Marxist theory free essay sample

This theory was basically ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Both of them were born from Germany. Marx was a student of the most prominent German Idealist Philosopher. Engels was editing a radical journal that written by Karl Marx at the year 1844. Due to this both of them meet and become close friends. Engels start to share his opinion toward capitalism to Marx. After that, they decided to work together and become partnership because Marx was good in dealing with difficult abstract concepts whereas, Engels had the ability to write for the mass audience. They develop this theory during the Europe’s most volatile period of social change. Their theory were been ignore by social, economic and political when at first it was been establish. However, when Marx pass away at 1883, this theory start to gain the popularity in the nineteenth century and there is still population who practicing until now. After Marx pass away, Engels continue to translating and editing Marx writing until 1895. In their ideas, this theory is about fully worked-out theoretical basis for the struggle of the working class to attain a higher form of human society known as socialism. Since we born we are living in a capitalism system which is still practicing until today. The meaning of capitalism is class society which is unequal and undemocratic. Rich people have more power compare to poor people, capitalist will be the one who hire those worker for production for the consumer, king or queen have the power to instruct those slave to do what ever they want whereas working class people have no power to change the society. Marx was very familiar with the grand social theory of his era therefore he thinks that human beings should shape the world using the technology and physical resources that available to them instead of using themself which known as worker or slave for the labor. When this theory gain the popularity in the 1990’s society start believe there are no general laws that govern the development. Theory of materialism, develop by Marx and Engels, give a framework for analyzing human society and the laws of its development. It told us that class societies is not existed, in fact the earliest human societies were actually classless and ones based on co-operation not exploitation. This is how people are been fool for accepting that there is no alternative to capitalism, but in reality people force to search for an alternative to explain this ideas that been created. The only way for the working class society to have power is overthrow capitalist system and create a abolish class society is a combination of society for democracy, equality and freedom with the advantages od modern economic, scientific and technological development. There are several social classes that Marx describe in capitalist society. The primary of the social classes is the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The proletariat means individuals that sell their labor power for the capitalists in production but they do not own the production. They only get the salary as their return whereas the bourgeoisie will fully exploit the proletariat. Whereas, the bourgeoisie is tose who own the production and they will pay for the labor power from the proletariat, who get the salary and thus exploiting the proletariat. Marx identified the problem associated with industrialization and urbanization due to the consequences of action taken by the powerful elites. Both of these are not bad but problem occur when the unethical capitalists wants to maximize their personal profits by utilize workers. Which means those urbanization society will be fully exploiting by the capitalists. They might work more than they get paid so that the capitalists will gain more profits. In order to abolish this system Marx said worker should rise against the capitalists and demand to end the exploitation and they should band together to construct an egalitarian democratic social order which known as communism. In Marx theory, media are one of the most effective technologies that must be control and used to enhance communism. Besides that, revolution might be the quickest and most effective way to bring about necessary changes. In order to force the elites to surrender their power to the working society. In Marx theory, it would say human are more materialism compare to idealism. Most of us will think that socialism is being ‘idealist’ which is a nice idea but unrealistic. Whereas, idea of socialism and Marxism are practical and realistic because it was based on analyzing the real society world and how it works actually. ‘Idealism’ were original mean a trend within philosophy. Those idealists thought that ideas come first and follow by material as a result of these ideas. They would think that changes in material reality were caused by ideas and not by material forces. However, Marx recognise that ideas play an important role in social change and Marxists are materialists which against the philosophical sense. In materialists, human society and history is shaped by material social and economic forces, real things and processes and ideas are the reflection of this material reality. Marxists believe that human society is based on material forces. Which means for human society exist, they need produce those necessities of life that enable us to survive such as food, shelter, water and etc. All these are material things that human society needs in order to survive. But how human society produce these necessities, who controls the products, the labor and how the use them, all determine the type of society we living now. Basically in Marxist theory, it emphasize that in a society should not have capitalism system which known as social class. It should change to socialism because it it unfair and everyone of us are the same therefore we should treat each others as the same too. Moreover, society should take action in order to abolish this system such as revolution. If capitalism system does not abolish, it could destroy the human life because when the capitalists getting more and more powerful it means those working people or slave will forever been exploit by them. Neo Marxist Neo-Marxist is a political system or thought that differ from each to some extent in terms of ideologies. Neo-Marxist is a theory that formed based on humanism and idealism of Marxist theory. It was formed in the late of 20 century that used to amend or extent Marxist theory when they saw the failure of working class revolution in western Europe. They interpreted these failures is due to lack of adherence of the true Marxist theory and lack of understanding of prevailing social conditions. There are several ideas and philosophies that used in Neo-Marxist is based on Marxist including critical theory such as socialism and communism. Example that Neo-Marxist theory include is Weberian sociology and Herbert Marcuse theory. Frankfurt schools is a of Neo-Marxist social theory, it implement many new ideology that shaped the sociological and economic uplift of society. Neo-Marxist emphasize more on psychological liberation instead of political revolution and thus closer to anarchism than socialism or communism. In Neo-Marxist view, classes divisions under capitalism are more important than gender/sex divisions or issues in race and ethnicity. In order for Neo-Marxists to do changes in social condition of Marx’s theory they ‘choose the parts of Marx’s thought that might clarify social condition that were not present when Marx was alive. They filled in what they perceived to be omissions in Marxism with ideas from another schools thought’ (McCarthy,2006) Neo-Marxist enclose a group of beliefs that have common rejection of economic or class determinism and a belief in the semiautonomy of the social sphere. Most of the social science, history and literary analysis work within capitalists categories and Neo-Marxist is based on the total political economic cultural system. Differences between Marxist and Neo-Marxist Most of the people consider that Neo-Marxist ideology are sort of diametrical opposite to Marxist. But actually both of them are related to each other or it could be said as they are from same family of ideologies. Neo-Marxist theory are the offspring of the classical Marxist theory. Although they have similarities but there are some differences and distinguishing feature between this two theory. Basically, Marxist aims is to attain the equality between people especially those rich and poor. Marxist has its firm roots in history and it is based on the history of the society in the past Marxist lays its ideologies for the uplift of the society. Marxist theory are strongly believe in the implementation of its theoretical interpretations and expects practical applicability of those theory on their own accord. Therefore, this is the main difference between Marxist and Neo-Marxist or any other system of the political thought for that matter. Most of the political expert believe that Marxist is the foundation for the formation of several political thoughts such as Leninism, Socialism and other economic system and thought include Neo-Marxist. Besides that, Neo-Marxist do have several ideas and philosophies from Marxist including the critical theory concept, psychoanalysis and other related ideologies. There are example of Neo-Marxist theory from Weberian sociology and Herbert Marcuse theory. Neo-Marxist theory did not dispel all the classical Marxist but shed some light on the classical theory by considering new views and idea. Most of the ideas or views are develop by weber and he focus more on social influence extinction not just economic oppression but social oppression. They argued that Marx knew the economic sector as superior, but he ignored the dialectical processes within it such as politics, mass media, religion and others. Whereas, Neo-Marxist argue that the processes can not be reduce to something determine purely by the economy. Neo-Marxists raise a critical question and asked why do individual need to act in the first place if the capitalist system was bound to collapse on its own anyhow. Marx’s concept was just restrict the economic system whereas Luckas expand this concept so that it would include all the system of society such as state, law, economic and etc. Instead of Marx’s view just reification the economy system, Lukacs believe that all the social structure are from a sort of an objective character which is out of the human control. The ability to achieve class consciousness is a trait particular to capitalistic society and variety of factors prevent the development of a class consciousness. He believe that state was independent of the economy while still affecting society and according to him, status consciousness supersedes class consciousness. It tend to prevent the emergence of a class consciousness. It clearly shows that Neo-Marxist began from a relaxation of the economic determinism and positivism prevalent in the classical Marxist theory. In order to provide a more holistic view of social class structures and dynamics, keeping a focus more on society than the economic system alone Neo-Marxist used other sociological view to develop. Lukacs and Gramsci offer views on the importance of social and intellectual forces regarding the emergences of class-consciousness. It provide dialectical process that explaining why capitalism remain so pervasive even in light of the people awareness or unawareness of their oppression. Lastly, Neo-Marxist began with a concept to answer the question that haven been explain in Karl Marx’s works. Now, Neo -Marxist is used to describe the opposition to inequality prevalent in lesser develop country in a global world. It is known as an approach to economic that mainly concentrate on the monopolistic nature of modern capitalism. Therefore, in order to survive in current century changing global political and economic condition, it have to further adapt and amend itself or it will discontinue to lose all relevance.