This means that, according to classic Marxist theories, societies must transform over time from oppressive economic systems to more and more liberating ones, until society finally reaches the Utopian state of communism. Marx believed that capitalism was an oppressive economic system because of the unequal distribution of the wealth among a few powerful people, and he believed that eventually, the masses would overthrow capitalism and move to a less oppressive system. According to the historical dialectic, the masses will overthrow oppressive economic systems. But what happened in Italy during the Mussolini years? The capitalist system was replaced not by a less oppressive system, but by the extremely oppressive system of Fascism.
In his book he specifies that ‘’if every does what he or she does best, the society as a whole would become more productive’’. Engels, on the contrary, wrote the book “The Communist Manifesto”, believed strongly in communism. A weak link in communism is that consumers are unable to obtain what they desire since the government decides what each individual acquires. And so, communism is always bound to fail because it stands for equal sharing of resources, in this case grinding individual rights to powder and then using it to build its idol of absolute sovereignty. Communism signifies a classless society that doesn’t see a difference between the rich and the poor.
He looked to overthrow the capitalist system in favour of the structuralist approach (Perry, 2009). Marxists will always argue that the most important thing is the question of how a small group of people can exploit a vast majority of the population. They would study the power and wealth and look at the importance of social class division (Fulcher, J et al, 2007). Karl Marx believed there were only two basic classes’ the middle and the working class. Marx called the middle class the Bourgeoisie as they were either land owners or the bosses of factories and controlled society.
I will explore how significant his main idea of a ‘revolution’ was and how it affected other theorists who agreed with his concepts. The success of Marxism will also be one thing I will address during my essay. “The revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx rescues the revolutionary tradition of Marx and demonstrates conclusively the relevance of his ideas today for everyone who wants to end poverty, unemployment and war and see humanity progress” Marxism is a mix of different ideas, this includes German philosophy, mainly the dialectics of Hegel, French socialism, and British Political economy. We understand from the quote above that Marx held material circumstances to be fundamental to all forms of social and historical development. This specific Marxism ideology was largely influenced by Hegel’s dialectical method; it suggested that history is a contradictory progression of ideas passing through different stages, which would finally arrive at the truth, or the Absolute Idea.
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy that centralises among the theory of public ownership. Here the resources of society including the land, factories, technology, transport systems etc. are owned equally by the public however run by the government. In a socialist society individuals have the right to participate in decisions on how resources will be used, with the government having the ultimate authority. Therefore socialism is where individuals do not have personal control of resources beyond their personal possessions (eg.
Anarchism on the other hand was powerful in countries like Spain, France, Russia, and Mexico in the early twentieth century. The main principle behind anarchism is the belief that political authority in all its forms, and especially in the form of the state is both evil and unnecessary. The literal meaning of anarchy is ‘without rule.’ The type of economy socialism believes in is where the people own and manage the resources of the society, whereas anarchism believes that people should govern themselves and therefore are free to group themselves to produce wealth. Both socialist and anarchists believed in equality for all individuals to attain general wellbeing of each individual, however the tackle of realizing the
A sociological theory is the same as a sociological perspective; it is a way that sociologists look at something. “A sociological theory is a set of ideas that provide an explanation for human society” Haralombus, M & Holborn, M 2008 page 855. The Marxism theory is known as a conflict theory, Marxism was founded by Karl Marx, (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels, (1820-1895). “Marxism revolves around class conflict centred on the forces of production requiring social relationships to function. These combine to form the infrastructure and the superstructure i.e.
Hence, the Manifesto predicts the probable ways of eliminating oppression by abolishing the basic factors that instigate oppression – example: private property – which shall eventually lead towards overthrowing the bourgeosie (“The Communist Manifesto,” n.p). In accordance with this pursuit, Marx drafted the Communist Manifesto guided by Historical Dialectical Materialism in order to point out the problems that had been consuming the society. Using this guide, he predicted the changes that could happen in the society as the
"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins portrays a futuristic society set in a post-apocalyptic world; the novel exemplifies the perversion of Karl Marx's theory known as Marxism and the struggles between social classses. Collins shows the various ways in which a communistic society can be corrupted. It is human nature, to be greedy, selfish, lazy, and decietful; this is what ultimately forces Marxism to be an impossibility. A communistic based society would have no need for government simply because each individual would be more than willing to live their life according to the laws and ideas of Marxism. There would be a much greater chance of success for communism, if the location/environment was smaller and consisted solely of those in complete non-forceful compliance.
He wanted to establish a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which means that the working class majority would rise to power over capitalist minority. Marx believed that this could be achieved by a revolution, and then a generous, benevolent dictatorship of the working class. Greatly differing from consecration, Marx’s ideas were solely from the word of man, such as ideas from Plato, earlier utopian societies of Robert Owen, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and smaller utopian experiments in the