Sociology Lecture
MARX
CAPITAL AND LABOUR
DEVELOPMENT OFCLASS
PROCESSES AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS
Key Questions:
What does Marx mean by the concept of social polarisation and how relevant is it for contemporary society?
What is the significance of class- consciousness and class conflict for modern society?
Further reading:
Bilton, A. et. al. (2002) Introductory Sociology, Palgrave Macmillan, 4th Edition.
Fulcher, J. and Scott, J. (2007) Sociology, Oxford University Press.
Giddens, A. (2006) Sociology, Polity Press, 5th Edition.
Haralambos, M. and Holborn, M. (2008) Sociology Themes and Perspectives, Collins, Seventh Edition.
O`Donnell, M. (1997) Introduction to Sociology, Nelson, 4th Edition.
Marx`s basic analysis of the Capitalist mode of Production
The Rise of a new “magical” commodity – labour power – wage – capital
Class polarisation and class conflict
Marx does not intend to provide us with another religious or political dogma. He rather adopts the “method” of a “ruthless criticism of everything existing”, including even his own conclusions.
Marx versus liberalism
According to Marx, the period of transition from the feudal order to the new social – capitalist mode of production was far from smooth, liberating and establishing the ideals of the Declaration of Human Rights.
He describes this period, by using the term “primitive accumulation of capital”, in most bleak colours, as a historical period of excessive cruelty, violence and despair. Emile Zola, distinguished, realist French novelist, gives similar images in his famous novel, Germinal, which narrates the first germs of the arising class conflict, out of the appalling living and work-conditions of the working class in the 19th century.
The main features of this transition were the following:
• Forced expropriation of the agricultural labourers from their land resulting in the creation of a huge mass of dispossessed peasants.
• Violent appropriation of land and new means of production by a few individuals – the rise of private property.
• Accumulation of large pools of wealth through the plunder of colonies.
• Rise of machinery – the factory rather than land becomes the centre of production.
Separation of producers from the means of production
Creation of “free labourers”, who only possess their ability to work
Machines create new conditions of production: “the automation consists in numeral mechanical and intellectual organs, so that the workers themselves are cast merely as its conscious linkages”, Marx, K. (1858) Grundrisse.
It is the machine that now possesses the skills and strength and pace of the worker, with a soul of it`s own, in its mechanical laws. Consequently, labour expenditure becomes uniform.
Marx`s distinction between concrete and abstract labour.
Mechanisation and automation bring uniformity and flattening of the work process
Work can now be measured in time – units
The Rise of a Specific Commodity
We now enter into the period of generalised market economy.
Massive production of commodities.
However, commodities, under the specific capitalist mode of production, are not merely products of human labour in general, since the latter itself (human labour) acquires new features. They possess a two – fold character which Marx reveals:
Each commodity has two aspects;
• use–value: its ability to meet specific human needs, according to each commodities` unique physical characteristics, whose production corresponds to the activity of concrete or useful labour.
• Exchange–value: its ability to be exchangeable with any other commodity, through the mediation of money. How though is this possible? It is precisely the fact that all commodities are now reducible to time, to the differing amount of time which is necessary for the production of each commodity. This is a consequence of the process of mechanisation and uniformity of labour, the rise of what Marx calls abstract labour.
