . like the buying and selling of
an object in the capitalist market, but in this case the exchange is money for the
ability of labor, what Marx calls labor power." (xxv) Capitalism flourishes by extracting
surplus value, or profit, from the commodities produced by the working class. Without
capitals and profits there are obviously no wages and a place to do any type of labor
power; and without wage labor capital can not increase itself. Both are dependent on each
other for the flourishing of Capitalism. Capitalism is a form of life that does not do
justice to human abilities and capacities; it is a division from basic powers to humans
and the exploitations of human workers. Workers are forced to sell their labor power to
capitalists and capitalists have no choice but are forced to exploit labor to gain
capital; therefore the laborers are commodities themselves in the capitalist market. 
As the result of Capitalism, labor has been under admonition and oppression. Instead of
picturing the world as it is, Capitalism pictures the world in a distorted view. A view
that leads to the alienation of the true is meaning of human nature. The view that places
the products of laborers more important than the laborers themselves; thus the laborers
are objectified. Laborers then do not realize that they are the ones who are in control
of product that they produce. "Alienated labor hence turns the species-existence of man,
and also nature as his mental species capacity, into an existence alien to him, into the
means of his individual existence." (64) The distorted view leads to the miscognition of
self of the working class who are cut off from their essential powers. They fail to
realize that the world is of their own making and that they have the ability to create
and recreate the world in which that they live in.
Marx's theory of privileging of economic matters places an emphasis on class struggles
that are related to the forces of production as well as the relations of productions.
Economics is the production of the exchange of goods and services through labor
arrangements. In every society there is a way to distribute goods and services called a
mode of production. The mode of production is the combination of the forces of
productions; like raw materials, technology or labor forces; and the relations of
productions or the relationship among human beings related to forces of production. One's
relations of productions in a Capitalist society determine one's location in the mode of
production, that is, their class.
In a Capitalist society everyone is located in a class, either the class of the
bourgeoisie (capitalist) or the proletariat (working class). More important then any
talent or skill, the class position is the fundamental factor that determines one's life
as a human being. To be bourgeois (capitalist) is to have many property of one's own; to
be proletariat is having no property and living by the rules of the bourgeoisie. "The
bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with . . . the means of productions, and of
property. It has . . . centralised means of productions and has concentrated property in
a few hands." (162 & 163) To Marx, class is a restriction and a retraint on the means and
the modes of production; the laborer is dependent upon the wage labor and has no
individuality. Taking the capital out of the hands of the capitalist and spreading the
profit and properties equally with the proletariat. Marx wants the proletariat to have
the ability of free labor, where separation of class no longer exists; and that can be
true in a Communist society.
Marx's theories predict that the contradictions and weaknesses within capitalism will
cause increasingly severe economic crises and deepening impoverishment of the working
class. The rich get richer (the bourgeoisie) and the poor get poorer (the proletariat).
In order for the bourgeoisie to survive is the most important factor is the arrangement
and growth of capital; the must for capital is wage labor. So therefore wage labor rests
solely on the rivalry between the laborers. "What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces,
above all, is its own grave -diggers." (169) The bourgeoisie who choose to super exploit
their workers for the surplus value will find that they are indeed setting a trap for
themselves since the must for capital is labor. If the workers will not work there is no
capital to invest in anything. Once the workers are fed up with their situations and
realize there is a need to get together for a revolution and change of labor, the
bourgeoisie has lost everything they owned; and that will lead to the end of a class
based society.
In the resulting classless society of Communism, the coercive state will be replaced by
rational economic cooperation. "In Communist society, accumulated labor is but means to
widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the laborer." (171) The accumulated labor
in Communism is not just to benefit one and only one person; but it is to benefit the
workers as well as the employer. Everyone will be rewarded according to how hard they
work and people will have the equal chance of to moving up the social ladder. "In the
place of the old bourgeoisie 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." (176) Workers will have independence and freedom of labor; and each
person is seen as an individual that is part of a bigger and greater society. 
As a whole, Karl Marx is considered a modernist because he believed in human freedom and
choice. He saw the problems arising from the effects that Capitalism was having on the
proletariat and clearly they had no human freedoms or choice. To Marx, Capitalism not
only presented humanity with an upside down views of the world and the self-thorough
their labor, but also reinforced divisions of class. As a result they laborers finally
realize that they are the makers of the commodities and the commodities are not the
makers of laborers.
Bibliography
communist manifesto