From Marx to Gramsci

Summary, part 1

What is Marxism?

Marxism is a way of thinking developed by the Germans Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They were profoundly shaped by the working class’s radicalism in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Although both came from relatively privileged backgrounds, Marx and Engels saw the misery (i.e., the majority of the working class suffering to produce wealth for a minority) around them and identified the causes of this misery to be integral to a capitalist society's social fabric.

They also anticipated and planned for a proletarian (i.e., working class) revolution based on their understanding of capitalism, which would see the working class come together to make society free, radical, and democratic. 

Before unpacking these critical concepts of Marxism (i.e., capitalism and the working class), let us first dissect how Marxists think. 

How do Marxists think?

Marxists have an approach to reality that is (1) dialectical, (2) materialistic, and (3) humanistic. Their view is dialectical, meaning they view reality as complex, ever-evolving, and context-dependent. Their view is materialistic, meaning reality is based on structures and dynamics. Things that we cannot explain are not the result of something supernatural. Their view is humanistic, meaning they value humans’ quality of life and believe self-determination, freedom, creative labor, and community, among other things, are essential to the human experience. 

Marxists also have a theory of history that views humanity’s evolution through stages. How society exists today (i.e., our global capitalist society) is not what it looked like two hundred years ago before the Industrial Revolution.

Additionally, Marxists emphasize how technological development and the evolution of productivity affect the stages of society’s development. Marxists also believe that analyses of history must integrate economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology to focus on peoples’ activities, relationships, and social structures. Marxists also view class struggle as central to analyses of history. 

Marxists also have a specific approach to analyzing capitalism. As will be elaborated later, capitalism is an economy where things are privately owned. Owners of production (capitalists) make money by making a profit from their products.

In contrast, the working class makes money by selling their labor to the capitalists. As capitalism evolves, Marxists believe that it will touch all elements of social life and all corners of the globe. Marxists also believe that the contradictions capitalism creates (which will be elaborated later) will lead to economic depressions and social problems that can only be responded with a socialist revolution. In short, the advanced development of capitalism is a precondition for the socialist revolution.

That said, Marxists understand that a socialist revolution, although necessary, is not inevitable or automatic. Instead, a socialist revolution is a sustained effort from the working class, rooted in Marxists’ political program for the working class.

In this political program, the working class can be emancipated through a shared class consciousness, the work from trade unions and an independent political party, and, most necessarily, the fight for democracy. Democracy, in Le Blanc’s eyes, is worth fighting for but can never be fully realized under capitalism, so the struggle for democracy is the struggle against capitalism.

Finally, Marxists have a vision for a social revolution that will create a new society. In this new society, the economy is socially owned, the government is democratically controlled, and the government is used to meet the needs of all. 

Now that we understand how Marxists think, we can now break down how Marxists conceptualize the working class and understand capitalism.

How do Marxists view capitalism?

As mentioned previously, capitalism is an economic system where the means of production (i.e., the physical and non-financial inputs that create goods) are privately controlled by capitalists, who rely on the working class’ labor. In this system, the working class survives by producing wealth and profit for the capitalists.

In Marxism, the terms ‘working class’ and ‘proletariat’ are used interchangeably, as are the terms ‘capitalist class’ and ‘bourgeoisie.’ Marxists view capitalism as being one of many social orders in human society.

Previous social orders include primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and (eventually) socialism–more on this later. Marxists also pinpoint the Industrial Revolution as a tipping point that accelerated the development of capitalism.

But how does capitalism work? Two main concepts to understand here are the accumulation process and expansion. Capitalists make their money by combining commodities that will sell at a higher price (also called surplus value), which the capitalist reinvests in their business and expand their production efforts.

This process where capitalists make their money is called the accumulation process. During the accumulation process, capital assumes different forms: Capital (e.g., money, technology, or labor) is used to produce capital (e.g., the commodity or product being sold) to be sold for more capital. As a result, capital is self-expanding. 

The dynamics of accumulation and expansion create a struggle between the capitalist and the worker since the capitalist will want to cut costs on workers’ wages to make a profit. This, in turn, degrades the value of labor and may lead to resistance.

As capitalism develops, Marx and Engels believe the population will go through proletarianization. In proletarianization, classes are eliminated, the working class is expanded, the working class faces insecurity both in and outside the workforce, and the capitalist class exercises increasingly authoritarian control of labor. 

Other problems in this accumulation and expansion process include…

• Capitalists’ tendency to overproduce;

• Cutting back on labor costs by using technological investments will decrease a product’s profitability; and

• Accumulation and expansion will inevitably lead to a capitalist crisis. This capitalist crisis will not be a failure of capitalism, but rather an inevitable result of capitalism. 

Because capitalists are all about expansion, imperialism then comes into the equation. Imperialism is the process in which one country gains political or economic control over the other, often through force.

Some Marxists like Rosa Luxemburg think that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism and a result of capitalism’s constant need to expand. When capitalists have exhausted their home country’s options, they will seek cheaper labor and/or more relaxed regulations elsewhere.

Other Marxists, however, disagree. For example, Karl Kautsky saw imperialism as a tool for capitalism rather than capitalism in its highest form, and Vladimir Lenin saw monopolization as the highest form of capitalism. Monopolization is the process in which one organization has complete control over the supply of a good or service. (Radical in Progress note: For example, Google may have a monopoly on online search engines.)

Traditionally, Marxists hold a “uni-linear” view of the world, implying that all of human society must move through the stage of capitalism before reaching socialism. But, Marxists like Leon Trotsky challenge this idea.

Trotsky developed the law of uneven and combined development, which understood that capitalism has not developed evenly around the world. This law came to light with the discourse about Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s.

During this time period, people asked why the bourgeoisie was so underdeveloped in Latin America. For countries with a weak bourgeoisie, Marxists like Trotsky and Michael Löwy believe that a set of democratic tasks can bring about socialism.

Those tasks, articulated by Löwy, include an agrarian democratic revolution, national liberation, and the establishment of democratic freedoms and a democratic republic. When the poor in countries with less advanced capitalist economies gain power, Trotsky believes that the proletarian government will have to take part in the global economy controlled by more advanced capitalist countries.

This will trap proletarian governments in 'underdeveloped' countries into working with capitalism on a worldwide scale. From this contradiction, Marxists like Trotsky believe the global proletariat’s success depends on the success of the proletariat in countries with an advanced capitalist system.

How do Marxists conceptualize the working class?

Marxists place a lot of power and hope in the working class, but what exactly is the working class? The working class is defined as:

“Blue-collar and white-collar (industrial and service) employees of various skill and income levels, plus family members who are dependent on the wages and salaries of those workers, plus unemployed workers and their families” (p. 130).

For the working class to successfully launch a proletarian revolution, there must be a shared class consciousness. This class consciousness is the shared belief of the working class that they are members of the working class, their interests are counterposed with the interests of capitalists, the working class must have solidarity with all members of the working class, and the working class must revolt for political power to lead the socialist transformation of society.

More on the working class and class consciousness later.