Marxist Analysis: Production, Class Struggle, and Plato

Marxist Analysis of Production and Class Struggle

The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic mode of production for two reasons: First, because its productive forces create the conditions that eliminate it; and secondly, because this system, with such productive forces, is the first capable of generating benefits for all. It is only necessary to introduce, through revolution, new relationships based on cooperation.

Although the planning and disappearance of the bourgeois mode of production is inevitable, the revolutionary action of the Communist Party accelerates it through the development of class consciousness, unity, and the dictatorship of the proletariat to plan production.

Bourgeois Relations of Production

Modern bourgeois relations of production are characterized by techniques that require a large number of indirect employees (who control the work but are not directly related to the means of production). The worker becomes dependent on the machine, and the work is not qualified. These social relations are based on the exploitation of the employee by the employer, who obtains surplus value.

Forces of Production

The elements that allow work to be done (energy used) and work environments (elements that directly or indirectly can transform matter into product).

Comparison with Plato

While Marx presents the clearest formulation of materialism, Plato represents the highest form of idealism. Marx believed that the basic reality is material, with its constant change, and that the human brain and thoughts develop from it. Plato, conversely, believed that the reality of the world is primarily a thought, from which other minor thoughts and, finally, the darkness and weakness of matter derive.

Both wrote with a political intention, both are "communists," and they recommend that philosophers govern. However, their political aims differ. Marx aims to liberate the proletariat, the poor, who bring the "bread" of labor to society. Plato, an aristocrat, believes in a government of the best, "the idle."

For Marx, communism was a way to deepen and realize democracy, while for Plato, it was a way to leave it behind.

Both share the belief that philosophers (Marxist or Platonist) are qualified to lead society because they assume that only they can fully understand the complex theories that underpin their policies.

Contemporary Relevance of Marx

Marx has lost much prestige with the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, it must be said that this was a historical formation that followed Lenin's model, which was not "exactly" that of Marx. From this theory (Lenin's), the understanding of how the infrastructure determines the superstructure remains relevant today. This explains, in particular, the almost complete blindness of rich countries to the great social problems that exist on the planet. Marx would explain it by saying that the middle class is conservative because it has a "welfare" to preserve and is blind to the classes that experience discomfort.

As our countries are, in general, middle-class, we hate to see starving children on television at lunchtime and try to forget about them. Other aspects of Marx's theory, such as the dialectic, are now more discredited.