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Main Elements of Marxism
Main Elements of Marxism
- Abolition of church and state
- No private ownership of the means of production
- Only one class, in Marxist conception of class, the proletariat.
- Means of production in the hands of the state
- Government in the hands of the working class
- To each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities
- Collective production, appropriation of surplus value by the state
- All basic needs covered by the state with some hierarchization of salaries
- Single currency controlled by the state
- Marx is not concerned with class in the sociological sense. While Marx theory was strongly based on the suffering of the working class during the Industrial Revolution in Europe, he is not concerned with class in the sociological sense because his theory explains how the accumulation of surplus value makes the worker poorer, the more he produces. As the worker cannot keep the surplus value they produce, and corporations harvest it, these same corporations accumulate that wealth to influence, for example, presidential campaigns through so called “super-packs,” or by funding lobbyist that can influence lawmakers in Congress.
- Materialist philosophers do not think that ideas drive society. They think that our economic activity, the way that we engage in work, the way that we engage with each other at different historical times influences the way we think and what we can accomplish as a society. As a materialist philosopher, Marx thought that we needed a revolution to abolish capitalism and create a different kind of mode of production, socialism as a first step toward communism.