Marx Review Notes PDF

Notes: - Marx Review: - Historical Materialism - Feuerbach argued that religion alienates indvs, putting forth his theory as “materialism” - What is Marx critique and how is Marx materialism diff?...

Notes: - Marx Review: - Historical Materialism - Feuerbach argued that religion alienates indvs, putting forth his theory as “materialism” - What is Marx critique and how is Marx materialism diff? - Marx disagrees and says materialism is historical. His critique is that there is no ideology, they are stuck in idealism, do not account for material conditions and change over time. Marx believed that in order to understand people, we need to use what we already know, which is what has already happened, we have to see what they are doing. - Commodities and Commodity Fetishism - What is a commodity? - Use value and exchange value, produced to be exchanged - What is the fetishism of commodities? - Process of obscuring the value of things - We don't see the labor, just the object - All value comes from the labor, we just dont see it bc of CF - Claim that exchangeability is bc of its physical characteristics - What special commodities “use value possess the peculiar property of being a source of value”? - Obscures where the value comes from - Labor power, special commodity that makes everything comes together - Labor-Power, Exchange and Surplus Value - What is the use-value of labor-power? - labor - What is the exchange-value of labor power? - Wages, wage labor. What it cost to sustain yourself for another day - What is produced when capitalists “consume” labor power? - Surplus-value in the form of extra commodities. - What do capitalists do with this under capitalism? - Profit of the surplus, market the extra commodities - What “circuit” does this describe? - MCM Prime - What are the preconditions for the labor-power to appear as a commodity?  - Someone must be free and an owner of their own unit of labor, free to sell labor power, free from ownership. Only thing you have to sell is your labor. - Other Random Questions: - Over the course of time, what relationship do we observe between wages and the price of production of labor power? - They will converge, whatever it cost to reproduce labor for one day will match wages, you wont get more than that - Why must capitalists continually revolutionize/innovate/develop the “forces of production”? - In order to max profits, they compete against each other and constantly revolutionize to try to “win” to stay afloat - What is the fundamental contradiction of capitalism for Marx? - Capitalism mode of production is build and relent on the dol of things - The system is governed by the people who own it - Socialized productions forces with individualized property - How does Marx define “communism”? - The people own the means of production - System where the means of production are collectively owned by the people - Quotes Q’s: - Bees and Humans - What is he saying here? (quote on phone) - We are different from bee because human labor had planning and foresight - Past Labor and Living Labor - What is he saying? - The labor you perform thru the day is not worth your wage. Exchange value s not equal to labor put in - Communist Rev and Coop. - What is Marx saying? - Capitalism is mop where the production is something that is imposed, no voice. Communism will replace that and it will become a conscious decision to participate in labor - Relative wages - What is Marx saying? - The amount can be greater between people that work but relative to profit it can be less