Note on Marxism

Marxism in brief

Marxism is the body of ideas centred on Karl Marx and extended by Engels and later followers; Marx called it scientific socialism because it explains exploitation through historical and dialectical materialism and prescribes revolution as the remedy, in contrast to the utopian socialists. Its tenets are dialectical and historical materialism, surplus value, class struggle, revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat and communism. The economic base, the forces and relations of production, shapes the superstructure of polity, religion and values.

Class struggle and revolution

For Marx the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. Except in primitive communism, every epoch has been marked by the antagonism between a dominant class that owns the means of production and a dependent class that carries out production but sees its product taken away, with just enough returned for survival: master and slave, feudal lord and peasant, bourgeoisie and proletariat. Because the interests of the contending classes are irreconcilable, the contradiction is resolved only by the annihilation of the exploiting class.

Class struggle is long and imperceptible; revolution is short, swift and violent, and it is what delivers each new social order. Each epoch-making change has been brought about by a revolution: the feudal revolution ended slavery, the bourgeois revolution ended feudalism, and the proletarian revolution will end capitalism. It occurs when the forces of production have matured and no longer fit the relations of production; no stage can be skipped.

Assessment. Its strength is as a method of social analysis and a voice for the exploited; its weakness is the simplified two-class model and economic determinism, and the failure of the state to wither away.