Karl Marx And Engels 'Communist Manifesto'
GRAMSCI, ALTHUSSER, AND FOUCAULT MAKING THEIR MARXS
Introduction
Karl Marx is a key figure in theorizing power, and in some respects, his work is considered the foundation of social sciences. Marx and his associate Engels instantly became famous among scholars during the late 19th century, when they published The Communist Manifesto (1848). This important work became a reference point for many theorists because the document described in great detail the series of European revolutions initiated by capitalism. Capitalism, Marx and Engels argue, was an interesting 19th century phenomenon that radically changed everything, "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind" (Marx and Engels 1848:12). More specifically, our immaterial institutions (culture, religion, ideology, etc), quickly became a reflection of material social relations of production; the spheres of the sacred and profane collide. However, in our contemporary society where we are removed from Marx by a more than a century and a …show more content…
In this sense, the immaterial virtuals can been seen as an unfiltered ocean of possibility, and the concrete institutions is a dam that channels flows of what bodies are doing (Datta 2013). Foucault believes that the institutions once deemed "exploitative" are what direct power relations towards a healthy, orderly, productive, predictable society. That, "To govern, in this sense, is to structure the possible field of actions of others" (Foucault 1982:790); a new positive reformed apparatus of the material
Introduction
Karl Marx is a key figure in theorizing power, and in some respects, his work is considered the foundation of social sciences. Marx and his associate Engels instantly became famous among scholars during the late 19th century, when they published The Communist Manifesto (1848). This important work became a reference point for many theorists because the document described in great detail the series of European revolutions initiated by capitalism. Capitalism, Marx and Engels argue, was an interesting 19th century phenomenon that radically changed everything, "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind" (Marx and Engels 1848:12). More specifically, our immaterial institutions (culture, religion, ideology, etc), quickly became a reflection of material social relations of production; the spheres of the sacred and profane collide. However, in our contemporary society where we are removed from Marx by a more than a century and a …show more content…
In this sense, the immaterial virtuals can been seen as an unfiltered ocean of possibility, and the concrete institutions is a dam that channels flows of what bodies are doing (Datta 2013). Foucault believes that the institutions once deemed "exploitative" are what direct power relations towards a healthy, orderly, productive, predictable society. That, "To govern, in this sense, is to structure the possible field of actions of others" (Foucault 1982:790); a new positive reformed apparatus of the material