POLS 2100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Authoritarianism, Iron Curtain, Berlin Wall

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLS 2100
• Professor: Ian Spears

Document Summary

A communist primer: private ownership leads to inequality. The bourgeoisie the exploiters, the owners of wealth. The proletariat the exploited, the workers, the have-nots. The dynamic between the two groups forms the relations of production. Ka(cid:396)l ma(cid:396)(cid:454) (cid:894)a(cid:374)d f(cid:396)ied(cid:396)i(cid:272)h e(cid:374)gels(cid:895): (cid:862)the histo(cid:396)(cid:455) of all hithe(cid:396)to e(cid:454)isti(cid:374)g so(cid:272)iet(cid:455) is the histo(cid:396)(cid:455) of (cid:272)lass st(cid:396)uggle(cid:863: it is not equality of opportunity that counts. Not enough to have the opportunity to prosper. The system is stacked against the vast majority (proletariat). Most people are unable to change their economic status in their lifetime. Communists say real equality is found in equality of outcome. People are not genuinely liberated until they are free from hunger, disease, and poverty: it is not merely democracy that counts. Requires the smashing of the bourgeois state. Marxist revolution was likely only in the most developed countries. State of feudalism, stage of capitalist democracy, the dictatorship of the proletariat, communist utopia.