Karl Marx; 5 May 1818 14 March 1883) was a

German philosopher, economist, political theorist, sociologist, journalist and

revolutionary socialist.Born in Trier to a middle-class family, Marx later
studied political economy and Hegelian philosophy. As an adult, Marx
became stateless and spent much of his life in London, England, where he
continued to develop his thought in collaboration with German thinker Friedrich
Engels and published various works, of which the two most well-known are the
1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the three-volume Das Kapital. His
work has since influenced subsequent intellectual, economic and political history.

Marx's theories about society, economics and politicscollectively understood

as Marxismhold that human societies develop through class struggle.
In capitalism, this manifests itself in the conflict between the ruling classes (known
as the bourgeoisie) that control the means of production and working classes
(known as the proletariat) that enable these means by selling their labour powerin
return for wages. Employing a critical approach known as historical materialism,
Marx predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, capitalism produced
internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new
system: socialism. For Marx, class antagonisms under capitalism, owing in part to
its instability and crisis-prone nature, would eventuate the working class'
development of class consciousness, leading to their conquest of political power
and eventually the establishment of a classless, communist society constituted by
a free association of producers. Marx actively fought for its implementation,
arguing that the working class should carry out organised revolutionary action to
topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic emancipation.

Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history
and his work has been both lauded and criticised. His work in economics laid the

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basis for much of the current understanding of labour and its relation to capital, and
subsequent economic thought. Many intellectuals, labour unions, artists and
political parties worldwide have been influenced by Marx's work, with many
modifying or adapting his ideas. Marx is typically cited as one of the principal
architects of modern social science.

In Marxist theory all transitions from one mode of production occur because of the
development of fundamental contradictions between the forces of production and
the social relations of production so that in order to analyse the transition from the
Capitalist mode of production to the Socialist mode of production we have to
analyse the possible conflicts between the forces of production and the social
relations of production in some detail.

According to Marx the conflict between the forces of production and the relations
of production involves the following elements.

1. The capitalist system is owned and controlled by the Bourgeoisie whose

main aim is production for profit rather than production for need. This
means that the social relations of production (ownership and control) prevent
the full utilisation of the highly developed forces of production. which could
be used to meet the real needs humanity but are instead used to increase the
profits of the Bourgeoisie at the expense of the Proletariat.
2. Since the Proletariat are inevitably exploited under capitalism they do not
receive a fair share of the goods and services produced via the forces of
production.
3. Capitalism results inevitably in periodic unemployment meaning that the
factories and workers are often idle despite the obvious need for increased
production so that, again the full potential of the forces of production is not

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 being realised under capitalism because of the social relations of production
which exist under capitalism.
4. Capitalism results in alienation which means that the full potential of the
workers cannot be realised under capitalism.

Thus, in summary, according to Marx, the social relations of production under

capitalism prevent the full development of the forces of production under
capitalism and the contradictions between the forces of production and the social
relations of production will result ultimately in the abolition of the capitalist mode
of production. The following factors lead to the acceleration of the revolutionary
process.

1. The development of capitalism results in increasing urbanisation and the

concentration of workers in large factories means that the political
organisation of the Proletariat becomes easier.
2. Marx suggested in his Immiseration theory that capitalism would result in
increasing poverty which would accelerate the decline of false class
consciousness and the development of revolutionary class consciousness
among the Proletariat.
3. Marx suggested that under capitalism production would be increasingly
concentrated among large companies and smaller companies and individual
traders would be forced out of business meaning that intermediate social
classes would contract and the overall class structure would increasingly be
simplified into two great classes--- the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. This
was Marx' so-called Polarisation thesis which implied that even former
members of the Bourgeoisie might develop revolutionary class
consciousness. However in his later theories Marx noted that the growth of
joint stock companies would lead to the growth of managerial positions,
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 implying the growth of a middle class, and it has been suggested that Marx
did not sufficiently analyse the implications of the growth of the middle
class for his theory of revolution. We shall return to neo-Marxist analyses of
the middle class later in this document.
4. The revolution was to be followed by a series of stages leading to the
eventual achievement of the classless, communist society. First would come
the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat in which the capitalist state
would be taken over by the leaders of the proletariat in order to restrict the
powers of the opponents of revolution to organise counter-revolution.
Private property would be abolished and the revolution would then enter its
socialist phase in which resources would be distributed from each according
to his/her ability to each according to his/her work which implied that
economic equality would still be necessary to provide economic incentives.
This would be followed by the gradual transition from socialism to
communism in which resources would be allocated from each according to
his/her ability to each according to his/her need implying a very high level of
economic equality of outcome.
5. The abolition of private property meant that in the Marxist scheme social
classes had been abolished and this would mean that the state [which under
capitalism was an instrument of class rule] could wither away although there
would still be a need for some form of administrative apparatus to organise
society at a national level. Thus according to the Marxists the revolution
would eventually lead to the creation of a classless, very equal, free,
prosperous and cooperative society.

However Marx also suggested that that in countries such as America and England
where liberal democracy seemed likely to flourish a parliamentary road to

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socialism might be possible , a view supported by Marx' colleague Engels who
outlived Marx by many years and witnessed what he believed to be the
increasingly significant developments of liberal democracy in the late C19th and
early C20th.

Further important theoretical and practical issues arose in the case of the Russian
revolution where important modifications to the Marxist theory were suggested by
Lenin who argued that in the case of Russia it would be necessary to create a small
vanguard party of revolutionaries to advance the revolution rather than to wait for
the further development of capitalism to create the conditions for revolution as
suggested in orthodox Marxist theory. Lenin and others did create such a party [the
Russian Social Democratic party] and Lenins faction of this party [the
Bolsheviks] did play a central crucial role in advancing revolution in Russia.

In practice, however, the actual outcome of the Russian Revolution was not as
hoped for in the Marxist schema. Far from withering away the USSR state quickly
came to be a One Party state dominated by the Bolshevik Party and subsequently
by its leader Stalin [who replaced Lenin as leader of the Bolsheviks in 1924] who
soon came to believe that it would be necessary to purge thousands of his
opponents from the Bolshevik Party via imprisonment or execution .The USSR
economy was at this time extremely underdeveloped and Stalin embarked upon the
collectivisation of agriculture and rapid industrialisation programmes in an attempt
to modernise the economy all of which resulted in severe hardship for the Russian
people as collectivisation led to reduced food output and industrialisation resulted
in the allocation of resources to the construction of factories and machinery rather
than consumer goods. The erosion of liberal democratic civil liberties and millions
of deaths under the autocratic leadership of Stalin dealt a severe blow to the

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credibility of Marxist ideology but Marxists argued that Stalinism in practice bore
no relationship to how Socialism was supposed to operate in theory.

It is clear, that the USSR did industrialise very rapidly but at the cost of great
hardship to its people in the short and medium term whose political rights were
very limited and living standards poor although party leaders and officials
continued to enjoy a privileged life style as a result of their political power. such
that some theorists argued that the abolition of capitalism in the USSR had in fact
resulted in the creation of a "New Class" of senior Communist Party officials who
ruled at the expense of the still very disadvantaged USSR working class. The
Stalinist political system was reformed to some extent after Stalins death but it
was clear that by the 1980s further reforms were still necessary. However when
leader Gorbachev began to introduce more significant reforms in the late 1980s
rising expectations in the USSR resulted in the so-called End of Communism
and the disintegration of the USSR in the 1990s.

Furthermore the apparent failure of the Soviet system and the implementation by
the nominally Communist Chinese leadership of capitalist- style economic reforms
were seized upon especially by opponents of Marxism as evidence that socialism
and communism had become discredited impractical ideologies and that the
capacities of liberal capitalism to generate higher living standards and to guarantee
civil liberties absent in former Communist regimes demonstrated the fundamental
superiority of liberal capitalism relative to Communism. By the late 1980s the
prospects of socialist revolution in Western capitalist countries appeared virtually
non-existent , a situation which continues in 2009 as, for example, the UK
electorate awaits its opportunity to choose three main political parties none of
which offers a remotely socialist programme.

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References

Karl Marx, "Theories of Surplus Value" contained in the Collected Works of

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 31 (International
Publishers: New York, 1989) pp. 5580.

Karl Marx, "Theories of Surplus Value" contained in the Collected Works of

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 32 (International
Publishers: New York, 1989) pp. 5543.

Marx, Karl (1875). "Part I". Critique of the Gotha Program.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works Volume 46 (International

Publishers: New York, 1992) p. 71.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works Volume 46 (International

Publishers: New York, 1992) p. 72.

K. Marx, First draft of letter to Vera Zasulich [1881]. In Marx-Engels

'Collected Works', Volume 24, p. 346.

Peter Singer (2000). Marx a very short introduction. pp. 5. ISBN 0-19-
285405-4