To put the dialectics back on its feet, Marx argued that to understand the real driving force of history, one has to look critically at society, the world, nature, and the universe. By using the scientific method, critical analysis will lead to better understanding of the world. This is the dialectical materialist approach. According to Marx, humans, in their drive for survival have to meet their basic needs first before everything else, before they could practice religion, politics, culture, and etc…To meet their material needs is to produce.
Thus, production is the driving force of history. Without capitalism, there would have been no Marxism. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. Capitalism was born in Europe in the 18th and 19th century out of the revolutionary struggles of the new emerging class, the bourgeoisie. Before their rise, the Church dominated politics, economics, and religion, ruling the continent by feudalism. Under feudalism, production was labored by the peasants ruled by the landlords and the clergy.
However, in a few centuries in what historians call the Medieval Period, a class of small merchants had laid out the networks of the rising economy called mercantilism. They were considered as social outcasts by the landlords who held the Catholic moral or prejudice , believing that getting rich by selling or lending money with interest was very sinful.
The aristocrats, however, were too proud to admit their appreciation of the goods delivered from afar by the merchants. The growth of small market economies gave accidental results along the process, like technological advances, for example. Their trading centers grew from small towns into big medieval cities called burghs, where the French word, bourgeois or city dweller came from. Feudalism, did not have total ideological control over society that it ruled.
The Church itself was shook by schisms and the movement called Protestantism led by Martin Luther. They finally found a kind of Christianity that suited well with their economic interest. The highly cultural period called the Renaissance, also, gave encouragement to a generation of freethinkers. A couple of centuries later came the dawn of the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason. Using Marxist dialectical analysis on this period of history, feudal Europe under the Catholic Church was the thesis.
It was ridden with contradictions within i. The anti-thesis was growing power of the merchants that eventually challenged the church and the nobility. Feudalism, a backward system compared to the rising capitalism became futile in the face of technological advances favoring the bourgeoisie. Its armed hostility to science and reason during the Inquisition would eventually backfire in the irony of history.
Spain may had all the gold plundered from her colonies, but England had the Industrial Revolution. In military warfare, the Spanish galleons were no match to the English steam-powered battleships. French feudalism embodied in the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV was ignorant of its coming downfall. Louis XVI paid the price, literally, with his head when it was negated by the guillotine.
With its economic power, the revolutionary bourgeoisie eventually became the political masters of the situation, issuing the historical Declaration of the Rights of Man. The modern institution of democracy had sown the seeds of socialism inside the womb of capitalism. Marxism was only possible when the political, philosophical, and economic ground in Europe became favorable now to the bourgeoisie.
It took the politics of the French socialists but rejected their utopianism. It applied the dialectics of Hegel in analyzing the changing society but without his idealism and mysticism. His thorough research about capitalism in the London library during his exile made it possible to complete the book, Das Kapital , an in depth dialectical analysis on capitalism.
The point, however, is to change it. Marx saw capitalism as the most dynamic system throughout history. It has dominated the world within just three centuries. The endless drive for profit constantly revolutionizes technology.
His work at the Hegelian dialectic was used by him in order to create materialistic explanation of social structures. His theory of the class struggle is the essential point. This struggle takes place because of the desire to have the control under the means of production.
Marx criticized laissez-faire policy which he thought was a mean for capitalists to take advantage from the working class without any obstacles. He supported Communism which means the leading role of workers under the individuals in order to establish wealth for everyone.
He rejected the possibility to a king or parliament to rule the country efficiently and thought that working class could do it much better. His views were the inspiration for Russian and, later, Chinese Revolutions which were the most significant in the world together with smaller in scale but not less important for societies Thorpe, There were many works of literature which mostly described life and different situation in which working masses were involved.
Marx also uses English literature in order to spread out his communistic propaganda. He also condemned traditional forms and techniques which were used in literature at those times considering them to be bourgeois. Auden, and Louis MacNeice use their works as a means to spread out their communistic propaganda Ramirez, They contributed to class struggle supporting their fight against the bourgeoisie.
Show, Arden, Edgar and Hares are just some dramatists among those you brought communism propaganda via their works to the theatre scene. Novels with Marxian ideas were less popular in England than dramas but there were books which showed and told about life of poor, exploited people who had to stay unfairness and prejudice.
George Gissing and George Moore were such novelists who paid their attention to these aspects which were firstly discussed by Marx in his works. Marxian thoughts, views and theories were also reflected and impacted the literary criticism all over the world. Walter Benjamin, Lukacs, Gramsci, Fredric Jameson, and Macherey were critics from the Marxian school which was very simple if even not to say limited.
It was related with structuralism, psychoanalytic theories and even reconstruction in such way creating new approaches and the whole system.
Free marxism papers, essays, and research papers. Marxism and Leninism - Marxism and Leninism According to most historians, “history is told by the victors”, which would explain why most people equate communism with Vladimir Lenin.
Essays and criticism on Marxist Criticism - Critical Essays.
However, there are differences between Marxists especially over the way which social change can come about. For example, humanistic Marxists like Gramsci give a greater role to the conscious decisions and actions of human beings than do structural Marxists like Althusser, for whom social change comes as the product of changes within the . Mar 12, · Free Essays from Bartleby | Describe the Marxist approach to the media and discuss its strengths and weaknesses (In modern society the main influence over.
Essays on Marxism. The Marxism is one of the most popular assignments among students' documents. If you are stuck with writing or missing ideas, scroll down and find inspiration in the best samples. Marxism is quite a rare and popular topic for writing an essay, but it certainly is in our database. Marxism and Structuralism: • Marx concerned with causes of conflict in society and believed that it was the result of struggle between different socio-economic classes. • saying capitalism as a bondage from which people strive to be liberated. • Theory of history based on historical materialism, where the system of economic production .