Preview

Karl Marx explores on capitalism and its effects on society

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1683 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Karl Marx explores on capitalism and its effects on society
Karl Marx explores on capitalism and its effects on society. Capitalism is referred to as an economic and political system where the country’s market industry is ‘capitalized’ and owned by private individuals. These individuals are known as the bourgeoise. The bourgeoisie are the people who own the means of production. Moreover, beneath these individuals are the means to their product known as the proletariat. The proletariats are individuals known as the ‘working class’ and sell their labour to the bourgeoisie for wages. Evidently, the bourgeoisie-protelteriat relationship is an interdependent system that is the core of capitalism.(quote 3) The underlying forces of capitalism are class conflicts and exploitation. (quote 3).
As a result, there is a clear distinction between the bourgeoise and the proletariat that are now reffered to as ‘white-collar’ and ‘blue-collar’ individuals. White collar career paths as entailed in the nomination are careers that involve a white-collar: office based postions that control the operations of a business. In contrast, blue-colalr individuals help utilize the operation. To provide a clear example, a owner of a business may hire an accountant to handle financial matters in terms of budget and analysis. The owner of the business provides the funds and oversees the accountants’ work and is therefore the upper-class bourgeoise. The accountant provides a service to the business owner and is being offered wages in return and is therefore referred to as the prolteriate.
Through a thorough analysis of worker satisfaction through various occupations, it is evident that individuals with white collar positions are less alientated and fetishize more about materialistic objects. In addition, individuals with white-collar positions inevitably pursue the American Dream as they consider themselves to be in a position of power and necessity. The American Dream is a life where through hard work and dedication a citizen can strive to obtain

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Karl Marx disliked capitalism, because it is a system in which everybody buys and sells to try and end up with as much money as they can. This ends up with people who have a lot of money who own the factories, and with poorer people who only have a little money and work in the factories.…

    • 387 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels believed that Capitalist society, which is based on the right of each individual to own private property, is the cause of the main class divides evident in today's society. That the basic right to own property results in the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, becoming obsessed with the accumulation of possessions and, as a consequence, becoming slaves to commodities; Commodity fetishism. This resulted, they argued, in the widening of class divisions. Capitalist society is described by some as protecting freedom and individuality. However, it also, undeniably, encourages self-interest, greed and - as Marx argued - an obsession with private property. It is a society whose basis lies in the fundamental need to accumulate property. The people within this society who do not have the means to amass material possessions are pitied, considered the underclass. They are seen to be lacking in something, incomplete, and are encouraged to 'make something' of themselves. To acquire qualifications, a job that pays well, to set themselves up so that they too can begin to accumulate material goods. This, society argues, is what everyone should strive for.…

    • 2330 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Marx then goes into the first part of the body of his manifesto entitled "Bourgeois and Proletarians." In this part, he goes into how society started communal but then became more unequal as time went on. Systems such as Feudalism, Mercantilism, and Capitalism benefited from the use of exploitation. He first introduces the idea that economic concerns of a nation drive history, and that the struggle between the rich bourgeoisie and the hard working proletariat would eventually lead to Communism. He goes on and on about how the bourgeois have always got what they wanted. Marx reflected more on the negatives committed by the bourgeois than the positives. He states the bourgeoisie "has agglomerated population, centralized means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands." (Marx, p.8) He then describes the proletarians, or the labor class, and how they were formed, how they have suffered, and how they must overcome their struggles. Marx declares that this “dangerous class,” the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution." (Marx, p.15) This began an inevitable revolution where the proletariats take over and dethrone the bourgeoisie.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Marx believed that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. He described how the wealth of the bourgeoisie depended on the work of the proletariat. Therefore, capitalism requires an underclass. But Marx predicted that the continued exploitation of this underclass would create great resentment. Eventually the proletariat would lead a revolution against the bourgeoisie.…

    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In society there are many different factors which divide us and result in social inequality. In this essay, I will be covering social class. Karl Marx believed that in society, there are two major social classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. The bourgeoisie are basically the upper class; in order for you to be classed as a part of them you must own the means of production such as factories etc. In order for these factories to run, they would need workers, which is where the proletariats come in. The proletariat only owns their labour force which they sell in order for a wage. Karl Marx stated that the proletariats are exploited through low pay and poor work conditions, but due to capitalism, we deal with it as were tied down to the economy.…

    • 699 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One basic tenet Karl Marx's defines in his famous Manifesto of the Communist Party is the distinguishing characteristics of two opposing social classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie also known as the “capitalist” are the ones who own the means of production. Because of their wealth, they also have the power to control pretty much everything. The proletariat known as the “workers” do not own nor have any control of the means of production but earn money from the bourgeoisie by providing their labor for very little money.…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the feudal system in Europe began crumbling with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution a void was created in the European social and economic structure, Scottish philosopher Adam Smith took it upon himself to fill this void and in 1776 published The Wealth of Nations; just as Newtons Principia Mathematica laid the foundation for modern physics so to did Adams work lay the foundation for modern economics. For the next 70 years Adams doctrine went unchallenged until Karl Marx presented his rebuttal in the Communist Manifesto.…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    They compare the bourgeoisie to a sorcerer who has lost his grip on the powers he once commanded, unable to control the consequences of his actions. It gives the impression of an unstable class system tenuously clinging to a doomed economic market, which seems to imply that there was a true sense of hope of toppling the social hierarchy. To a modern reader, Marx seems either incredibly hopeful or somewhat naive to underestimate the impact of capitalism on the world. His reliance on the inevitability of socialism indicates that the true implications of capitalism were not yet clear during his time, or perhaps shows the strength of the people’s desperation political, social, and economic equality. The Communist dream of a highly centralized community free of social hierarchy or private property emerged directly as a result from the divisive class system of the time period.…

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Human relationships have always been dynamic. Change and adaptability have gone hand in hand with the passing of time for human society. Karl Marx's views on Industrialization and the bourgeoisie had a major impact on how we view our industrial alignment today. Marx and Engel's The Communist Manifesto gives broad views on the subject of the middle class and how they fit into a society that was ruled by feudalism and aristocracy. Capitalism becomes a major topic in a socialist-based society that underwent many changes as industrialization progressed. A government must be dynamic in its nature reflecting the change in society. At times aristocracy has refused to allow society to adapt to the changes that the bourgeoisie…

    • 1992 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Karl Marx, philosopher, theorist and sociologist, had very controversial ideologies. His divergent views towards social class and capitalism ultimately lead to his banishment from countries like Germany and France. Marx believed that there are only two classes in society: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. He strongly argued that these two categories influence individuals’ life chances and outlooks. Marx saw capitalism as a mostly negative system in which the proletariats work for the benefit of the bourgeoisie. In other words, wage-workers are of value to the bourgeoisie because they are essentially commodities. Given this perspective on capitalism it is quite interesting that more people do not share this same view, especially those who…

    • 293 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the mid 1800’s two men by the names of Karl Marx and Friedrech Engels wrote a book called “The Communist Manifesto”. In this book Marx proposed that capitalism was a system full of flaws and…

    • 187 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    A major argument that Marx put across in his scripts was that capitalism would force society to polarise, causing two classes within society, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. These classes were at both extremes of the social spectrum, the bourgeoisie been the rich "fat cats" who reeped the fruits of capitalism, they were normally the factory or…

    • 1464 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Karl Marx Research Paper

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Karl Heinrich Marx was born in Germany in 1818 and died in 1883. He imagined human society as made of classes, the nature of which was dictated in turn by the main system of production and ownership. Marx argued that capitalism is inherently unstable, tense with flaws and prone to deep crises. Capitalism is dominated by the wealthiest corporations and devoted to profit above all else. If people had followed Marx ideologies more closely than we might have been able to avoid our current environmental predicaments, especially his argument against capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the factors of production (capital, land, and labor) employed in the generation of profits. Marx pointed out that Capitalism creates a system where there are basically two classes of people. The workers and the exploiters. The exploiters take advantage of the workers by making a profit from the worker's labor and the workers resent the exploiters. As a result of the conflict between them, eventually, the workers will revolt and take over society themselves. They will create a worker only society where no one realizes an advantage over anyone else. It is a very simplified view of the nature of a relationship between those who achieve success and those who do not. However, Capitalism requires endless growth of production doubt…

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Karl Marx believed that society is based upon a conflict between Bourgeoisies (Ruling class, Upper class) and Proletariat (Working class). Marx believed that the ruling class were exploiting the working class.…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays