ANTH10001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Proletariat, The Dispossessed, Antonio Gramsci
29 May 2018
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LECTURE 8: CLASS (ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY)
KARL MARX - THE FOUNDATIONAL THEORIES OF POWER
- argues that class is the most important form of identification and that others are used
to conceal class differences.
Background:
• Born Jewish in Germany (1818)
• Married into Prussian aristocracy – Jewish decent.
• Profession: economist, philosopher, sociologist, and journalist.
• Context of writing: concerned with the collapse of feudalism and rise of capitalism.
• Marginalised for radical ideas - removed from countries.
• Death in London (1883) in poverty.
• Marx above all was a theorist of class.
• Personal interest to bourgeoisies and labourers.
o Marx was a bourgeoisies using income on material items.
o Exposed to the hideous conditions of the working class - wanted to help.
o Friedrich Engels (friend and benefactor), was in love with a woman from the
mill - unable to have relationships across class - Marx was sympathetic and
hence promoted class emancipation.
Marx's writing was polemic due to his personal interest as well as ambiguous - certain
absence of clarity - which has allowed interpretations to be made from different political
movements. His writing was also very jargonistic and mechanistic; his ideas are built upon
one other - if ou dot udestad oe thig, the theory losses meaning in its entirety (car
doest ok ithout eah piee.
MARX’S KEY IDEA - HISTORICAL MATERALISM
Three components of 'materialism':
1. THE PRIMACY OF THE SOCIAL
• Marx argues that productivity is fundamentally impossible without human
beings entering into relationships with other human beings.
o Hoee the ai theoists of apitaliss suess ee utilitarian thinkers such
as J.S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham - attributed capitalist success largely to the
dynamism of individuals. Marx argues the individual producer was a figment of the
iagiatio of the utilitaias.
2. MATERIALISM
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• The most fundamental aspect of human existence is the necessity to produce
the means of subsistence. (the need to produce food drives us as a group.)
3. THE HEGELIAN INVERSION
• Rather than human society being a product of ideas, Marx argues that ideas
are a product of human society. (ideas should not be thought as determinative,
but instead as outcomes.)
Two components of 'historical':
1. THE MODE OF PRODUCTION (BASE):
• this is the sum total of productive activities in any given society.
• Which activities make up the mode of production?
i. The forces of production; human knowledge (e.g. science and technology)
employed in productive activity e.g. making of plastic using chemistry.
ii. The social relations of production; the specific ways labour is organised
within a productive activity.
iii. The means of production; the tools and machinery employed in a
productive-activity.
2. THE BASE / SUPERSTRUCTURE DISTINCTION
• The mode of production refers to the sum total of productivity, while
superstructure consists of the ideologial aspets of a soiety (e.g. media,
religion, education, law and politics). - the part of society which is concerned
with how we think and how that is represented.
• Ideology refers to the representation of reality in ways that conceal the true
nature of that reality.
• e.g. akets ae epeseted as fee akets ad this oeals the
inequities of access to resources within them. Similarly, religions
often represent the suffering of the poor as part of a moral life that is
repaid by eventual heavenly existence – eligio is the opiu of the
asses - Marx.
• Ideology, which is the outcome of superstructure is concerned with
representing the injustices in the world, in ways which conceal this.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MODE OF PRODUCTION AND THE SUPERSTRUCTURE
• Reflecting the Hegelian Inversion - that ideas are a product of our society.
The ode of produtio of aterial life conditions the social, political and intellectual
life process in general. It is not consciousness of men that determines their being, but,
o the otrary, their soial eig that deteries their osiousess. In other
words, ase deteries superstruture i the last analysis. - Marx.
• In other words, the materialism determines the ideology.
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Ambiguous notion of ideology (representing of the world) - what does the process of
representation mean?
• “oe sa its the iesio of the old feedo s ufeedo, while others believe
it is the notion of taking reality and distorting certain elements.
What are the characteristic modes of production through human history? (chronological).
1. Primitive communism (or tribal society)
2. Ancient feudalism (based on slavery)
3. Feudalism (agricultural production)
4. Capitalism (industrial production)
5. Socialism (or communism) - will surpass capitalism in the future.
DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM
Dialectics: all matter creates and, indeed needs its own opposite that, however
eventually destroys it.
• A creates and depends on B, B destroys A.
dialectics applied to analysis of the mode of production = dialectical materialism.
What is the key dialectic that transforms any given mode of production?
THE CLASS STRUGGLE.
• Class: a group of people defined by its relationship to the means of production:
For example, under Capitalism there are two key classes into which all others are
gradually subsumed. The Bourgeoisie (the owners of the means of production) and
the Proletariat (which does not own the means of production, but upon whose labor
the bourgeois or capitalist class relies for production).
In what sense is the relationship between these classes dialectical? - what mechanism drives
this? through the phenomenon if surplus value.
THE PHENOMENON OF SURPLUS VALUE
Surplus value is the new value created by workers that is in excess of their own labor cost and
which is, therefore available to be appropriated by the Capitalist as profit.
• It is in capitalism natures to increase the surplus value that it extracts - desire to gain.
• Consequently, the proletariats become increasingly immiserated and impoverished.
• a certain point then triggers a key transformation - consciousness ceases to be
determined by ideology (superstructure).
• instead the proletariat becomes class conscious, i.e. it becomes aware of (a)
its exploitation, (b) its existence as a social group defined by its relationship to
the means of production, and (c) being one rather than many groups
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Document Summary
Karl marx - the foundational theories of power. Argues that class is the most important form of identification and that others are used to conceal class differences. Marx"s writing was polemic due to his personal interest as well as ambiguous - certain absence of clarity - which has allowed interpretations to be made from different political movements. His writing was also very jargonistic and mechanistic; his ideas are built upon one other - if (cid:455)ou do(cid:374)(cid:859)t u(cid:374)de(cid:396)sta(cid:374)d o(cid:374)e thi(cid:374)g, the theory losses meaning in its entirety (car does(cid:374)(cid:859)t (cid:449)o(cid:396)k (cid:449)ithout ea(cid:272)h pie(cid:272)e(cid:895). Mill and jeremy bentham - attributed capitalist success largely to the dynamism of individuals. The part of society which is concerned with how we think and how that is represented. Ideology refers to the representation of reality in ways that conceal the true nature of that reality: e. g. (cid:373)a(cid:396)kets a(cid:396)e (cid:396)ep(cid:396)ese(cid:374)ted as (cid:858)f(cid:396)ee(cid:859) (cid:373)a(cid:396)kets a(cid:374)d this (cid:272)o(cid:374)(cid:272)eals the inequities of access to resources within them.
