Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Class conflict: The Class conflict, for Marx, is the struggle between social classes, particularly the bourgeoisie (owners of means of production) and the proletariat (working class). It arises from economic inequality and exploitation, driving historical change._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Karl Marx on Class Conflict - Dictionary of Arguments
Rothbard II 376 Class conflict/Marx/Rothbard: Even assuming that the unexplained incompatibility between the productive forces and the relations of production exists, why shouldn't this incompatibility continue forever? Why doesn't the economy simply lapse into permanent stagnation of the technological forces? This 'contradiction', so to speak, was scarcely enough to generate Marx's goal of the inevitable proletarian communist revolution. >Productive forces, >Relations of production, >Historical materialism, >Technology/Marx. Class conflict: The answer that Marx supplies, the motor of the inevitable revolutions in history, is inherent class conflict, inherent struggles between economic classes. For, in addition to the property rights system, one of the consequences of the relations of production, as determined by the productive forces, is the 'class structure' of society. For Marx, the fetters are invariably applied by the privileged 'ruling classes', Who somehow serve as surrogates for, or living embodiments of, the social relations ofproduction and the legal property system. In contrast, another, inevitably 'rising' economic class somehow embodies the oppressed, or fettered, technologies and modes of production. Rothbard II 377 The 'contradiction' between the fettered material productive forces and the fettering social relations of production thus becomes embodied in a determined class struggle between the 'rising' and the 'ruling' classes, which are bound, by the inevitable (material) dialectic of history to result in a triumphant revolution by the rising class. Material dialectic: (…) the material dialectic takes one socio-economic system, say feudalism, and claims that it 'gives rise' to its opposite, or 'negation', and its inevitable replacement by 'capitalism', which thus 'negates' and transcends feudalism. And in the same way electricity (or whatever) will inevitably give rise to a proletarian revolution which will permit electricity to triumph over the fetters that capitalists place upon it. RothbardVsMarx: It is diffcult to state this position without rejecting it immediately as drivel. In addition to all the flaws in historical materialism we have seen above, there is no causal chain that links a technology to a Class, or that permits economic classes to embody either technology or its 'production relations' fetters. There is no proffered reason why such classes must, or even plausibly might, act as determined puppets for or against new technologies. Why must feudal landlords try to suppress the steam mill? Why can't feudal landlords invest in steam mills? End of dialectic/end of history: If, finally, class struggle and the material dialectic bring about an inevitable proletarian revolution, why does the dialectic, as Marx of course maintains, at that point come to an end? For crucial to Marxism, as to other millennial and apocalyptic creeds, is that the dialectic can by no means roll on forever. On the contrary, the chiliast, whether pre- or post-millennial, invariably sees the end of the dialectic, or the end of history, as imminent. Marx's atheist dialectic, too, envisioned the imminent proletarian revolution, which would, after the 'raw communist' stage, bring Rothbard II 378 about a 'hig her communism' or perhaps a 'beyond communist' stage, which would be a classless society, a society of total equality, of no division of labour, a society without rulers. But since history is a 'history of class struggles' for Marx, the ultimate communist stage would be the final one, so that, in effect, history would then come to an end. BakuninVsMarx: Critics of Marx, from Bakunin to Machajski to Milovan Djilas, have of course pointed out, both prophetically and in retrospect, that the proletarian revolution, whichever its stage, would not eliminate classes, but, on the contrary, would set up a new ruling class and a new ruled. There would be no equality, but another inequality of power and inevitably of wealth: the oligarchic elite, the vanguard, as rulers, and the rest of society as the ruled. >Marx/Rothbard, >Ideology/Marx. - - - Höffe I 366 Class Conflict/Marx/Höffe: (...) [Marx] asserts an uninterrupted conflict, "which ended each time with a revolutionary transformation of the whole society. For its own time, it is the conflict of two classes, the main economic bourgeois called "bourgeois," the capitalists, and the wage laborers called "proletarians". This contemporary struggle is supposed to be the last one in world history, since the existing opposition is not replaced by a new opposition. The victory of the wage laborers over the capitalists is meant to overcome all (...) class barriers, thus bringing unity, harmony and peace to the world. >History/Marx. 1. K. Marx und F. Engels, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, 1848_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Marx I Karl Marx Das Kapital, Kritik der politische Ökonomie Berlin 1957 Rothbard II Murray N. Rothbard Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995 Rothbard III Murray N. Rothbard Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009 Rothbard IV Murray N. Rothbard The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988 Rothbard V Murray N. Rothbard Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977 Höffe I Otfried Höffe Geschichte des politischen Denkens München 2016 |
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> Counter arguments against Marx
> Counter arguments in relation to Class Conflict
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