pps about Marxism

1. Marxism
“All animals are equal, but some are
more equal than others.”
George Orwell, Animal Farm

2. What is it?
• Social and economic
• Macro
• Economic activities needed to provide for peoples
material needs
• Political/legal systems/social relations arise on
the different type of economy
• Superstructure with economy as base
• As economy changes existing social organisation
is inefficient

3. Society
• Bourgeoisie and Proletariat
• Underclass and middle class
• Class struggle occurs because of the
contradiction in classes (inefficiency), leads to
revolution (oppression)

4. 3 types of Marxism
• Classical
• Orthodox Communism
• Neo-Marxism

5. Classical
• Outlines why Capitalist system will fail and
why socialism will replace it
• Economics is the driving force for everything
• Way humans produce necessities controls all
other aspects of life
• Different ways of producing necessities defer
to different societal structures

6. The Dialectic
• Conflict between Thesis and Antithesis
produces Synthesis which creates a new
Thesis.
• Will it spiral out of control?

7. Orthodox Communism
• Only loosely based on Marxism
• Soviet Union own spin on Communism
• Based on politics not economics
• Urban proletariat was small so couldn’t revolt,
so communist rule became communist elite
• Soviet style communism interpreted, shaped
and developed by Lenin and Stalin ->
ideologies in their own right.

8. Neo-Marxism
• Emerged in western Europe
• Didn’t believe in class struggle
• Interplay between economics and political
forces
• Modern Marxists disliked Soviet Style of
Marxism which they saw as authoritarian and
oppressive
• Commitment to personal autonomy and self-
fulfilment in the form of liberation

9. Death of Marxism!
• Student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square
• Fall of Berlin Wall
• Collapse of East-European communism
• Collapse of communism = end of Marxism
• “Marx’s ideas seem to have already been tried
and to have failed. At one time, almost one-third
of the world’s population lived under states
inspired by the ideas of Marx” p.68, Sociological
Theory, Ritzer and Goodman.

10. Death of Marxism?
• “Now many of these formerly Marxist states have
become capitalist, and even those that still claim
to be Marxist are nothing but a highly
bureaucratised form of capitalism.” p.68,
Sociological Theory, Ritzer and Goodman.
• Classical Marxism has 5 stages, with Capitalism
leading to Communism, the above quote shows
the opposite, that capitalism is to be strived for,
not communism.

11. Death of Communism!
• “Now many of these formerly Marxist states have
become capitalist, and even those that still claim to be
Marxist are nothing but a highly bureaucratised form of
capitalism.” p.68, Sociological Theory, Ritzer and
Goodman.
• These former states weren’t Communist as Marx
viewed it, but just regimes run in his name. They were
run by a bureaucracy which was run by political ruling
class not bourgeoisie. Workers were still exploited.
• Leninism and Stalinism saw state ownership rather
than collective ownership as Marx envisaged, the
Governance was substantially different to Marx’s
utopian vision.

12. Death of Communism?
• Revolution predicted by Marx never occurred,
it was “an occurrence of a non-event”. (Pip
Jones, p48)
• Capitalism today seems to be thriving, rather
than becoming increasingly conflictive.
• Economic globalisation has forced people to
be/remain capitalist??

13. Mass Media
• Class differences are still there but mass media
blurs reality
• We think there’s no need for revolt but there is
• False sense of society portrayed by media
• Mass media purely designed to divert us from
reality
• News distorted to focus on smaller/trivial not the
oppression of people
• Marx would say we need to be more self-aware
and throw off shackles

14. Is it still relevant?
• Yes!
• 99%, 1%.
• Still have an upper class and a lower class
• We still have people selling their labour and
not products
• Riots -> lower class rising up
• People still in poverty

15. Is it still relevant?
• No!
• No revolution
• No socialist or communist economies
• Marxism thought of as incomplete or out-
dated
• Rejection of idea that socialism only
accomplished by through class conflict and
revolution

16. Be afraid…be very afraid!
• “The Communists disdain to conceal their
views and aims. They openly declare that their
ends can be attained only by the forcible
overthrow of all social conditions. Let the
ruling classes tremble at a Communistic
revolution. The proletarians have nothing to
lose but their chains, They have a world to
win. Working men of all countries, unite!”
• Marx & Engels, The Communistic Manifesto, p74

17. Video!
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAaWvVFE
RVA

18. Bibliography
• Rob Stones; 1988; Key Sociological Thinkers
• George Ritzer & Douglas Goodman; 2003;
Sociological Theory
• Pip Jones; 2003; Introducing Social Theory
• Karl Marx & Frederick Engels; 1971; Manifesto of
the Communist Party
• Monty Python, excerpt from the Holy Grail, 1974
• http://www.listal.com/viewimage/1857824h