Karl Marx

Karl Marx
 Born in 1818 in Germany
 Exiled from Germany, France and
Belgium before he settled in
London, England
 He was a Philosopher, a Political
Activist, an Economist, a Historian,
a Political Theorist and a
Sociologist
 Intellectual Influences - Adam
Smith, David Ricardo, Frederic
Engels, George W Hegel
 Marxism and Anarchism
 Similarities  Differences
 Against capitalism and  Marxism - transitional state,
representative democracy Anarchism – no state
 Decentralised participatory  Marxism – seizing political power by
democracy a revolution, Anarchism –
grassroots organizing, alternative
 Individual freedom
structures outside of existing power
 Human beings have the ability to systems
make a social change
 Marx and Hegel
 Marx was earlier influenced by Hegel but later became his strong critique.
 Marx rejected Hegel’s idealism but borrowed his dialectical analysis to apply
on the material world.
 Hegel believed social change is possible with new ideas but Marx believed
social changes happens with changes in the material world.
 Idealism
 Change in human civilization from a very primitive to that of the modern capitalist
societies in Europe can be understood only by looking at the changes that happened
in the abstract categories that governed human existence. And categories such as
reason, existence and history were used to understand human existence, especially
the closer link between individual and the society.
 Mind (or Geist) is not merely a passive observer but an active participant in the
creation of the world. Reality unfolds through a process of dialectical development,
where opposing ideas or concepts (thesis and antithesis) interact and reconcile into a
higher synthesis.
 In Hegel’s words, idealism “consist in nothing else than in recognizing that the finite
has no veritable being”.
 Only concepts are real and the ultimate concept is God
 Inherent dialectical relationship between God, the infinite and people, the finite
 Marx’s critique of Idealism
 When empirical phenomena are understood as thoughts, people’s more significant
practical problems are ignored.
 Ideas emerge from the concrete material conditions and have only secondary stature.
 Hegel believed that the freedom from exploitation, exist only when individual changes
change their consciousness. The whole idea that human beings are free or not is a
purely a function of your thinking. Marx argued that whether somebody is free or not, or
whether somebody is kept in subjugated position or not is an empirical reality. Your
status as a slave or your status as a serf does not change, if you change your thinking.
 Food, clothing and shelter which can be satisfied only by productive activity in the finite
world.
 Labour as productive activity was central to Karl Marx in comparison to Hegel who gave
primacy to the mental labour or to the activity of thinking.
 Historical Materialism
 Also known as Dialectical Materialism because Marx used the framework of
dialectics to explain the material conditions of the world.
 Human history is the history of human labour and class struggle.
 Material factors, especially the production and reproduction of existence
through labour are the driving power in people’s lives
 Life is not determined by consciousness but consciousness by Life.
 Labour fundamentally shapes peoples identities, their sense of who they
are.
 Historical Materialism
 How do people produce things that are necessary for them and how do you
understand it historically? How the production is socially organised, how societies
evolve its mechanism to organise production? How do different people fulfil their role
in the process of production? Who decides what? What kind of work is involved by
what kinds of people
 Every system that produces goods or services relies on the way people interact with
each other and how they control or make use of the natural world..
 Individual choice is very little how one involves in the process of production.
 As the arrangement of labour becomes more complex, a division of labour emerges.
 Division of labour distributes the conditions of labour such as the tools and materials
into different, unequal groups.
 In a primitive society where the people at their very early stages of their human
evolution, their life was very simple and there was hardly any division of labour.
 Historical Materialism
 But that situation changes over a period in time and they become more and more
prosperous in terms of material condition when they have identified agriculture,
able to stock food, able to produce more than what they require for their immediate
consumption then the division of labour reaches the next level.
 Classes arise when the surplus of goods produced by the division of labour can be
controlled by a minority of people.
 The ways in which the ruling group extracts the surplus from another class provides
insights into type of inequality and exploitation generated in the society.
 The entire human history according to Marx is the history of class struggle because
from the system of slavery to feudalism to capitalism and to communism, this
transition from one state to other takes place because of the antagonism between
classes. That happens in a dialectical manner because every historical stage has its
own contradictions.
 Historical Materialism
 He conceives that every social structure as composed of two elements; one a base,
the foundation on which the other, super structure is built.
 The base is composed of the economy and the super structure is almost everything
else, including politics, law, literature, ethics, ideology or social norms.
 Marx identified two primary elements of modes of production; one is the forces of
production and the other one is relations of production.
 This forces of production is again sub divided into two; one is the means of
production and the second one is the labour power.
 Mode of production generally denotes a discernible economic order, one defined by
the manner in which human beings mobilize the labour necessary to fulfil their basic
needs.
 there are several different modes of production that have appeared throughout
history including slavery, feudalism and capitalism.
 Historical Materialism
 Relations of production is a social framework within which economic activity
is carried out.
 Means of production includes almost every material aspects that are
necessary for the process of production; which includes land, tools,
machinery and raw materials. This differs from time to time as well. In an
agricultural society, land is the most important means of production.
 Human beings change, their needs change, their outlook change, their ideas
change, depending upon in which time period they are located in, which
productive process they are implicated in.
 On the basis of this economic structure, partly due to the power of the
dominant class, there arise a corresponding legal and political
superstructure and the forms of social consciousness.
 Historical Materialism
 Politics, law, ideology, social norms and literature, and the sense of what is good, what is
bad, and the sense of your consciousness are all part of this super structure, and is a
product of your mode of production.
 The idea of human rights, the idea of individual rights, the idea of democracy, the idea of
somebody choosing his or her own ruler could not have been emerged in the time of slavery.
 The cultural beliefs and social institutions make up the super structure according to the Marx
including the state itself that typically function to stabilize the relations of productions,
promote the interests of the dominant class and lend political and intellectual support to the
existing economic system.
 Marx would argue that, the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch are the ruling ideas. It
means that the class which is the ruling material forces of society is at the same time its
ruling intellectual force as well. The class which has the means of material production at its
disposal has the control at the same time over the means of mental production.
 Social Change
 Marx understands society as the antagonism between primarily two groups of
people who owned the means of production and who do not own it. All these
categories that he has explained such as freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian,
lord and serf, guild master and journeyman, or bourgeoisie and proletariat represent
these two antagonist groups in different periods in history.
 With the help of science and technology and host of other aspects human beings
have the ability to continuously expand their realm of production to meet the
existing needs as well as to identify and fulfill the new forms of needs.
 Marx understands human progress specifically as the progress in terms of
expanding new forms of production.
 In acquiring new productive forces, men change their mode of production and in
changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their life, they
change all their social relations.
 Social Change
 As societies productive forces develop, they eventually come into conflict with the existing
relations of production which fetter or inhibit the continued growth and full utilization of
society’s productive capacity.
 The forces of production advance more rapidly and at the same time, relations of production
remains almost static and then comes a flashpoint where the relations of production
becomes a fetter and it can no longer advance, or improve and thereby bring a much rapid
and thereby create a crisis where whole structure of that mode of production moves and
collapses, moving into qualitatively different realm where the relations of productions are
completely redefined. This flashpoint, Marx explains as the point of social revolution.
 Marx is pointing out at the possibility of the destruction of old economic structure along with
a whole immense super structure. Almost everything else other than the economic
relations, which includes law, literature, and notions of morality, social organization, political
system, and character of your state, all that is part of the super structure would have its
replacement by a new mode of production suitable for the continued growth of the forces of
production.
 Social Change
 The new mode of production again has this kind of an inherent
contradiction. Marx implores the method of dialectics, the thesis, anti-thesis
and the synthesis and the synthesis again contains the contradictory
qualities of opposite tendencies which again used leads to kind of a higher
stage.
 The dialectical processes inherent in the economic base of each of these
modes create crisis revolution and creates a qualitatively better form which
again contains the inherent contradictions. This movement of thesis, anti-
thesis and synthesis towards a structurally more complicated mode of
production will come to an end with the post capitalist era where the classes
will be obliterated, and the state will wither away. This is another prophecy
or prediction that Marx put forward.
 Social Change
 Marx defines classes on the basis of ownership of the means of production.
 The conflict is between these two classes; the haves and have nots, the
masters and slaves, feudal lords and serfs, bourgeoisie and proletariat
 Marx argues that this class struggle will be preceded by something what he
calls as class polarization. In a capitalist society, people will become
extremely conscious about their class position and the society will get
polarized into two mutually antagonistic group.
 ‘class in itself’ people will move towards ‘class for itself’ when workers
realize their historical role. A worker, while working in an extremely
exploitative situation, will realize that he is a part of a larger working-class
population and he has historic role to play and his historical role is to
overthrow this existing situation which will lead to a revolution.
 Theory of Capitalism
 Marx uses the notion of use value and exchange value as a primary building
blocks for his theory on capitalism.
 In the pre capitalist circuit of commodity exchange, one commodity that is C is
sold for money which in turn used for purchase of another commodity. Marx
refers to this cycle of exchange as C-M-C as the simple circulation of
commodities.
 With capitalist commodity production, this simple circuit of exchange is inverted.
Money is used to purchase commodities, which after some refashioning, are
subsequently sold for even more money. So here, you are talking about a
capitalist system where raw materials are brought in, and labor is involved, and it
is refashioned into certain other thing, and then sold for even more money.
 Here that previous equation of C-M-C is inverted into M-C-M, implying money,
commodity and money.
 Theory of Capitalism
 The continuous exchange of commodities, in the capitalist mode, is not the
production of use value, Marx insists, nor profit or any single transaction but
rather the unceasing, the endless movement of profit making.
 Another extremely original argument that Marx brings into this entire
discussion is his labour theory of value.
 When you produce certain thing or bring in couple of raw materials and then
make new products out of that, this new product is not mere assemblage of all
the raw material, but rather there is labor involved.
 It is the labor which is actually gives shape to this new commodity, and they
are the products of abstract human labor.
 Marx is talking about the kind of time invested by worker, inorder to produce a
particular product.
 Theory of Capitalism
 Marx argues that one of the most important ways of making sense of a value of a
particular object is to understand the amount of human labor that is invested in,
worked up, realized, fixed in them.
 In sum, the Marx’s labor theory of value is this, ‘commodities exchange according to
their average labor time, needed to produce them under normal conditions of
production’.
 Marx uses the concept of primitive accumulation, to explain the emergence of two
fundamental classes. One those who own money, means of production and
commodities and other who own nothing but the labor power.
 There is an emergence of a new class of laborers who earlier were the feudal
agricultural workers. They were affiliated to specific masters, now they become more
free dependent laborers. Peasants of serfs are transformed into dependent wage
laborers. And this qualities, this characteristic features of these wage laborers are
something very important which we will discuss now.
 Theory of Capitalism
 When mega development projects are brought in, ordinary peasants are
forced to displace and agricultural land is taken over.
 This particular new class of free workers are free to dispose the capacity to
labor however they wish. The workers owns neither land nor tools, they are
free of all possessions in any means of production.
 These free workers as Marx ironically puts it, are compelled to sell
themselves voluntarily. Because they do not have anything to eat, do not
own any means of production, do not have any land, do not have any tools,
and they only have one option, that is to sell themselves, sell their labor.
 Theory of Capitalism
 The labor power is incomparable with any other raw material or any other
technology because it is an inherent quality of human beings which involves
their creativity, involves their sense of aesthetics, their boundless forms of
imaginations.
 Marx argues that, the value of the labor power has to be something it is not
only that seen as a compensation of the time that worker spends in the
factory. Rather, you need to keep that worker in good condition, you need to
ensure that the worker is able to function as a member of the society.
 Numeration of the value of the labor probably is much mo higher, because a
person is only able to work if his social life, or his family life, or his other
existence as a healthy human being is taken care. And he is also supposed
to give birth to new children and to find out replacement of workers.
 Theory of Capitalism
 The workers are never honoured or appreciated or their potentials realised in the
actual setting. There is an industrial reserve army of workers or there is a surplus
group of unemployed people at all the time.
 That plays a very important role, in keeping their wages much lower than what
they actually deserve. Therefore the substantial supply of unemployed workers,
potentially in competition for the jobs of the employed, keeps wages from rising
above their values.
 The wage labourer never gets the possibility to change their class into something
else. But they always produces a relative surplus population of wage labourers in
proportion to the accumulated capital. So, this constant supply of unemployed
wage labourers outside there, who can be employed at will, at the expense of the
existing people, who might be demanding more wage, is the key according to
Marx, which makes this capitalist enterprise extremely profitable.
 Theory of Capitalism
 Marx’s analysis of capitalism shift the primary focus from the sphere of exchange to
the sphere of production, from the market dynamics to that of the labour process.
So, this is a very important point because unlike quite a lot of a later economics, he
identified the site in which the profit is realized is not that of the market, but it is
within the factory or the sphere of production and that was his argument.
 When they hire themselves out to capitalists, they are compelled to cede control
over both their labour power and the products of the labour.
 Marx identifies this as a very important aspect of their alienation, and he rejects the
view that profits arise from the capitalists selling commodities at a price higher than
their value. It is produced in the process of production.
 The Capitalists purchase two sorts of commodities within original investment. The
means of production that including the machinery and raw materials and the labour
power.
 Theory of Capitalism
 Machinery imparts value equivalent to its depreciation; it does not create value because
the value of this part of capital remains the same throughout the process of production
and Marx refers this to us a constant capital.
 Labour power on the other hand both produces the equivalent of its own value and
produce an excess. Only the labour power can reproduce its equivalent of its own value
and also produce an excess.
 Marx argues workers are paid according to their value but there is a difference between
the value of labour power that is the cost required for the reproduction of the worker
both in his physical sense as well as in his social sense.
 So, that person must be able to reproduce himself both in social as well as physical as
well as economic sense and the value labour power creates. So, the cost required for
the reproduction of the worker is much lower than the actual value that a labourer
creates and this excess value that the labour creates during this process of production is
appropriated by the capitalist argues Karl Marx.
 Theory of Capitalism
 The wealth that the workers produce is much more than what is required to
sustain them and this excess work is actually taken by the capitalist and
that is what the secret of profit-making is.
 The driving motive and determining purpose of the capitalist system, Marx
states is the greatest possible production of surplus value hence the
greatest possible exploitation of labour power.
 Theory of Capitalism
 Marx argued that capitalism is only a transient phase between feudalism
and that of communism. He argued that capitalism has its own seeds of
destruction and it will end up in crisis, ultimately into other revolutions.
 Capitalism never stays the same and it is always changing and expanding
and even as it persists, capitalism is inherently crisis prone susceptible to
periodic breakdowns. So, capitalism, in response to the coercive laws of
competition are constantly pressured to increase efficiency and productivity.
 They are competing in order to bring down the cost of production and
mostly this is done by introducing labour saving technologies and others are
compelled to follow the suit. But that results in an overall decline of
production. It’s not always easy to do that being excessively competitive
because it actually brings down the profit.
 Theory of Capitalism
 Less profitable industries are forced out of business investments and productions are
contained, unemployment increases and the size of industrial reserve army grows.
 The eventual effect of such regularly occurring catastrophes by causing the
destruction of less productive enterprises and the decline of wages is to restore at
least temporarily the condition for the profitable investment.
 Now as this boom and burst cycle continues, he explains that crisis becomes
progressively more frequent and severe not only hindering capitalisms ability to
recover but also threatening its violent overthrow with the emergence of class
consciousness, class polarization and ultimately the revolution.
 This is yet another prophecy of Marx which did not come true while the masses
remain poor the capitalism really invented ways of expanding the needs of human
being as we know how the kind of overconsumption or excessive consumption has
become a norm in the world.
 Theory of Capitalism
 But with the fall of berlin war and the disintegration of USSR, the world has moved into a
unipolar world system and capitalism has been widely heralded and accepted as the only
thriving economic mode. Even the namesake communist countries like China have
embraced capitalism and there is a very vibrant debate about what means to be a
communism in its economic sense in China.
 The appearance of a gigantic multinational corporations which did not exist during Marxian
time the rise of welfare state and extension of citizenship rights have all made important
changes. Especially in western Europe, the welfare state has brought important labour laws
and labour union became important and the kind of extreme form of exploitation at least in
the developed societies is much lesser workers are more organized they are paid well
compared to many other places.
 There is a realization that the term ‘proletariat’ does not represent everybody. The workers
of the world do not really share common set of issues but other than their working class
identity that are host of other issues related to identities which are even more important
and a we know that, for example in India caste is an extremely important non-class identity.
 Alienation
 Marx derived the concept from Hegel transforming it from an essentially
idealist to a materialist and critical concept.
 For Marx alienation is described as a process by which man is progressively
turned into a stranger in the world that his labor has created
 For Hegel, alienation is a manifestation of unhappy consciousness. It refers
to the finite individual's self-consciousness which mistakenly consists of its
own spiritual essence as being outside it and opposed to it. It regards itself
as inessential, empty, worthless devoid of true reality or significance.
 The alienation of the unhappy consciousness is just a matter of finite spirits
imperfect knowledge of its own infinite essence. The only remedy for
alienation is the attainment of a highest stage of self-knowledge where God
and humanity are seen to be fundamentally in harmony.
 Alienation
 Marx derived the concept from Hegel transforming it from an essentially
idealist to a materialist and critical concept.
 For Marx alienation is described as a process by which man is progressively
turned into a stranger in the world that his labor has created
 For Hegel, alienation is a manifestation of unhappy consciousness. It refers
to the finite individual's self-consciousness which mistakenly consists of its
own spiritual essence as being outside it and opposed to it. It regards itself
as inessential, empty, worthless devoid of true reality or significance.
 The alienation of the unhappy consciousness is just a matter of finite spirits
imperfect knowledge of its own infinite essence. The only remedy for
alienation is the attainment of a highest stage of self-knowledge where God
and humanity are seen to be fundamentally in harmony.
 Alienation
 According to Feuerbach, humans unwittingly project essence to god, assign non-
human qualities that makes human beings look imperfect in comparison and lead
a life in accordance to the regulations imposed by the god.
 Marx agrees with Hegel and Feuerbach that alienation is closely associated with
certain kinds of false consciousness about one's essence.
 Marx criticizes Feuerbach for not looking at the development of religion in a
historical sense.
 For Marx unhappy consciousness tells the truth and laments it, not in its
consolations. Marx argues that there is a truth and the feel of alienation is not a
false consciousness or an illusion, rather real. But the consolation that it tries to
look for or the kind of consolation that it tries to achieve by falling in the feet of a
God or its consolation by trying to appeal to the religion is not what is correct or
that is a fundamentally wrong step as per Marx.
 Alienation
 Marx brings forth the his sharp materialistic argument that if a society in
general are experiencing a sense of estrangement, if they experience a
sense of not being worthy, then its root cause has to be analysed in the in
the material world especially in the economic realities and not in certain
kind of realms of ideas or in beliefs.
 A typical Marxian explanation of the way in which the human beings
work ,human beings engage in productive activities is something so central
not only for meeting their basic requirements, but even to have a definitive
sense of themselves definitely definition of themselves.
 Alienation
 Marx talks about alienation from the product. Marx gives example of a potter who owns the
soil, who owns the potter's wheel, who is involved in the in the production of a pot by
himself and he sells it to somebody and he is able to see how his product is being made
use of the person. That provides a deep sense of gratification, deep sense of satisfaction
with the person who created it whereas in a capitalist era, a worker does not even know
what he is producing because most of the time the worker must be producing a very a
small fraction of a large product and his individual contribution in a large assembly right
could be very minuscule. It will be extremely limited. So human beings are not able to
identify themselves with the kind of product that they are producing.
 The other is the alienation from the productive activity. Marx argues that human beings
lose control over the capacity of laboring activity to affirm their being and define their self-
existence. there is an alienation with respect to the social relation of the worker to himself
in the form of a material satisfaction and the outer world to the history and society.
Therefore, worker is not even able to do justice to himself. He is not able to do justice to
his fellow society and to the history at large.
 Alienation
 Then Marx also brings in a very interesting discussion about alienation from
the species saturation. Marx develops a kind of a philosophical argument that
human beings as a species with a certain kind of an essence that demarcates
human beings from other animals. Humans not only belong to the same
species but being aware of it is distinctly unique to the species.
 He argues that we identify ourselves as a member of the society and because
of our unique ability. we are able to object this human society in a very
objective manner and we make our species our objects and behave towards it
because but we are being aware it is distinctly unique.
 Alienation is thus the separation and estrangement of individuals from the
human essence. Human being is not able even to realize their species
consciousness that he is able to identify himself with the larger society and
then understand its historical role.
 Religion
 Marx began his discussion on religion with a very intense theoretical
engagement or theoretical debate with both right and left young Hegelians
regarding the highest form of human consciousness.
 The thinking of social scientists also were very much influenced by the kind
of philosophical orientations and that quite a lot of social scientists were
very significantly influenced by religious beliefs. Being a believer, Hegel’s
influence on social science was something very profound so Bruno Bauer
was a believer whereas Ludwig Feuerbach he was not a believer.
 Marx criticizes Feuerbach for presenting an asocial idea of human essence
which does not exist in isolation. Marx agrees with the Feuerbach that the
reason for the emergence of society must be understood through a
materialist explanation and there is no divine origin to religion.
 Religion
 Sociology does not ask the question whether god exists or not because that is a
question which sociology cannot answer and to a large extent sociologists are not
interested in answering because what is more important is the consequences of
certain beliefs that God exists or conversely the consequences of the belief that
God does not exist.
 Marx argues man makes religion, religion does not make man. The whole
institution of religion is purely created by human being there is nothing divine
about it.
 Marx argues that religion emerges in such situation where human beings are either
yet to realize their true self-consciousness or true self-esteem or they have already
lost it. Please keep in mind here that he is talking about self-consciousness. He is
not talking about selfconsciousness the way Hegel talks about it as Marx’s idea of
self-consciousness cannot be attained by modifying your way of thinking.
 Religion
 The state and this society produce religion in a completely alienated and completely
unjust world, a world which is characterized by exploitation and oppression. And this is the
world that is creating religion and because this is an inverted consciousness of the world
because they are in an inverted world. So, for Marx, the system of capitalism is not the
true state of affairs where human beings must find themselves, it is an inverted world.
 Marx says that the religion provides a kind of spiritual aroma to an extremely oppressive
world. Christianity many times glorifies poverty and offers heaven to the people who toil.
 Religious suffering is at one at the same time the expression of real suffering and the
protest against the real suffering. Religion is a sigh of oppressed creature, the heart of the
heartless world, the soul of soulless condition and it is the opium of the people.
 Religion is a false consciousness because this false consciousness is necessitated by the
economic condition and Marx also believed that the moment you address the root cause,
the moment you address the economic exploitation and then bring in equality, religion will
disappear.
 Religion
 The number of people who claim to be irreligious or non-religious status is
steadily increasing. Now the abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the
people is the demand for their real happiness.
 Marx says that to call them on to give up the illusions about their condition is to
call on them to give up a condition that requires illusion. The criticism of religion
is therefore in embryo the criticism of that veil of tears of which religion is a halo.
So the criticism of religion is not directed against this is a per say but it is a
criticism against a social scenario which makes religion more glorified or which
present religion as a solution or which presents religion as something more
important.
 Marx continues, ‘Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in
order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation
but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower’.
 Religion
 It is therefore the task of history once the other world of truth has vanished to
establish the truth of this world. The truth that is being told to humanity by all the
priests of all religion that your misery in this world is temporary.
 The real existence is after your death and maybe except Buddhism, every other
religion has this very strong belief in life after death and every religion has very vibrant
description about the hell and the heaven about reaching nirvana about reaching a
moksha in Hindu methodology or reaching salvation in Christianity and so on. Being an
atheist himself, Marx completely rejects that kind of an idea. For him, there is only one
life and that life is what you live in this earth.
 Thinking positively or spiritually is not going to help, rather change must be brought
into the material condition. Thus, the criticism of heaven turns into the criticism of
earth. The criticism of the heaven, the criticism of the God turns into the criticism of
earth because the Marxian criticism of God is not aimed at criticizing the God because
God or the religion is only a reflection of the kind of sad affairs of this particular earth.
 Religion
 He believed that in a classless society in a post-capitalist society, religion
will have no significance because people did not require religion. Religion
will disappear not because of the criticism against religion or not because of
the systematic assault of religion but people themselves will leave religion
because they will find it longer necessary.
 Religion
 He believed that in a classless society in a post-capitalist society, religion
will have no significance because people did not require religion. Religion
will disappear not because of the criticism against religion or not because of
the systematic assault of religion but people themselves will leave religion
because they will find it longer necessary.
 Marx - Critique
 He was completely convinced that this capitalism has its own seeds of its
destruction, it will collapse under the weight of its own, its own convictions,
and it will eventually move to a post capitalist era, which could be termed as
socialist and finally communism. But we know that nothing of that sort
happened. The kind of revolution that Marx predicted did not come true in
most of the places. And in places where communism was the state ideology,
the kind of socialist economy that was persisting for a long time finally had
to crumble down and the economy gave way to a capitalist mode of
production. Capitalism seemed to be the most resilient economic system
which is able to reinvent itself. So, quite a lot of predictions of Karl Marx
have not come true. The communist revolution by the proletariat never
really occurred.
 Marx - Critique
 The famous argument of Marx that there will be class polarization taking place,
due to the transition from ‘class in itself’ to ‘class for itself’, did not take place.
In most of these communist societies, the state turned out to be dictatorial.
 Some contemporary sociologists continue to hold that as the capitalism goes
completely global, the contradictions in the systems will finally emerge and
usher in communist revolution. I would personally consider it only as a wishful
thinking, because we know that we have been talking about a crisis of
capitalism, especially since the 2008 financial crisis.
 At the same time, we have come to a point where Marx is still relevant, and
then we need a more nuanced understanding of why Marx is somebody who is
still exerting considerable amount of influence and interest some of the
contemporary sociologists and political thinkers.
 Marx - Critique
 A host of issues that Marx anticipated and framed occupy central position in the
discussions of economy and society today. Marx saw more than any other scholar of the
last century, that economy is the driving force of society. And he predicted that capitalism
would spread or in today’s vocabulary become a global force. And no sociologist was able
to bring forth the centrality of economy, in the way Marx did.
 Why, then, did his more specific predictions about the revolution of the proletariat go so
wrong? Marx was blinded by his convictions and, hence, could not see that the state,
bourgeoisie and the workers could change the capitalist system in ways that make it more
benign. Marx had a political position, as well as an intellectual position. As an academic, he
believed that the fundamental obligation of a scholar is not to do intellectual exercise by
sitting in his armchair, but rather to change. He was completely convinced about the
political imperative of an, of an intellectual. His commitment to overthrow the capitalist
system, his commitment to see a world which is more egalitarian, as people like Jonathan
Turner argues, prevented him from having a more objective understanding about the
society, and more open understanding about the society that he sees.