Marxism
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How do YOU feel about communism or socialism? Well, years before Americans were feelin’ the Bern, Marxism described a wide range of social and political philosophy that was built on the work of 19th-century philosopher Karl Marx. One of the most influential and controversial philosophers of all time, Marx is perhaps best known for his critique of capitalism (and his stellar beard).
Key to this critique is the analytical framework known as “historical materialism” which measures societies growth based on money 💵 and cents rather than ideas and social progress. Marx was deeply interested in labor and value under capitalism and the conflict between the two classes in capitalism- the proletariat (who worked in the factories 🏭) and the bourgeoisie (the people who made money 💰off of those factories 🏭). He hoped that the conflict would eventually lead to the creation of a new economic system, one where everyone was able to break bread 🍞. Marx’s thought would influence the development of critical theory in philosophy and in social science more generally.
Videos
Alienation
Sociology Live
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Alienation
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Karl Marx & Conflict Theory: Crash Course Sociology #6
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POLITICAL THEORY – Karl Marx
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What is Marxism? (Karl Marx + Super Mario Bros.)
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Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Key Texts
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Dialectic of Enlightenment
Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer -
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
Friedrich Engels -
The Prison Notebooks
Antonio Gramsci -
Reform or Revolution
Rosa Luxemburg -
Das Kapital
Karl Marx -
The Communist Manifesto
Karl Marx -
Wage Labour and Capital
Karl Marx -
The Sublime Object of Ideology
Slavoj Žižek
Pop Culture Examples
Want to Know More?
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Marxism
The Basics of Philosophy -
What is Marxism
All About Philosophy -
Karl Marx
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy -
Critical Theory
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy -
Reading Marx’s Captial
David Harvey
Questions to Think About
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How does capitalism change our perception on what we produce and how we view others?
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How does capital exploit labor?
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What’s a better measure of success, the amount of money you have, or how woke you are?
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Why would humans feel attachment to belongings?
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Are classes (rich, poor) necessary for a society to do well?
Key Thinkers
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Theodor Adorno
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Louis Althusser
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Walter Benjamin
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Friedrich Engels
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Antonio Gramsci
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Jürgen Habermas
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Max Horkheimer
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Frederic Jameson
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Rosa Luxemburg
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Herbert Marcuse
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Karl Marx
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Slavoj Žižek
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- Proletariat
- the working class; those who sell their labor power for a wage
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- Bourgeoisie
- the class who owns the means of production
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- Class conflict
- the political and economic struggle caused by the opposing interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoise
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- Means of production
- raw materials, factories, machinery, and tools used to create commodities
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- Labor power
- the capacity to do work
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- Commodity
- an object produced for exchange
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- Alienation
- the process by which workers are disconnected from the labor process and the products of their labor, as well as one another.