Hegel's Dialectic and Marx's Class Struggle

The Hegelian Dialectic

Kant argues that there is only technological progress, not moral. Hegel takes up these ideas, stating that there is moral progress as a result of history. History is dialectical; it works reasonably well with the triad thesis-antithesis-synthesis. Any statement in itself implies a negation, so the whole thesis generates an antithesis. These confront each other. The confrontation can only be overcome by another phase: synthesis. The synthesis is a time where we integrate the best, most rational aspects of the thesis and the antithesis. The synthesis generates a new thesis, and therefore another antithesis. It forms a chain, but Hegel says that there will be a final synthesis. This process is history. Each new synthesis gathers more rationality and therefore more freedom and morality. So history makes sense, it is progressing in one direction, and sometimes it even seems reversed. What ideas are progressing? Hegel is idealistic. This process of the final synthesis ends with triumphant freedom, rationality, and morality.

Gain and Class Struggle According to Marx

For Marx, what defines humans is work. Work is the activity that transforms nature to meet needs through means (tools). These media are the means of production. The relationship between the worker and the owner of the means of production determines the type of society:

• When the worker does not own the means of production, there are three types of societies: slave, feudal, and capitalist.
• When the employee owns the means of production, there is a single production model: communism.

Among the four systems, there is a historical sequence, and like Hegel, there is a final synthesis, where communism triumphs with freedom, reason, and morality. Marx said that the step between each system was due to the class struggle. In communism, there are no classes; all are equal, there is no class struggle, and therefore, it is the final synthesis. For Marx, the establishment of a price is established in classical economics from raw materials, work, production costs, and finally, we add a plus. The surplus is the value of a thing when it is transformed. The surplus should be studied not for the addition to the price, but for the value-added work. Part of the work becomes the owner of the means of production and those who work. Throughout history, the price of labor returned to the owner becomes less. The sense of history is to gradually decrease the owner's appropriation and eliminate the class struggle that originates due to conflicting and opposing interests between the owner and the worker. This is achieved only in communism.