5.6 Caught in the Capitalist System

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古典社会学理论

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University of Amsterdam

古典社会学理论

1020 个评分

This Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) will offer the participants an introduction into the most important classical sociological readings between the 18th and 20th century. Highly influential social science scholars, such as Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, will be discussed during 8 sessions. Combined with small tests, based on the video’s and recommended readings, the participants will be encouraged to dive deeply into the complex texts and get familiar with classical sociological concepts that are still very relevant today.

从本节课中

Session 5: Karl Marx (1818-1883)

The German philosopher, radical economist, and revolutionary leader Karl Marx founded modern "scientific" socialism. His basic ideas, known as Marxism, form the foundation of socialist and communist movements throughout the world. Several topics like alienation, class struggle, and capitalism will be covered in this week's session.

5.1 The Unexpected Force of Social Thought5:57

5.2 Economic Chains of Interdependency6:29

5.3 Homo Faber6:40

5.4 Alienation6:31

5.5 Class Struggle6:52

5.6 Caught in the Capitalist System6:30

5.7 Class Consciousness5:32

5.8 Marx’s Predictions5:49

与讲师见面

Bart van Heerikhuizen
Dr.
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

This may be the point where I should stress something that is often

overlooked by students of Marx, and sometimes even by Marx himself,

when he gives into the pleasure of writing in a very polemical fashion.

The exploitation of the proletariat has nothing to do with evil intentions

of the capitalists, or their sadistic lust to oppress powerless people.

Those capitalists may actually be very friendly people who go to church

every Sunday, who do not want to impoverish or to squeeze their workers.

They may give some of their income to charities.

They may support the arts and the sciences.

The problem is that they also are captives of this system that forces them,

whether they like it or not, to exploit their employees.

Because they are members of an extremely competitive network of factory owners,

we're all focused on one goal only.

And no, that goal is not to make as much money as you can.

That goal is to make money in a systematic way, and

to make more money than your colleagues, to stay ahead of the competition.

And the penalty for not staying ahead is terrible.

Whoever lags behind will go bankrupt, factory will have to close, and the owner

and all the members of his family will fall into the class of the proletarians.

And from that moment on,

they will have to sell the only thing that they are left with, their labor power,

and they have to sell it to their former fellow entrepreneurs.

So all their actions are motivated by that burning fear

that this, one day, might happen to them.

In this respect, but in this respect only, Marx reminds me a bit of Tocqueville.

In a class system with a lot of mobility,

everybody is scared to death to fall from a high class into a low class.

But of course, Marx is the opposite of Tocqueville in his prediction that

the middle classes will be, so to speak, eaten up by the remaining two classes,

bourgeoisie and proletariat.

That is not at all what Tocqueville thought.

In fact, the system is stable because it does not depend

on the evil intentions, or the bad character, of the capitalists.

It's the capitalism, itself, that takes care of its own continuation.

And this, again, is an element in Marx that sociologists admire.

Social systems may have a dynamic all of their own.

They develop according to laws that individual people cannot influence,

even if they understand those laws,

even if they would have studied the books written by Marx and Engels.

This is how it was in the short run, but in the long run, capitalism

goes slowly but surely into the direction of its own destruction.

And the strangest thing is that the entrepreneurs who profit most from

the system are also the ones who are instrumental in its downfall.

Forced by cutthroat competition, they force their laborers to work harder and

harder to make longer working days, to accept lower wages.

Workers become so poor that their wives have to work in the factory to

make ends meet, and if that is not enough, their children have to do the simple,

repetitive tasks in the factory that we remember from the paint factory.

Adding, in that way, their meagre wage to the family income.

But the owners of the factories are forced to continue to squeeze the labor force,

so the workers do not have enough to eat.

Their houses are unhygienic, the roof is leaking, they become ill,

they see how their own children die.

And then, one day, they realize that things cannot get worse.

That their situation has become so

terrible that the conclusion becomes inevitable.

We have nothing to lose but our shackles.

The capitalists have created a class of people

that will bring capitalism to its end.

They have raised their own grave diggers.

But for that to happen,

the workers have to become aware of their objective situation.

They have to develop class consciousness.

All of a sudden, they see through the ideological myths

about a wonderful world of capitalism that the politicians and

the industrial leaders and the parish priest propagate day in, day out.

They break away from that spell, they open their eyes, they confront reality.

And then, they may develop a feeling of solidarity, a deep sentiment

that they share their fate with the members of their own class, and

not with the members of the class above them, the class that exploits them.

And then they conclude that the only road to a better future is to rise up

against their oppressors, all together in one huge movement.

And that, according to Marx is the moment when revolutionary

consciousness takes hold of the hearts and minds, and

from that moment on, the revolution is inescapable.

The means of production will be torn away from the former owners and

they will be given to the collectivity.

And from then on, all the wealth that has become possible in

modern industrial society will be distributed in a fair and

in an honest way among the members of the new society.

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