Marxism: Different Stages of History

Dialectic AnalysisThe basic premise of dialectical analysis is the theory in which society is treated as a historically evolving and bodyically interrelated whole, has had a profound adjoin on political science, frugals and sociology. This dialectical method, which seeks to uncover the estimable context of historically peculiar(prenominal) genial interactions in any(prenominal) given system, is used by Marx as a tool for understanding class relationships under capitalism, and as a govern handst agency for altering such structures funda morally. Uniting theory and practice, Marx declargond in his Theses on FeuerbachThe philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways the power point is to stir it1.Dialectical materialism is essentially characterized by the belief that history is the product of class struggle and obeys the general Hegelian principle of philosophy of history that is the emergence of the thesis into its antithesis.2Basic Premise of Materialistic Th eoryThe materialist theory of history starts from the proposition that homo beings are creatures of need, and hence that the material side of human life, physical needs and economical action to satisfy them is primary and basic. Historians and social philosophers until then had focused on the actions of severalizes and rulers only and had not considered the importance of economic developments.According to Marx, every society is composed of true(a) forces of achievement (tools, machinery and comminute to affiance them) with which are associated spellicular social relations of production (property relations, division of labour). These together constitute the material base of society, upon which arises a superstructure of political and licit institutions, and ideological forms to include art, religion and philosophy. He further addedIt is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social beings which determines their consciousness3.T he development of productive forcesThe development of the human race from crude stone tools to the bow and pointer, and the subsequent usefulness from the life of hunters to the domestication of animals and uninitiate pasturage the transition from stone tools to metal tools resulting in a corresponding transition to tillage and agriculture a further improvement in metal tools, the introduction of the blacksmiths bellows, the introduction of pottery, with a corresponding development of handicrafts, the insularity of handicrafts from agriculture, the development of an independent handicraft industry and, subsequently, of manufacture the transition from handicraft tools to machines and the transformation of handicraft and manufacture into machine industry the transition to the machine system and the rise of voguern large-scale machine industry are all the characteristic stages of development of the productive forces of society in the course of mans history.This development and imp rovement of the instruments of production had been effected by men who were related to production, and not independently of men and, consequently, the change and development of the instruments of production was accompanied by a change and development of men, as the most important element of the productive forces, by a change and development of their production experience, their labor skill, their ability to handle the instruments of production. In conformity with the change and development of the productive forces of society in the course of history and mens relations of production, their economic relations also changed and developed.Phases of Materialistic HistoryAt any given historical period the relations of production provide the social framework for economic development. The developing forces of production give rise to increasing involvement with the existing relations of production and these conflicts are reflected as class struggles. From forms of development of the producti ve forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution in which social relations and the entire immense superstructure is transformed.4Accordingly, Marx concluded that all nations go through five economic stages primitive, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and socialism.Primitive PhaseThe basic tenet of production in the primitive phase angle of human history is that the means of production are friendship owned which is consistent with the character of the productive forces of that period. Primitive tools and weapons like stone tools and the bow and arrow had limited efficacy and lethality, a major factor which precluded the possibility of men individually combating the forces of nature and beasts of prey. In order to fulfill the r discloseine activities like fabrication fruits from the forest, catch fish or game, or to build any form of inhabitation, men were obliged to work in communities or groups to obviate the possibility of end due to st arvation, or fall victims of beast of prey or be killed by rival groups.Community form of labour and work led to a community based consumption of the produced yield. At this stage the concept of individual ownership of the means of production did not yet exist, except for the personal ownership of certain implements of production which were at the analogous time means of defense against beasts of prey. Hence, there was neither exploitation, nor any class structure in place.Slave PhaseThe primitive phase was followed by the Slave Stage which is based on the theory that under this system, the slave-owner owns the means of production and the workers in the production chain. Such relations of production correspond to the advance of the productive forces of that period. In this stage, the slave owner has all the rights over the slave- whom he privy sell, purchase, or kill as though he were an animal. During the slave stage, the primitive stone tools and primitive husbandry have been r eplaced by metal tools and pasturage tillage respectively .The primitive man who till now was in the allow for power of the most basic tools now possessed the means to conduct farming , handicrafts and tillage, and a division of labor betwixt these branches of production. There appears the possibility of the exchange of products between individuals and between societies, of the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, the actual accumulation of the means of production in the hands of a minority, and the possibility of subjection of the majority by a minority and the conversion of the majority into slaves.At this stage, the common and free labor of all members of society in the production process is replaced by the forced labor of slaves, who are exploited by the non-laboring slave-owners. The main aspects of this stage is the appearance of the slave owner(the prime and principal property owner), the increasing existence of the blue and poor, exploiters and exploited, peopl e with full rights and people with no rights, and the beginning of a fierce class struggle between them.Feudal StageThe basis of the relations of production under the feudal system is that the feudal lord owns the means of production and does not fully own the worker in production. This implies that the worker of the slave stage has progressed and he derriere no longer be owned, bought or sold by the slave owner. Alongside of feudal ownership there exists individual ownership by the crosspatch and the handicraftsman of his implements of production and his private enterprise based on his personal labor5.Such relations of production correspond to the state of the productive forces of that period. Further improvements in the smelting and working of exhort the spread of the iron plow and the loom the further development of agriculture, horticulture, viniculture and dairying the appearance of manufactories alongside of the handicraft workshops have all led to intensify importance of the worker who is now a skilled artisan. The invigorated productive forces demand that the laborer/worker/artisan shall display some kind of possibility and inclination in production and for work.The feudal lord therefore discards the slave, as a laborer who has no interest in work and is entirely without initiative, and prefers to bay window with the serf (artisan), who has his own husbandry, implements of production, and a certain interest in work essential for the cultivation of the land and for the payment in kind of a part of his harvest to the feudal lord.In this stage, private ownership is further developed and the affects of exploitation is slightly mitigated. A class struggle between exploiters and exploited is the principal indication of the feudal system.Capitalist StageThe basis of the relations of production under the capitalist system is that the capitalist owns the means of production, but not the workers in production6 the wage laborers, whom the capitalist can neither kill nor sell because they are personally free, but who are deprived of means of production and in order not to die of hunger, are obliged to sell their labor power to the capitalist.Due to the rapid strides in the technological and the industrial aspects, there is an increased importance of the technologically intensive means of production like the factories, mills and the huge capitalist farms run on scientific lines and supplied with agricultural machinery. This rapid change in the means of production has an adverse impact on the workers.The private property of the peasants and handicraftsmen in the means of production being based on personal labor is rendered insignificant and they have to submit their labour to the owners of the means of production. The new productive forces require that the workers in production shall be better educated and more intelligent in comparison to the earlier workers, in the sense that they understand machinery and operate it properly. Theref ore, the capitalists prefer to deal with wage-workers, who are free from the bonds of serfdom and who are educated enough to be able properly to operate machinery.Transition to CommunismThe division of society into classes gives rise to political, ethical, philosophical, and religious views of the world, views which express existing class relations and tend either to consolidate or to undermine the power and bureau of the dominant class. Marx clarifies it furtherThe ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas i.e., the class which is the dominant material force in society is at the same time its dominant intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production.7However, oppressed classes, although hampered by the ideological dominance of oppressors, generate counter-ideologies to combat them. In revolutionary or pre-Revolutionary periods it even happens that certain r epresentatives of the dominant class shift allegiance. impertinent social relationships begin to develop within older social structures and result from contradictions and tensions within that structure at the same time as they exacerbate them.For example, new modes of production slowly emerged within late feudal society and allowed the bourgeoisie, which controlled these new modes of production, effectively to challenge the hold of the classes that had dominated the feudal order. As the bourgeois mode of production gained sufficient specific weight, it undermined the feudal relations in which it first made its appearance. The economic structure of capitalist society has grown out of the economic structure of feudal society.The dissolution of the latter sets free the elements of the former.8 Similarly, the capitalist mode of production brings into being a proletarian class of factory workers. As these men acquire class consciousness, they discover their fundamental antagonism to the bourgeois class and band together to overthrow a regime to which they owe their existence. The proletariat carries out the sentence which private property, by creating the proletariat, passes upon itself.9the process of industrialization concentrates working people in factories and cities, hence the working class develops from being an unorganized and unconscious visual sense through its struggle with the bourgeoisie to being an organized and conscious political force, a force which is ultimately destined to be the gravedigger of capitalism and to inaugurate a new mode of production socialism10SocialismThe conquest of political power by the working class will lead to the creation of a socialist state in which the working class is the ruling class and which functions in the interests of the working class. In this way the dictatorship of the proletariat will replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Its main procedure is to abolish the private ownership of the means of productio n, and hence the social and economic basis of class divisions. As the material basis of class divisions is dissolved, class differences will gradually disappear, and with them the need for the state as an instrument of class rule and as a distinct coercive force. In the higher stage of full communism, the state is destined ultimately to wither away11, as Engels puts it, and the government of people will be replaced by the administration of things12ConclusionDuring the present century, history itself seems to have provided a remarkable confirmation of the main outlines of Marxs thought. At one stage in modern history, the prediction that capitalism is destined to be restricted to a concomitant and limited historical stage which will be superseded seemed to be justified by the succession of revolutions which removed a large part of the world from its grip. The give way of the regimes of Soviet and Eastern European communism in 1989, however, has proved that Marxism is now dead and t hat its prediction of a historical stage beyond capitalism is an illusion. Nevertheless, it rest the most comprehensive and powerful theory for understanding and explaining the capitalist world.1 Marx, Karl (1845) Theses on Feuerbach, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected kit and boodle, New York International Publishers, 1968, pp. 2830.2 Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847a, London Lawrence & Wishart, 1955, chapter II 3 Marx, Karl A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy(1859),PP 389. 4 Ibid 389-905 G.A. Cohen, Karl Marxs Theory of History A Defence, Oxford Oxford University Press, 1978,pp65 6 Ibid 7 Marx Karl, Selected Writings, ed. D. McLellan, Oxford Oxford University Press, 1977 8 Ibid9 Ibid 10Marx and Engels The Communist Manifesto 1848, Selected Works, Volume 1, Moscow Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962 11 V.I. Lenin, State and Revolution, in Selected Works in Three Volumes, Volume 2, Moscow Progress Publishers, revi sed edn 1975,10-14 12 Capital, 3 Volumes 1867, 1885, 1894, London Lawrence & Wishart, 1961-71