Test your knowledge about the main concepts present in the thought of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and check the answers commented by our expert professors.
Question 1 - Class Struggle
"The history of the whole society thus far is the history of class struggle."
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Communist Party Manifesto
Marx's concept of class struggle represents the antagonism between a small ruling class over a subordinate majority. So it was with free men and slaves, feudal lords and serfs, in short, oppressors and oppressed.
In the Modern Age, what are the forces at work in the class struggle and on what is this distinction based?
a) Capitalists and communists, a distinction made through their ideology.
b) Right and left, according to where they sat in the assembly after the French Revolution.
c) Bourgeoisie and proletariat, division between the holders of the means of production and the owners of the labor force.
d) Nobility and clergy, representatives of aristocratic families and representatives of the Church.
Correct alternative: c) Bourgeoisie and proletariat, division between the holders of the means of production and the owners of the labor force.
For Marx, bourgeois revolutions shaped the revolution of the mode of production. With the emergence of the capitalist mode of production, the ruling class is identified as the holders of the means of production (raw material, facilities and machinery)
The oppressed class becomes composed of subjects who have nothing but their labor power. To ensure their survival, they sell their only good to the capitalist in exchange for a wage.
Understand better by reading: Class struggle.
Question 2 - Disposal
"In manufacturing and crafts, the worker uses the tool; at the factory, he is a servant of the machine."
Alienation for Marx is understood through the idea that the individual becomes alienated (alienated) from his own nature and from other human beings.
This can be because:
a) the worker becomes part of the production process, loses the notion of the value of his work.
b) the worker is not interested in politics and votes according to the interests of the bourgeoisie.
c) the worker ceases to understand himself as a human being and starts acting in function of his animal nature.
d) the worker is replaced by the machine and becomes oblivious to production.
Correct alternative: a) the worker becomes part of the production process, loses the notion of the value of his work.
For Marx, the capitalist mode of production means that the worker does not understand the entire production process. It is up to the worker to perform a task that has no meaning in itself, physically and spiritually exhausting.
Thus, this worker becomes an analog to machines and loses his ability to understand himself as a subject.
For the author, the work humanizes human beings by developing their capacity to transform nature according to their needs. In turn, alienated work causes human beings to become alien to themselves, to other human beings and to society.
Understand more by reading: What is the Alienation of Labor for Marx?
Question 3 - Commodity Fetishism
"Here, the products of the human brain seem endowed with a life of their own, like independent figures that engage with each other and with men."
Karl Marx, Capital, Book I, Chapter 1 - The Commodity
For Marx, commodity fetishism is related to the alienation of labor. How does this process take place?
a) The alienated worker starts to consume only goods that have a high market value.
b) While the worker is dehumanized, the goods come to possess human qualities and mediate social relations.
c) Commodity fetishism emerges as a response to the advancement of production and the valorization of salaried work.
d) The worker and the merchandise now have the same market value, substituting each other according to demand.
Correct alternative: b) While the worker becomes dehumanized, the goods start to possess human qualities and mediate social relations.
Marx claims that commodities do not have a nature that gives them value. The value attributed to goods are social constructions. For example, criteria such as supply and demand.
Thus, goods receive an aura of value, become very valuable socially and exert a spell (fetish) over the economy and consumers. Commodities mediate social relations and determine the value of work and people.
See too: What is Consumerism?
Question 4 - Added Value
For Marx, the production of surplus value is the capitalist mode of production. From it, the worker is exploited and profit is obtained.
According to the concept of surplus value developed by Marx, it is incorrect say that:
a) Part of the value produced by the worker is appropriated by the capitalist without being paid the equivalent.
b) The worker is forced to produce more and more for the same price, signed in a contract.
c) The value of the salary will always be less than the value produced.
d) Wages are equivalent to the value produced by the worker.
Correct alternative: d) Wages are equivalent to the value produced by the worker.
The surplus represents the difference between the value of the work and what is paid to the worker. It is from this difference that the odo of capitalist production is structured.
Every employment contract within this model already considers that the worker will produce more than his cost and this will result in profit.
Thus, wages in the profit-oriented capitalist mode of production will never be equivalent to the value produced by the worker.
Marx claims otherwise. The worker is pressured to increase his production, perform a surplus, for the same wage. Thus, part of the work performed is not remunerated, it is usurped by the capitalist to maximize his profits.
He read more at: The Added Value of Karl Marx.
Question 5 - Dictatorship of the Proletariat
"My contribution was only to demonstrate that: 1. the existence of classes is a result of certain historical phases in the development of production; 2. The class struggle will lead to a dictatorship of the proletariat 3. And such a dictatorship is nothing more than a transition to the end of social classes and a classless society"
Karl Marx, Letter to Joseph Weydemeyer
For Marx, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a transitional period to reach the goal of a classless society. This process would start from:
a) abolition of private property and collectivization of the means of production.
b) abolition of labor laws and freedom of negotiation between employers and employees.
c) confirmation of an autocratic government that concentrates all power.
d) confirmation of individual interests for economic and social development.
Correct alternative: a) abolition of private property and collectivization of the means of production.
The dictatorship of the proletariat represents a transitory process in which social classes will coexist, but no longer under the hegemonic power of capital.
The working class, in possession of the means of production, will carry out a new transformation in the mode of production, starting the extinction of social classes.
See too: Proletariat.
Question 6 - Dialectics
"Furthermore, in the form of the 'value and price of work' or 'salary' manifestation, in contrast to the essential relationship that manifests, that is, with the value and price of labor power, it is the same as with all forms of manifestation and its background hidden. The former are reproduced immediately spontaneously, as common forms and currents of thought; the second must first be discovered by science. Classical political economy comes very close to the true relationship of things, but without consciously formulating them. She will not be able to do it while she is covered with her bourgeois skin”
The dialectic for Marx points to the form of interpretation of reality that accounts for the contradictions and complexity of history. For Marx, class struggle is a dialectical process because:
a) dialogues with different social actors to build a consensus.
b) has a contradiction between what is said and what is done.
c) has contradictions present in the mode of production that build reality itself.
d) proposes a process of harmonization and an end to the antagonism between social classes.
Correct alternative: c) has contradictions present in the mode of production that build reality itself.
Dialectics is the way of understanding history composed of all the complexity and contradictions that exist in society.
Marx is strongly influenced by Hegel's concept of dialectics, which presupposes that all existing things are they and their opposite. Some authors point to the simultaneous existence of a thesis, its antithesis (opposition) and a synthesis (resolution of thesis and antithesis).
Marx transports this thought to the material reality of the world and thus claims that the modes of production have these contradictions within themselves. For example, work is the means by which the individual becomes humanized, but work itself (alienated) is the way in which its dehumanization occurs.
Understand better by reading: Dialectics: the art of dialogue and complexity.
Question 7 - Historical Materialism
"Men make their own history, but they don't make it according to their free will; they do not do it under circumstances of their choice, but under those that they face directly, bequeathed and transmitted by the past."
Karl Marx, 18th Brumaire of Luís Bonaparte
According to Marx, history must be understood from the material conditions that enabled each historical moment to exist. Thus, historical materialism can be understood as:
a) A method for understanding and acting in the world, able to account for the class struggle and different modes of production.
b) A theoretical abstraction to illustrate human development in a pre-social stage.
c) A theory based on the rejection of the spiritual perspective of history.
d) A sociological model based on the general properties of matter.
Correct alternative: a) A method for understanding and acting in the world, able to account for the class struggle and different modes of production.
Historical materialism is the Marxist conception that the development of society takes place from the material issues involved in this process.
Each historical period has its mode of production and history develops through the relations between the class of holders of the means of production and the working class.
Thus, for Marx historical materialism is the method in which the social sciences must develop, understanding the forces that acted for the construction of the present, interpreting and transforming the reality.
See too: Dialectical Materialism.
Question 8 - Primitive Accumulation
"This primitive accumulation plays roughly the same role in political economy as original sin in theology. Adam bit the apple and, with that, sin befell mankind. (...) In fact, the legend of original theological sin tells us how man was condemned to eat his bread with the sweat of his brow; but it is the history of economic original sin that reveals to us how there can be people who have no need for it. (...) And from this original sin, the poverty of the great mass dates back, which even today, despite all their work, continues to lack nothing to sell but itself, and the wealth of the few, which grows continually, though they have long since ceased to work."
Karl Marx, Capital, Book I, Chapter 24, The so-called primitive accumulation
In the excerpt above, Marx performs a reading of primitive accumulation as the "original economic sin" that gave rise to capitalism and the exploitation of the worker by a class that does not work. How did this happen?
a) The working class did not have the capacity to manage business and thus needed the management of the bourgeoisie.
b) The bourgeoisie has a divine determination that obliges it to lead the economy and boost the working class.
c) At a certain historical moment, land was appropriated by some groups of individuals. Land ownership separated workers from the conditions for carrying out work, making accumulation possible.
d) The natural right to private property since the beginning of history has enabled some to possess natural aptitudes and were successful, while others by their own choice or as a result of natural disasters were led to serve.
Correct alternative: c) At a certain historical moment, land was appropriated by some groups of individuals. Land ownership separated workers from the conditions for carrying out work, making accumulation possible.
Marx, the original conception of society is agrarian. The relationship between the work of human beings and the land and the transformation of nature is the foundation for its humanization.
The privatization of land makes the conditions for carrying out work (means of production) to be separated from the worker.
In order for the work to be carried out, the permission or interest of the owners of the means of production is required and the workers start to have nothing but themselves and their workforce.
Thus, accumulation arises, in order to subsist the peasant becomes mediated by the owner of the land. The result of the work does not belong to the one who performs the work, it is delivered and in return receives a payment stipulated by the owner.
Question 9 - Industrial Reserve Army
"The condemnation of one part of the working class to forced idleness due to the overwork of the other party, and vice versa, becomes a means of enrichment of the individual capitalist, while accelerating the production of the industrial reserve army to a degree corresponding to the progress of the social accumulation."
Karl Marx, Capital, Book I, Chapter 23, The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation
In relation to the "industrial reserve army" and as its existence is important for capitalist accumulation, it is incorrect state that:
a) It is a mass of idle workers (unemployed) waiting for a job placement.
b) It fulfills the function of putting pressure on active workers to adapt to the rhythm of production and overwork.
c) It regulates wages, as it allows the capitalist to always have spare parts and not be pressured by active workers.
d) It aims to enable active workers to have moments of rest and leisure.
Correct alternative: d) It aims to enable active workers to have moments of rest and leisure.
Active workers suffer from the burden of overwork, while inactive workers wait for the opportunity to occupy a job.
In other words, part of the workers is in a context of extreme exploitation and the other is at risk of poverty and hunger.
This is how the law of demand and labor supply is structured. The greater the number of idle people, the lower the wages and the more intense is the overwork and accumulation. When this movement begins to affect the progress of accumulation, the accumulated total is reinvested, production is modernized, new labor offers are created and the process starts over again.
See too: capitalist mode of production.
Question 10 - Praxis
"Until now philosophers are concerned with interpreting the world in various ways. What matters is to transform it."
Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, Thesis 11
In the passage, the author criticizes what he understands as a passive positioning of the philosophical tradition. For Marx, knowledge must be allied to action. Thus, praxis is the conscious action for the transformation of society. For the possibility of social transformation to exist, the individual must:
a) study philosophy in depth and develop academic production of greater value.
b) being class conscious and perceiving oneself as a transforming subject of history and acting on reality.
c) maximizing its productive capacity so that the accumulated capital can be turned into benefits for the working class.
d) abolish the labor laws imposed by the State so that employers and employees can negotiate working conditions, allowing the creation of new jobs and increasing the employability.
Correct alternative: b) being class conscious and perceiving oneself as a transforming subject of history and acting on reality.
For Marx, praxis is the union (dialectic) between theory and practice and it is only through it that capitalism can be overcome.
Thus, theory without practice, as in the critique of the philosophical tradition, is inert and disconnected from reality. In turn, practice without theory makes actors susceptible to the control of capital and not building class consciousness.
It is up to the individual to realize the importance of this union that takes place in praxis and to find the tools to transform reality.
Other texts that can help you:
- Karl Marx
- Differences between Capitalism and Socialism
- Alienation in Sociology and Philosophy
- Marxism
- questions about socialism
- questions about capitalism
- Questions about social movements
Bibliographic references
Karl Marx, Capital
Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Communist Party Manifesto
Tom Bottomore, Dictionary of Marxist Thought.
