Marxism: Different Stages of History

Dialectic AnalysisThe basal premise of dialectical analysis is the speculation in which society is tempered as a historic anyy evolving and systemically interrelated whole, has had a profound impinge manpowert on policy-making science, scotchs and sociology. This dialectical method, which seeks to unc everywhere the full phase of the moon context of historically specific social inter put to deaths in any buildn system, is utilize by Marx as a tool for chthonicstanding line dealinghips under capitalism, and as a agency for altering such twists funda manpowertally. Uniting theory and practice, Marx decl atomic number 18d in his Theses on FeuerbachThe philosophers capture unaccompanied interpreted the initiation in various ways the point is to transfigure it1.Dialectical bodilyism is essentially recordized by the belief that narrative is the product of figure struggle and obeys the popular Hegelian principle of philosophy of history that is the nurture of the t hesis into its antithesis.2Basic set forth of Materialistic TheoryThe materialist theory of history starts from the proposition that human beings argon creatures of need, and therefrom that the material side of human life, physical needs and economic action to satisfy them is primary and staple. Historians and social philosophers until then had focused on the actions of states and rulers only and had not considered the importance of economic phylogenys.According to Marx, every society is composed of sea direct forces of issue (tools, machinery and labour to operate them) with which are associated particular social dealing of exertion (property dealings, fragment of labour). These together constitute the material base of society, upon which arises a super complex body part of political and legal institutions, and ideological directs 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.The development of copious forcesThe development of the human race from crude jewel tools to the bow and arrow, and the sequent improvement from the life of hunters to the domestication of animals and primitive pasturage the transition from pit tools to metal tools resulting in a corresponding transition to plough primer and gardening a further improvement in metal tools, the admission of the blacksmiths bellows, the introduction of pottery, with a corresponding development of vocations, the separation of handicrafts from agriculture, the development of an independent handicraft industry and, subsequently, of pay 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 ultramodern spacious-scale machine industry are all the characteristic set ups of development of the procreative forces of socie ty in the course of mans history.This development and improvement of the instruments of toil had been effected by men who were related to drudgery, 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 assiduity skill, their ability to portion out 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 similarly 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 conflict with the existing relations of production and these conflicts are reflect ed as tell struggles. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. therefore begins an epoch of social revolution in which social relations and the entire gigantic superstructure is transformed.4Accordingly, Marx concluded that all nations go through five economic stages primitive, slavery, feudalisticisticisticism, capitalism, and socialism.Primitive PhaseThe basic tenet of production in the primitive phase of human history is that the means of production are community 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 extra efficacy and lethality, a major factor which precluded the guess of men apiece combating the forces of nature and beasts of prey. In order to fulfill the routine activities like collect fruits from the forest, catch fish or game, or to build any form of inhabitation, men were obliged to work in commun ities or groups to obviate the possibility of death due to starvation, or fall victims of beast of prey or be killed by rival groups.Community form of labour and work led to a community found consumption of the produced yield. At this stage the excogitation of individual ownership of the means of production did not yet exist, extract for the personal ownership of certain implements of production which were at the analogous metre 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 players in the production chain. Such relations of production correspond to the state of the productive forces of that period. In this stage, the slave owner has all the rights over the slave- whom he so-and-so sell, purchase, or kill as though he were an animal. During the slave stage, the primitive stone tools and primitive husbandry have been replaced by metal tools and pasturage tillage respectively .The primitive man who till now was in the ownership of the most basic tools now possessed the means to conduct commonwealth , handicrafts and tillage, and a division of labor betwixt these branches of production. There appears the possibility of the reciprocation 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 subjugation of the majority by a minority and the transmutation 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 use by the non-laboring slave-owners. The main aspects of this stage is the appearance of the slave owner(the prime and mavin property owner), the i ncreasing existence of the rich and poor, exploiters and exploited, spate 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 can no longer be owned, bought or sold by the slave owner. on board of feudal ownership there exists individual ownership by the grump and the handicraftsman of his implements of production and his cloak-and-dagger 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 concordning(a) of iron the spread of the iron plow and the loom the further development of agriculture, horticulture, viniculture and dairying the appearance of manufactories a longside of the handicraft workshops have all led to enhanced importance of the worker who is now a ball-hawking artisan. The new productive forces demand that the laborer/worker/artisan shall scupper some kind of initiative and inclination in production and for work.The feudal lord therefore discards the slave, as a laborer who has no amour in work and is entirely without initiative, and prefers to deal 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 feature 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 peter out 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 intense 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 much intelligent in comparison to the earlier workers, in the s ense that they generalise machinery and operate it properly. Therefore, 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 supreme class. Marx clarifies it furtherThe ideas of the persuasion 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, overprotect counter-ideologies to combat them. In revolutionary or pre-Revolutionary periods it even happens that certain representatives of the dominant class shift allegiance. New social relationships begin to develop inside older social structures and result from contradictions and tensions at heart 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 live of the classes that had dominated the feudal order. As the bourgeois mode of production gained adapted 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 parturiency carries out the sentence which private property, by creating the proletariat, passes upon itself.9the process of industrialization concentrates running(a) people in factories and cities, hence the working class develops from being an nonunionised and unconscious mass through its struggle with the bourgeoisie to being an create 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 oppression of political power by the working class will entrust 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 absolutism of the proletariat will replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Its main purpose is to abolish the private ownership of the means of production, and hence the social and economic basis of class divisions. As the material basis of class divisions is dissolved, class differences will piecemeal 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 collectivism, 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 confine to a particular 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 collapse of the regimes of Soviet and Eastern European communism in 1989, however, has proved that Marxism is now dead and that its prediction of a historical stage beyond capitalism is an illusion. Nevertheless, it remains the most comprehensive and mesomorphic theory for understanding and explaining the capitalist world.1 Marx, Karl (1845) Theses on Feuerbach, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, New York internationalist Publishers, 1968, pp. 2830.2 Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847a, capital of the United Kingdom Lawrence & Wishart, 1955, chapter II 3 Marx, Karl A Contribution to the refresh 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, great deal 1, Moscow Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962 11 V.I. Lenin, Sta te and Revolution, in Selected Works in Three Volumes, Volume 2, Moscow Progress Publishers, revised edn 1975,10-14 12 Capital, 3 Volumes 1867, 1885, 1894, London Lawrence & Wishart, 1961-71