Marx Essay, Research Paper

Marx’s Analysis On Capitalism With

A Separate View On Class As A Cause

Of Poverty

Throughout its history, capitalism has had certain key

characteristics. First, basic production facilities-land and

capital-are privately owned. Capital in this sense means the

buildings, machines, and other equipment used to produce goods

and services that are ultimately consumed. Second, economic

activity is organized and coordinated through the interaction of

buyers and sellers (or producers) in markets. Third, owners of

land and capital as well as the workers they employ are free to

pursue their own self-interests in seeking maximum gain from the

use of their resources and labor in production. Consumers are

free to spend their incomes in ways that they believe will yield the

greatest satisfaction. This principle, called consumer sovereignty.

This is a generalization of what most capitalist analyst see when

they assess capitalism and its history. There are others who view

or does view capitalism and its effect on society in a totally

different light. One of the most ardent protesters of the capitalist

system was Karl Marx. His view of what the system does to

labor and the poor was most harsh.

Karl Marx gave an economic interpretation to alienation. People

were alienated from their own labor; their work was appropriated

by someone else and the work itself was compulsory, not

creative; the cause was capitalism, and the cure was socialism.

Marx believed that modern labor is an evolution of something that

began centuries ago and encompassing everything from slave

states to European feudalism right on up to today’s version of

commercial capitalism; which, completed or perfected the

capitalist technique of worker alienation. This became an effective

tool by which the capitalist could separate themselves from the

laborers of their nations. The separation, however, was more to

show a capitalist’s financial/class status rather than having to

come out and say to a laborer, outright, “I’m better than you”.

There were far more consequences to the inherent and evident

separation of the newly classified classed under the, now

prevalent, commercial capitalist economies. In realizing that they

(the capitalist) had a new tool with which they could barter or

trade, they also realized they now had an effective tool to keep

the cost of the labor commodity down and in effect control those

of the labor community that would become trouble for the new

way of doing things in this new capitalist, industrial, power

creating realm.

The first casualty was and is always the worker / laborer in a

capitalist society, according to Marx. See, first of all, Marx saw

the many (laborers) as victims who were or are taking advantage

of by the owners of the factories and other means/facilities of

production to satisfy the gain of profit by the few (capitalist).

Marx argued that under capitalism labor seldom receives more

than bare subsistence. According to Marx, the surplus remaining

is appropriated by the capitalists as their profits. This was a belief

that many laborers, trying to organize to obtain better wages and

work conditions during early commercial capitalism, held and

acted upon.

Arguing that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the

history of class struggles,” and that liberal governments and

ideology were merely agents of the exploiting owners of property,

Marx advocated the abolition of private property and predicted

the demise of capitalism after a series of recurring crises. The

abolition of property, and therefore of class exploitation, would

make possible a situation in which individuals would contribute

according to their abilities and take according to their needs.

These were and are the ways that capitalist techniques of

acquiring their wealth and consequently attaining more of the

wealth while disallowing many of those without it to continue to

go without wealth and remain in a laborers mode of life to insure

that the capitalist will always have workforce at a low cost to

produce the goods and services needed to maintain a capitalist

standard of life.

Marx saw a pattern that in his mind seem to fit the way capitalist

approach their livelihood in such a way that they feel threatened

by any group or person that would infringe upon his/her profits

and cause undo damage to a way of life of which he/she has

become accustomed. See he (Marx) saw the defensiveness that

capitalist held for their materialistic holdings and values and thus

came up with a theory better known as alienation. The theory of

alienation was discussed previously in this paper but by Marx’s

standards says, the means by which alienation is created by and

through the private ownership of property and other aspects or

capital used to create profit and wealth from the production of

goods and services.

Such an adherence to a thought process by the capitalist makes it

easy to keep laborers in their place, constantly working with,

hardly ever, anything concrete in terms of materialistic value or

wealth to show for it.

Such a ponderous mountain of controlling, but not popular,

opinion against laborers; they began a movement that would

usher in a new era of “taking a stand” against their overpowering

employers in order to gain some sort of equilibrium in the work

place; which in turn, would probably make conditions better all

around for workers (laborers). They did this by amassing large

multi member groups working together for the betterment of all

members, know as the “Union”; but when in a heated battle

(negotiation or standoff) it was usually one voice of cohesion

heard. In other words, the union’s members usually stood

together in unison.

This was a good and effective tool until the employers (capitalist)

figured out how they could use the government and its

law-enforcement agencies to crush any given movement of a

union. And the capitalist and government used extensive brut

force which really captured the attention of the unions and in

some cases effectively busted (shut down) some unions.

However, employing such brutality on its own people would also

work in the surviving union’s defense. They learned to take their

causes to the nation as a whole not just the employers,

local/nation governments and their legal thugs and bandit units of

law enforcement, who, incidentally, would inflict mayhem and

chaos with death and destruction included and then blame a

striking union for the killing of its own people.

With the new tactic of taking the cause to the people, as well as,

the employers and government, the unions allowed the nation to

have a say in what or how the outcome of a striking workforce

would be. But this tool, too, was limited in how much sympathy it

could garner or how effective it could be once the employers

found a new way to circumvent it. And they did. See, as with all

the other methods tried and tested by the laborers, the capitalist

realized one thing; that is, they needed a work force to produce

the good and services used to gain profit and wealth. So

eventually, the realization was to let the worker share in the

profits, the choice would his/hers and this would effectively bust

unions across the board. Oh, sure there were and are a plethora

of other incentives and benefits. but they only seek to enhance the

fact that corporate America has, once and for all, put laborers

and their unions in their place.

In doing so, their has been an increase in the gap between the top

one percent (1%) of the American population and their wealth

status and the poorest Americans, both working and

non-working, just as Marx predicted. On the other hand, all of

the financial disasters and more, that Marx predicted has taken

place, and yet, Western economies and even some newly

capitalist economies of the East Bloc and Asia do nothing but

prosper more after such devastation. Only Russia of the former

Soviet Union seem to have difficulty in finding its niche in the

world economy and consequently it and its people are

experiencing capitalism at much slower, if not non-existent, rate

and they have to deal laborer issues as if the nation was stuck in

time with the on set of unions and their demands for a better life

for the people.

No matter how anyone views it, Marx seems to have saw clearly

that the rich in America get richer while the poorer get poorer.

Cool Stuff

Win $100,000 by Playing

Online Games

Free Voicemail

FREE Internet Access

Free Long Distance