Karl Marx: Historical Materialism and Social Production
Karl Marx: A Critique of Society and Materialism
Karl Marx provided a profound drawing of the society of his time. While Hegel viewed being as a product of thinking, Marx argued that the sensible is paramount. For Marx, thinking is the thinking of a sensible and material being—of man. Marx identifies the commencement of sensory experience as the order and condition of science. It is not possible to view man in the abstract; he must be inserted into nature.
The Centrality of Work and Production
Man is only related to nature through work, his core activity, which characterizes him differently from the rest of the natural world. Through work, man produces his own conditions of life and, in doing so, creates himself.
Concept of Production: To understand any historical phenomenon, it is necessary to know its mode of production. Through the relationship between man and nature, man acts and explains any historical phenomenon and any of the human arts. This is verified in the process of working through:
- Cooperative relations
- Exchange
- Social relations of production
Within these relations, the division of labor is highlighted, giving rise to the concept of the social division of labor.
The Theory of Alienation
Alienation: This involves the transfer of essence to a third party. The alienation of work occurs with wage labor. Man becomes a force of impersonal forces; the workforce becomes more than just a commodity—it is a man exchanging himself for a wage to survive. This is what Marx calls alienation.
There is an alienation of work because it ceases to be an expression of man and becomes a mere means of subsistence. Goods are characterized by:
- Use value
- Exchange value
Types of alienation include the object, the act of working oneself, and another person.
Historical and Dialectical Materialism
In the historical or dialectical materialism of Marx, there are immutable laws that determine the evolution of history. The basis for explaining historical phenomena is the economic production of that era and the resulting social structure. This explains spiritual production.
Economic Structure and Superstructure
Marx distinguishes between the economic structure and the superstructure:
- Economic Structure:
- Productive forces: Object, means of work, labor, and product.
- Social relations of production: Man cannot choose these; they are determined by existing productive forces. This includes the division of labor (the most important factor from which others derive, whether technical, natural, or social), ownership, and class division.
- Superstructure:
Consisting of spiritual ideas that govern a society. It exists on two levels:
- Legal-political structure: State and Law.
- Ideological structure: The production of a spiritual society and the ideas of the ruling class.
Ultimately, the material conditions determine consciousness.