In Layman’s Terms: Marxism
Everything mentioned in this article is based on the secondary research. I myself didn’t know much about Marxism, so started reading about the topic. It is an attempt to store my learning in an organized manner, which can be useful for others as well.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were German philosophers and revolutionaries. They met in 1844 and soon discovered that both shared similar views about philosophy and socialism. Their writings majorly addressed the problems of the Capitalist society and advocated Socialism as a solution. The philosophy advocated by their work is known as Marxism (after Karl Marx).
Capitalism and Marxism can be differentiated by understanding the concept of ‘the means of production’. In capitalist economies, the means of production are owned by capitalists and business-men. These capitalists hire work-force to produce goods and services and compensate them through monthly wages. The laborers do not own the machinery, raw materials and factory, and have no control over the produce. They have their services to offer which, according to Marx, leads to their exploitation.
On the other hand, in a Marxist setup, the means of production are owned by the society/public. The primary motive is well-being of the people rather than continuously striving towards profit.
Marx distributed the population into two major segments — Proletariat and Bourgeoisie. The proletariat are the people who sell their labor power in order to live and do not have any means of production. Bourgeoisie is the term for the capitalists who own the means and buy services from Proletariat for production, compensating them through wages.
Marx believed that capitalist setup will result in a Proletariat revolution which will aim to establish the socialist order.
One of the most significant theory postulated by Marx and Engels is Alienation of workforce in the capitalist economy. There can be three kinds of alienation at the workplace:
Firstly, A Proletariat is alienated from his productive activity, with no control over what to produce, how to produce and how much to produce. The speed of work is also decided by the capitalist forces which often leads to extended working hours.
Secondly, a worker is alienated from the produce. There is no control over the final products created by them, which is the reason why the products can be exchanged in the market for profit.
Thirdly, isolation from other human beings due to competition or indifference. Thus the workers are devoid of any cooperation as all them are trying to survive as hard as they can.
The exploitation can be explained by a simple concept — Labour theory of value. The exchange value of any product is determined by the extent of labor power required to produce it. The surplus value is the difference between the exchange value and the wages given to the workers. That is the profit that the business earns. The Bourgeoisie always wishes to maintain a surplus of products which gives him the power over the Proletariat and the society. The power comes from the fact that although the worker is indulging in extra work, he has no control over the surplus.
As an example, if around 6 man hours of produce is sold each day; the capitalist would encourage laborers to work for 8 man hours. Those 2 hours will contribute to the surplus. This is the reason, according to Marx, due to which worker exploitation goes hand in hand with Capitalist economies.
Currently, China is one of the few Marxist economies. If performance in the elections is considered as a benchmark to the support of Marxist beliefs, it is not that widely popular in India. All the Marxist parties combined received 5% of the total votes cast in 2014 general elections. Parties like CPI and CPI (M) are based on the Marxist ideology.
