Karl Marx's Core Theories: Alienation, Class Struggle, and Communism

Marxist Theory of Alienation

According to Marx, humanity is alienated for several reasons:

• Economic: In capitalist society, individuals earn a salary for their labor, but it is often barely enough to meet their needs. The capitalist exploits the proletariat by accumulating wealth without directly working.
• Professional: Society does not reward individuals for good work; instead, labor serves to enrich the capitalist, even though work is fundamental to personal fulfillment.
• Legal: While the law proclaims equality, in reality, opportunities are not the same for everyone.
• Ideological: The ideology of a society reflects the beliefs of the ruling class. Religion, for instance, promises rewards in the afterlife if one follows a set of rules and does not rebel, thus discouraging dissent.

Historical Materialism and Class Systems

Everything depends on the production system. Throughout history, there has always been an exploited class and an exploiting class:

• Asiatic/Primitive System: Exploited subject / Exploiting King
• Ancient Polis System: Exploited slave / Exploiting citizen
• Feudal System: Exploited serf / Exploiting noble
• Capitalist System: Exploited proletarian / Exploiting bourgeois

Class Struggle and Historical Change

The class struggle is the motor of history. In all systems, the economic infrastructure determines the social superstructure. Everything depends on the economy, and one's social class often determines one's ideology. For one system to transition to another, the former must first fail and give way. Ultimately, capitalism will fail, leading to a socialist or communist state.

Marx's Predictions on Capitalism

Marx made two key predictions regarding capitalism:

• The first is the inherent tendency towards monopoly.
• The second is an inverse relationship between profits and wages: to increase profits, employers will cut workers' wages.

The Path to Communism

This leads to a society with many poor and few rich. A pre-revolutionary situation will emerge, but the proletariat will initially lack the organization and awareness to initiate a revolution. The proletariat needs organization and class consciousness to realize their exploitation, which will align with their interests. The aim of the revolution is to seize power and establish a provisional dictatorship of the proletariat. Once the means of production are nationalized to distribute wealth, the communist state will be achieved, where inequality ceases to exist, and the nation-state withers away by itself.