Chapter 7 - Marxism

mode of production in which one class of people - the bourgeoisie or capitalist class - exploited another class of people - the proletariat or working class commodity production is generalised (production for competitive market, not for personal consumption) competition is necessary to survive in the market place -> constant need for innovation + higher productivity *this lays the basis for globalisation: the expansion of capitalist social relations beyond national borders capitalism is progressive: develops the productive forces + creates the working class (gravediggers of class society)

starting point = material social relations - focus on the way in which production is organised (production necessary for existence of societies)

superstructure = culture, norms, ideas, institutions and the state mode of production = technologies and instruments (forces of production) and the social relations that characterise the way in which goods are produced in Marx idea: mode of production determines the superstructure

structuralist analysis: state is part of the superstructure and thus epiphenomenon of the economic structure of capitalist society state as an instrument of the powerful interests that dominate the economic base

political outcomes aren’t simply driven by changing capitalist interests (structural logic of capital), but by more contingent outcomes of political mobilisation

• based on exploitation of the working class, this class has unique capacity to overthrow a mode of production based on exploitation • competition between capitalist companies led to the development of productive forces (combination of machinery, technology and labour) -> massive increase total wealth, but capitalist class owns means of production and thus gains the most the proletariat is/was unique in history: came together in the production process far more than productive class in the past the working class has a central role in bringing about socialism

argument that capitalism progressively expands beyond nation states and creates a world market Marx + Engels: nationalism will gradually diminish in the face of the unifying logic of a global capitalist political economy - the working men have no country`

the spread of capitalist social relations beyond its core heartlands economistic + structural approach: globalisation as progressive development in human history can be seen as regrettable: it is exploitative, but also necessary because it overthrew pre-capitalist modes of production Marx sometimes argued colonialism was progressive (+ the best thing to happen in Asia as it brought the only social revolution ever heard of) Marx argued that the free trade system is progressive as it breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. in a word the free trade system hastens the social revolution