Marxism Theory

Historical Materialism

What your relationship is to the means of production

Primitive communism

Early classless society

3 successive class societies

• Ancient society, slaves and owners

• Feudal society, serfs tied to the land

• Capitalist society, wage labourers and bourgeoisie

Contradiction of capitalism

Capitalists pay the lowest wages possible, causing immiseration of the proletariat yet capitalism requires them to buy in order to keep the economy working

Alienation

Result of our loss of control over our work and its products, causing separation

Marx’s view of class EVAL

Ignores Weberian theory, status and power differences can also be important sources of inequality

Feminists believe that gender is a more fundamental source of inequality than class

Marx’s two-class model is simplistic- Weber subdivides into skilled and unskilled classes

Economic determinism EVAL

Economic determinism fails to recognise that humans have free will

Humanistic Marxism

Some similarities with action theories and interpretive sociology

Structuralist Marxism

Structural approach and has similarities with positivist sociology

Gramsci (Humanist)

Proletariat must develop its own ‘counter-hegemony’ to win the leadership of society from the bourgeoisie

Rejects economic determinism

Hegemony

Ideological and moral leadership- how the ruling class maintains its position

Coercion

Consent

Coercion

Uses the army, police, prisons and courts of the capitalist state to force other classes to accept its rule

Consent (hegemony)

It uses ideas and values to persuade the subordinate classes that its rule is legitimate

Why is the hegemony of the ruling class never complete

• Ruling class are a minority, they must make alliances with other groups. They must make compromises to take account of the interests of their allies

• The proletariat have a dual consciousness. They can ‘see through’ the dominant ideology to some degree

Gramsci EVAL

• Over emphasises the role of ideas and under-emphasises the role of both state coercion and economic factors

• Willis, working class lads ‘partially penetrating’ bourgeoisie ideology

Althusser (Structuralist)

Rejects Marx’s superstructure. In his model:

• Economic level

• Political level

• Ideological level

Repressive State Apparatuses

Army, police, prisons

Coerce the working class into complying with the will of the bourgeoisie

Ideological State Apparatuses

Media, education system, family

Ideologically manipulate the working class into accepting capitalism as legitimiate

Althusser EVAL

This approach discourages political activism because it stresses that individuals can do little

Ignores the fact that it is the active struggles of the working class that can change society

Major influence on postmodernism

Flexible accumulation (Postmodernist Marxism)

Post-Fordism

Involved the use of technology, an expanded service and finance sector, job insecurity and the requirement for workers to be flexible to fit their employers needs

Permits the production of customised products for small markets instead of standardised products for mass market, and easy switching from one product to another