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Karl Marx
Chapter Outline
The Dialectic
Dialectical Method
Human Potential
Alienation
The Structures of Capitalist Society
Materialist Conception of History
Cultural Aspects of Capitalist Society
Marxs Economics: A Case Study
Communism
Criticisms
Marx began his most famous work, The Manifesto of the Communist Party (Marx and
Engels, 1848/1948), with the following line: There is a spectre haunting Europe, the
spectre of communism. It might be said that the same ghost is haunting our understanding of Marx. It is difcult to separate the ideas of Marx from the political movements that
they inspired. Nevertheless, as Tom Rockmore (2002:96) tells us, we must try to free
Marx from Marxism.
For many, Marx has become more of an icon than a thinker deserving of serious
study. The symbolism of his name tends to muddle our understanding of his ideas. Marx
is the only theorist we will study who has had political movements and social systems
named after him. He is probably the only theorist your friends and family have strong
opinions about. He is often criticized, as well as praised, by people who have never actually read his work. Even among his followers, Marxs ideas frequently are reduced to
slogans such as the opium of the people and the dictatorship of proletariat, but the
role of these slogans in Marxs encompassing theory often is ignored.
There are many reasons for this lack of understanding of Marxs social theory, the
main one being that he never really completed his social theory. He planned, early in his
career, to publish separate works on economics, law, morals, politics, etc., and then in
a special work, to present them once again as a connected whole, to show the relationship between the parts. . . . (Marx, 1964:280). He never did this nal work and never
even completed his separate work on economics. Instead, much of his time was taken up
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by study, journalism, political activity, and a series of minor intellectual and political
arguments with friends and adversaries.
In addition, although Marx could write clear and inspiring prose, especially in his
political tracts, he often preferred a vocabulary that relied on complex philosophical
traditions, and he would make these terms even more difcult to understand by implicitly redening them for his own use. Vilfredo Pareto made the classic critique of Marx
by comparing his words to a fable about bats. When someone said they were birds, the
bats would cry, No, we are mice. When someone said they were mice, they protested
that they were birds. Whatever interpretation one makes of Marx, others can offer alternative interpretations. For example, some stress Marxs early work on human potential
and tend to discount his political economy (see, for example, Ollman, 1976; Wallimann, 1981; Wartenberg, 1982). Others stress Marxs later work on the economic
structures of society and see that work as distinct from his early, largely philosophical
work on human nature (see Althusser, 1969; Gandy, 1979; McMurty, 1978).1 A recent
interpreter of Marx made the following comment, which applies equally to this chapter: Virtually every paragraph in this chapter could be accompanied by three concise
paragraphs describing why other readers of Marx, erudite and inuential, think that this
paragraph is wrong, in emphasis or substance (Miller, 1991:105). And, of course, the
differing interpretations have political consequences, making any disagreement
extremely contentious.2
Despite these problems, Marxs theories have produced one of sociologys most
productive and signicant research programs. When Marx died in 1883, the eleven
mourners at his funeral seemed to belie what Engels said in his eulogy: His name and
work will endure through the ages. Nevertheless, Engels seems to have been right. His
ideas have been so inuential that even one of his critics admitted that, in a sense, we
are all Marxists now (Singer, 1980:1). As Hannah Arendt (2002:274) wrote, if Marx
seems to be forgotten, it is not because Marxs thought and the methods he introduced
have been abandoned, but rather because they have become so axiomatic that their origin is no longer remembered.
It is for these reasons that a return to Marx has proven so productive to those
working in sociology. Thinking about Marx helps us to clarify what sociology and,
indeed, our society have taken for granted. Rediscoveries and reinterpretation of Marx
have often renewed sociology and opened up a fresh perspective on such issues as alienation, globalization, and, most recently, the environment (Foster, 2000).
Despite differing interpretations, there is general agreement that Marxs main
interest was in the historical basis of inequality, especially the unique form that it takes
under capitalism. However, Marxs approach is different from many of the theories that
we will examine. For Marx, a theory about how society works would be partial, because
what he mainly sought was a theory about how to change society. Marxs theory, then,
is an analysis of inequality under capitalism and how to change it.
1Our approach is based on the premise that there is no discontinuity or contradiction between Marxs early work on human
potential and his later work on the structures of capitalist society. We believe that his early ideas continue, at least implicitly,
in his later work even though these ideas were certainly modied by his study of the economic structures of capitalism.
2In Josef Stalins Soviet Union, there was no problem about the correct interpretation of Marx, since Stalin provided the
interpretation and brutally eliminated all those, such as Leon Trotsky, who disagreed.
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As capitalism has come to dominate the globe and the most signicant communist alternatives have disappeared, some might argue that Marxs theories have lost their
relevance. However, once we realize that Marx provides us with an analysis of capitalism, we can see that his theories are more relevant now than ever (McLennan, 2001:43).
Marx provides a diagnosis of capitalism that is able to reveal its tendencies to crises,
point out its perennial inequalities, and, if nothing else, demand that capitalism live up
to its own promises. The example of Marx makes an important point about theory. Even
when its particular predictions are disprovedeven when the proletariat revolution that
Marx believed to be imminent did not come abouttheories still hold a value as an
alternative to our current society. Theories may not tell us what will happen, but they
can argue for what should happen and help us develop a plan for carrying out the change
that the theory envisions and/or resisting the change that the theory predicts.
The Dialectic
Vladimir Lenin (1972:180) said that no one can fully understand Marxs work without
a prior understanding of the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. We can only hope that
this is not true, since Hegel was one of the most purposefully difcult philosophers ever
to have written. Nevertheless, we must understand some of Hegel in order to appreciate
the central Marxian conception of the dialectic.
The idea of a dialectical philosophy had been around for centuries (Gadamer,
1989). Its basic idea is the centrality of contradiction. While most philosophies, and
indeed common sense, treat contradictions as mistakes, a dialectical philosophy believes
that contradictions exist in reality and that the most appropriate way to understand reality is to study the development of those contradictions. Hegel used the idea of contradiction to understand historical change. According to Hegel, historical change has been
driven by the contradictory understandings that are the essence of reality, our attempts
to resolve the contradictions, and the new contradictions that develop.
Marx also accepted the centrality of contradictions to historical change. We see
this in such well-known formulations as the contradictions of capitalism and class
contradictions. However, unlike Hegel, Marx did not believe that these contradictions
could be worked out in our understanding, that is, in our minds. Instead, for Marx these
are real existing contradictions (Wilde, 1991:277). For Marx, such contradictions are
not resolved by the philosopher sitting in an armchair, but by a life-and-death struggle
that changes the social world. This was a crucial transformation because it allowed
Marx to move the dialectic out of the realm of philosophy and into the realm of a study
of social relations grounded in the material world. It is this focus that makes Marxs
work so relevant to sociology, even though the dialectical approach is very different
from the mode of thinking used by most sociologists. The dialectic leads to an interest
in the conicts and contradictions among various levels of social reality, rather than to
the more traditional sociological interest in the ways these various levels mesh neatly
into a cohesive whole.
For example, one of the contradictions within capitalism is the relationship
between the workers and the capitalists who own the factories and other means of
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production with which the work is done. The capitalist must exploit the workers in order
to make a prot from the workers labor. The workers, in contradiction to the capitalists,
want to keep at least some of the prot for themselves. Marx believed that this contradiction was at the heart of capitalism, and that it would grow worse as capitalists drove
more and more people to become workers by forcing small rms out of business and as
competition between the capitalists forced them to further exploit the workers to make
a prot. As capitalism expands, the number of workers exploited, as well as the degree
of exploitation, increases. This contradiction cannot be resolved through philosophy, but
only through social change. The tendency for the level of exploitation to escalate leads
to more and more resistance on the part of the workers. Resistance begets more exploitation and oppression, and the likely result is a confrontation between the two classes
(Boswell and Dixon, 1993).
Dialectical Method
Marxs focus on real existing contradictions led to a particular method for studying
social phenomena that has also come to be called dialectical (Ball, 1991; Friedrichs,
1972; Ollman, 1976; Schneider, 1971; Starosta, 2008).
Fact and Value
In dialectical analysis, social values are not separable from social facts. Many sociologists believe that their values can and must be separated from their study of facts about
the social world. The dialectical thinker believes that it is not only impossible to keep
values out of the study of the social world but also undesirable, because it produces a
dispassionate, inhuman sociology that has little to offer to people in search of answers
to the problems they confront. Facts and values are inevitably intertwined, with the
result that the study of social phenomena is value-laden. Thus, to Marx it was impossible and, even if possible, undesirable to be dispassionate in his analysis of capitalist
society. But Marxs emotional involvement in what he was studying did not mean that
his observations were inaccurate. It could even be argued that Marxs passionate views
on these issues gave him unparalleled insight into the nature of capitalist society. A less
passionate student might have delved less deeply into the dynamics of the system. In
fact, research into the work of scientists indicates that the idea of a dispassionate scientist is largely a myth and that the very best scientists are the ones who are most passionate about, and committed to, their ideas (Mitroff, 1974).
Reciprocal Relations
The dialectical method of analysis does not see a simple, one-way, cause-and-effect
relationship among the various parts of the social world. For the dialectical thinker,
social inuences never simply ow in one direction as they often do for cause-andeffect thinkers. To the dialectician, one factor may have an effect on another, but it is
just as likely that the latter will have a simultaneous effect on the former. For example,
the increasing exploitation of the workers by the capitalist may cause the workers to
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K ARL M ARX
A Biographical Sketch
Karl Marx was born in Trier, Prussia, on May 5, 1818
(Beilharz, 2005b). His father, a lawyer, provided the family
with a fairly typical middle-class existence. Both parents
were from rabbinical families, but for business reasons the
father had converted to Lutheranism when Karl was very
young. In 1841 Marx received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of
Berlin, a school heavily inuenced by Hegel and the Young Hegelians, supportive,
yet critical, of their master. Marxs doctorate was a dry philosophical treatise, but it
did anticipate many of his later ideas. After graduation he became a writer for a
liberal-radical newspaper and within ten months had become its editor-in-chief.
However, because of its political positions, the paper was closed shortly thereafter
by the government. The early essays published in this period began to reect a
number of the positions that would guide Marx throughout his life. They were
liberally sprinkled with democratic principles, humanism, and youthful idealism. He
rejected the abstractness of Hegelian philosophy, the naive dreaming of utopian
communists, and those activists who were urging what he considered to be
premature political action. In rejecting these activists, Marx laid the groundwork for
his own lifes work:
Practical attempts, even by the masses, can be answered with a cannon as soon
as they become dangerous, but ideas that have overcome our intellect and
conquered our conviction, ideas to which reason has riveted our conscience, are
chains from which one cannot break loose without breaking ones heart; they are
demons that one can only overcome by submitting to them.
(Marx, 1842/1977:20)
Marx married in 1843 and soon thereafter was forced to leave Germany for
the more liberal atmosphere of Paris. There he continued to grapple with the ideas
of Hegel and his supporters, but he also encountered two new sets of ideasFrench
socialism and English political economy. It was the unique way in which he combined Hegelianism, socialism, and political economy that shaped his intellectual
orientation. Also of great importance at this point was his meeting the man who
was to become his lifelong friend, benefactor, and collaboratorFriedrich Engels
(Carver, 1983). The son of a textile manufacturer, Engels had become a socialist
critical of the conditions facing the working class. Much of Marxs compassion for
the misery of the working class came from his exposure to Engels and his ideas. In
1844 Engels and Marx had a lengthy conversation in a famous café in Paris and laid
the groundwork for a lifelong association. Of that conversation Engels said, Our
complete agreement in all theoretical elds became obvious . . . and our joint work
dates from that time (McLellan, 1973:131). In the following year, Engels published
a notable work, The Condition of the Working Class in England. During this period
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Marx wrote a number of abstruse works (many unpublished in his lifetime), including
The Holy Family and The German Ideology (both coauthored with Engels), but he
also produced The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, which better
foreshadowed his increasing preoccupation with the economic domain.
While Marx and Engels shared a theoretical orientation, there were many
differences between the two men. Marx tended to be theoretical, a disorderly
intellectual, and very oriented to his family. Engels was a practical thinker, a neat
and tidy businessman, and a person who did not believe in the institution of the
family. In spite of their differences, Marx and Engels forged a close union in which
they collaborated on books and articles and worked together in radical organizations,
and Engels even helped support Marx throughout the rest of his life so that Marx
could devote himself to his intellectual and political endeavors.
In spite of the close association of the names of Marx and Engels, Engels
made it clear that he was the junior partner:
Marx could very well have done without me. What Marx accomplished I would not
have achieved. Marx stood higher, saw farther, and took a wider and quicker view
than the rest of us. Marx was a genius.
(Engels, cited in McLellan, 1973:131132)
In fact, many believe that Engels failed to understand many of the subtleties
of Marxs work (C. Smith, 1997). After Marxs death, Engels became the leading
spokesperson for Marxian theory and in various ways distorted and oversimplied it,
although he remained faithful to the political perspective he had forged with Marx.
Because some of his writings had upset the Prussian government, the French
government (at the request of the Prussians) expelled Marx in 1845, and he moved to
Brussels. His radicalism was growing, and he had become an active member of the
international revolutionary movement. He also associated with the Communist League
and was asked to write a document (with Engels) expounding its aims and beliefs.
The result was the Communist Manifesto of 1848, a work that was characterized by
ringing political slogans (for example, Working men of all countries, unite!).
In 1849 Marx moved to London, and, in light of the failure of the political
revolutions of 1848, he began to withdraw from active revolutionary activity and to
move into more serious and detailed research on the workings of the capitalist
system. In 1852, he began his famous studies in the British Museum of the working
conditions in capitalism. These studies ultimately resulted in the three volumes of
Capital, the rst of which was published in 1867; the other two were published
posthumously. He lived in poverty during these years, barely managing to survive
on a small income from his writings and the support of Engels. In 1864 Marx
became reinvolved in political activity by joining the International, an international
movement of workers. He soon gained preeminence within the movement and
devoted a number of years to it. He began to gain fame both as a leader of the
International and as the author of Capital. But the disintegration of the International
by 1876, the failure of various revolutionary movements, and personal illness took
their toll on Marx. His wife died in 1881, a daughter in 1882, and Marx himself on
March 14, 1883.
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become increasingly dissatised and more militant, but the increasing militancy of the
proletariat may well cause the capitalists to react by becoming even more exploitative in
order to crush the resistance of the workers. This kind of thinking does not mean that
the dialectician never considers causal relationships in the social world. It does mean
that when dialectical thinkers talk about causality, they are always attuned to reciprocal
relationships among social factors as well as to the dialectical totality of social life in
which they are embedded.
Past, Present, Future
Dialecticians are interested not only in the relationships of social phenomena in the contemporary world but also in the relationship of those contemporary realities to both past
(Bauman, 1976:81) and future social phenomena. This has two distinct implications for
a dialectical sociology. First, it means that dialectical sociologists are concerned with
studying the historical roots of the contemporary world as Marx (185758/1964) did in
his study of the sources of modern capitalism. In fact, dialectical thinkers are very critical of modern sociology for its failure to do much historical research. A good example
of Marxs thinking in this regard is found in the following famous quotation from The
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:
Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not
make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly
encountered from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a
nightmare on the brain of the living.
(Marx, 1852/1963:15)
Second, many dialectical thinkers are attuned to current social trends in order to
understand the possible future directions of society. This interest in future possibilities is
one of the main reasons dialectical sociology is inherently political. It is interested in
encouraging practical activities that would bring new possibilities into existence. However, dialecticians believe that the nature of this future world can be discerned only
through a careful study of the contemporary world. It is their view that the sources of
the future exist in the present.
No Inevitabilities
The dialectical view of the relationship between the present and the future need not
imply that the future is determined by the present. Terence Ball (1991) describes Marx as
a political possibilist rather than a historical inevitabilist. Because social phenomena
are constantly acting and reacting, the social world dees a simple, deterministic model.
The future may be based on some contemporary model, but not inevitably.3 Marxs historical studies had shown him that people make choices, but that these choices are limited.
For instance, Marx believed that society was engaged in a class struggle and that people
could choose to participate either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large,
3Marx
did, however, occasionally discuss the inevitability of socialism.
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Large-Scale Structures
in the Past
Large-Scale Structures
in the Present
Large-Scale Structures
in the Future
Actors in the Past
Actors in the Present
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Actors in the Future
FIGURE 6.1 Schematic Representation of a Sociologically Relevant Dialectic
or in the common ruin of the contending classes (Marx and Engels, 1848/1948). Marx
hoped and believed that the future was to be found in communism, but he did not
believe that the workers could simply wait passively for it to arrive. Communism would
come only through their choices and struggles.
This disinclination to think deterministically is what makes the best-known model
of the dialecticthesis, antithesis, synthesisinadequate for sociological use. This simple model implies that a social phenomenon will inevitably spawn an opposing form and
that the clash between the two will inevitably lead to a new, synthetic social form. But
in the real world, there are no inevitabilities. Furthermore, social phenomena are not
easily divided into the simple thesis, antithesis, and synthesis categories adopted by
some Marxists. The dialectician is interested in the study of real relationships rather than
grand abstractions. It is this disinclination to deal in grand abstractions that led Marx
away from Hegel and would lead him today to reject such a great oversimplication of
the dialectic as thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
Actors and Structures
Dialectical thinkers are also interested in the dynamic relationship between actors and
social structures. Marx was certainly attuned to the ongoing interplay among the major
levels of social analysis. The heart of Marxs thought lies in the relationship between
people and the large-scale structures they create (Lefebvre, 1968:8). On the one hand,
these large-scale structures help people fulll themselves; on the other, they represent a
grave threat to humanity. But the dialectical method is even more complex than this,
because, as we have already seen, the dialectician considers past, present, and future circumstances, and this applies to both actors and structures. Figure 6.1 is a simplied
schematic representation of this enormously complex and sophisticated perspective.
Human Potential
A good portion of this chapter will be devoted to a discussion of Marxs macrosociology, in particular his analysis of the macrostructures of capitalism. But before we can
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analyze these topics, we need to begin with Marxs thoughts on the more microsociological aspects of social reality. Marx built his critical analysis of the contradictions of
capitalist society on his premises about human potential (or nature), its relation to
labor, and its potential for alienation under capitalism. He believed that there was a
real contradiction between our human potential and the way that we must…
