Marx and the Communist Manifesto

Let's begin with Karl Marx. A great deal of his ideas were worked on with Fredrich Engles.


Marx was born in 1818 in Germany (to Jewish parents) he converted to Lutherism and studied law, philosophy and revolution.
His most famous and influential works was the communist manifesto (i'll go into more detail later) which was written in 1848.
Marx's profession was a journalist and editor for radical newspapers within Europe.


The idea of technological determinism links to the teleological approach to history - history is heading somewhere it will always be developing this leads to Darwin's theory on evolution. Marx believed you could explain everything about society by analysing the way economic forces shape social, religious, legal and political processes. He made socialism scientific - his method was mainly scientific, which he got from Darwin. Marx revives materialism and believed the rational formula for summing up evolution.


According to Engles - Marx achieved a fusion of - Hegalian philosophy (history), British Empiricism and French Revolution.
However, he thought that Hegel's ideas weren't true. He attacks Hegel's dialect idealism/mysticism. He believed that development occurs through the dialectic process - the same but different to Hegel...
basically, Marx thinks that man relate to matter which is the driving force for developing. Marx didn't understand the accepted rubbish conditions of the proletariat - the proletariat had nothing to lose so why didn't they fight?
The Working Class (proletariat) had nothing - no property - which means they have nothing lose and everything to gain.
Marx sees the class struggle through history - master and slave, lord, bourgeoisie and proletariat. 



"nothing to lose but their chains"


Feudalism represented by the landowner,capitalism represented by the industrial employer and socialism represented by the wage earner. - one triad that concerned him 


Capitalism alienates men from themselves and from one another, the barrier between you and what should be natural. - MARX HATED CAPITALISM


Now on to Communism...

it can be described in the dialectic method
Thesis - The bourgeoisie
Antithesis - The proletariat
Synthesis - socialism


Communism came from socialism and the communist manifesto is about 150 years old. It outlines the bourgeoisie as rich,upper class and the proletariat as poor, working class people. The bourgeoisie owned - in means of production and the wages of employers and are in constant battle with the proletariat because there is a clear hierarchy between them - the proletariat are the workers who do not own.


In terms of Marx, he believes that the proletariat have nothing to lose, so why are they not trying to have ownership and status?  - they are only tied down by the class struggle.
The class struggle that is present is a political struggle according to Marx. He believes that eventually the proletariat will rise out of their chains with the tools provided by the bourgeoisie and have status. 


Furthermore, the next part of the communist manifesto defends communism as well as listing a number of ways that society can begin to be a classless and stateless one:

1. to abolish property in land and the application of rent of land for public purposes
2. Income tax
3. to abolish inheritance
4. to confiscate property of emigrants
5. credit within the state
6. to centralise the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state
7. to extend factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with common. 
8. equal liability of labour
9. gradual abolition of the massive distinction between town and country
10. free education - no child labour in factories

Marx believed communism will be like a garden of Eden, there would be no social status difference of people within different professions. It would be similar to utopia.  

"from each - according to ability, to each- according to need"

He believed that people would chose a profession that they enjoyed, not for money or status and he believed that capitalism made people feel alienated because they do not feel 100% themselves at work and put on an act to fit in. 

Everyone would be equal 100%.

Socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat. - The bourgeoisie would no longer exist which means no more class struggle and a move towards communism.

Communism does not contain a state - it is non existent - so that we live in the state of nature. This links to Rousseau, Locke and Hobbes who all held views regarding the state of nature.

“Capitalism comes in to the world dripping from head to good, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” 

'The Big Four' - Weber

The four great sceptics -

Weber - power, legitimacy, domination - "disillusion " 

Marx - class, ideology, economics - Bonapartism, Stagnation 

Nietzsche - morality, culture - God is dead (said 1880)

Freud - sexuality, irrationality, sub-conscious - depression, 'ordinary miser' psychopathology, repression

All experience "from a certain perspective"

Max Weber

After Karl Marx there was no revolution and there was a rise of the German state and social democracy. This new state needed bureaucracy which created ranks and social status - rise of the middle class and problems of militarism.

-modern banking system

-state intervetion in the economy (regulation)

-bourgoise values spread downwards

-property ownership dispersed

-imperialism

-WW1 

Weber - everything is accidental.

He is a Kantian and believed humans cannot know the objects in themselves, there is no absolute reality; only a mental picture of reality. There is no truth just honest beliefs of a person or a group of people.

So Weber found four fundamental types of social action

1. instrumental - rational action   (an action carried out  we want to do)
2. value - rational action   (an action carried out because it is good practice)
3. affectual - emotional affirmation/disaffirmation   (an action carried out for an emotional reason)
4. traditional orientation  (an action carried out because society has always done it)

this followed on with three types of domination

1. tradtional
2. charismatic
3. legal - rational (bureaucratic)

Weber says...

Humanity has lost the skills that we used to have - architecture and music - because of bureaucracy. People in bureaucratic societies are are just a very small cog inside an extremely large wheel. We can't get away from bureaucracy, we live and die in a this world - fuelled by bureaucracy.

The Dreyfus Affair and J'Accuse.

For Journalists, The Dreyfus Affair helped a great deal in establishing them.

The defeat at Sedan (1871) and the Paris commune were what came before and resulted in the Dreyfus Affair.
Franco-Prussian War (was the result of the defeat at Sedan) - and was to attempt to unify Germany (Prussian and German states) by growing power and influence of Prussia under Bismark. Napoleon III was captured at Sedan in 1871 after going into war without any allies.
A huge indemnity is to be paid to the Germans by the French and Alsace and Lorraine are taken over by Germany and the French residents took over. 2 million people lived in Paris but were completely surrounded by Germans. With this huge amount of people, there were problems with feeding them, which meant horses, animals from zoos and rats were eaten... YUM.

The Paris commune -
The commune was created 18th March-May 28th 1871.
Lenin called it the "festival of the oppressed".
Marx celebrated it as "the dictatorship of the proletariat".

During the Paris commune it was a communist-style state and social reforms were introduced. Women were important in this with ideas such as - women should have the vote, nurseries (so women could work) and better working conditions. 

The commune was destroyed and 20,000-30,000 people were executed - women were shot in their thousands.

"In Paris everyone was guilty"

The Paris commune was short lived but had a huge impact upon European politics.

The Dreyfus Affair -
Defeat of France in Franco-Prussian war (1871) was still casting a strong shadow.

For France, the army was a main symbol of their identity, they became very militaristic. France became extremely paranoid and scared of another war with Germany, so they increased the number of spies they had by all European countries.
the affair turns into right against left - The army, catholic church and monarchists ---> Anti Dreyfusards.
                                                         Republicans, socialists, Jews ---> Dreyfusards.

The French army found Dreyfus guilty of Treason after military evidence was leaked. There was a secret court martial and Dreyfus was sent to prison on 'Devil's Isand'.
A man name Esterhazy was tried but acquitted after the evidence was looked at again.
Dreyfus was then tried again but found guilty again even without any evidence and he was released after a pardon but it was kept secret.
After all of this, Journalist Emile Zola wrote 'J'Accuse' saying why Dreyfus was innocent and the trial was all a conspiracy.  However, Emile Zola was tried and convicted of libel, fined and sentenced to prison but thankfully he flees to London.

Anti-Semitism and Nationalism (Lazare) -
A nation is called an agglomeration of individuals having in common their territory, language, religion, law, customs, manners, spirit, historic mission.
|
Nations do exist --> sometimes they are organised under the same government but lost language.

Jews do not exist in terms of race but a Jewish fellowship.
The Jewish nation stays strong because of religion, social condition and the external conditions forced upon them.

 in order to be a part of this nation they have to accept that God and the laws derive from him --> Torah outlines the laws of God - which became the laws of Israel.
This leads to their education and traditions being kept which constitutes them as a nation.


Modern anti-Semitism is different to anti-Judaism, it is more self conscious, more pragmatic, more deliberate (fear and hatred of strangers)  Anti-Semitism was one of the ways the peoples would try to reduce individualities -  Jews appeared a danger they did not agree with the nation, their concepts were opposed to the social and intellectual conceptions which constitute nationality.

Jews are not assimilated - they continue to differentiate themselves from those around them. If they are a Frenchman or a German they are also a Jew - not just a Frenchman or a German and they maintain their characteristics as people.
Laws, prejudice and persecution prevented them from being part of wider community - they were estranged.
Assimilation caused friction between Jews from different countries, they kept to their separate communities within a particular country.
Anti-Semitism can come from the point that Jews do not have a Fatherland, they are placed in communities within different nations. (the nation continues if the self-consciousness and consciousness of the community doesn't disappear.)