 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
|
The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 was a set of articles written by Karl Marx for the newspaper Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1850. The works were collated and republished in 1895 by Friedrich Engels. [1]
In these works Marx analyzes the class issues and the economic relations which drove forward the social and political upheavals, which took place in France in 1848. He focuses extensively on the argument that the conflict was not between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but between different factions within the bourgeoisie. Specifically, he identifies conflicts between the industrial bourgeoisie, whose wealth and income are dependent upon the production and sale of goods; and the financial bourgeoisie, whom he identifies as bankers and stock market speculators. [2]
Marx identifies a political system where the individuals responsible for the development of public policy and the direction of public funds, were the same individuals whose investments stood to be effected by these decisions. The result of this, he claims, was that public policy was manipulated for the sake of self enrichment, giving the example of extensive railroad projects being developed with public funds under the direction of legislators who were also the main investors in these endeavors. [2]
Marx asserts, however, that, while this situation was deemed intolerable to the industrial bourgeoisie, they were not in any position to take serious action against it. The industrial bourgeoisie still occupied a comparatively privileged position within society and government and this fact, Marx argues, placed them in essentially the main camp as the financial bourgeoisie. [2]
Where Marx identifies the change in the situation that made the public revolt possible is in a set of financial crises further afield that had deleterious effects on the economic situation in France. Specifically, he identifies a set of crop failures in 1845 and 46, and then a more general economic crisis which gripped England in the late 1840s. This crisis saw a wave of bankruptcies and factory closures throughout Britain and it was in the midst of the aftershocks that this crisis sent across the European continent, Marx asserts, that the February Revolution took place. [2]
Marx asserts in these works that England, in that time, was setting the tone for bourgeois society in general, and blames this on the nature of the trade imbalances which then existed. He paints a picture of France exporting most of its consumer goods to England, while England exports most of it consumer goods further abroad. In the same way he interprets the crises which effect England afterwards going on to effect the continent. [2]
Thus, he claims, the general economic crisis in England led to a general economic crisis in France, and that this crisis was the cause of the revolution of February 1848. This prompts him to demonstrate why no such revolution occurred in England and for this he offers the explanation that England was more thoroughly industrialized. England, he claims, needed no revolution because the industrialists already constituted such a great power, socially and politically, that they were able to confront the runaway power of speculative finance directly. France, however, was still far more heavily agrarian, while the industrialist class, though wealthy and powerful in its own right, did not wield sufficient power to carry through such a confrontation. It was only in the aftermath of the above mentioned economic crises that the industrial bourgeoisie found themselves forced to align themselves with the agrarian classes against the financial bourgeoisie. Thus Marx concludes that, in spite of the proletarian character and slogans of the revolution the proletariat were used mostly as a prop, and that as soon as the new republic was established the proletariat were more or less ejected from the circles of power. [2]
Marx goes on to describe how this use of the proletariat as a prop to dethrone the financial bourgeoisie on the behalf of the industrial bourgeoisie left the bourgeoisie so disillusioned and alienated as to fall into support for Louis Bonaparte, a man who Marx speaks of very disparagingly. He argues that Bonaparte's lack of character was central to his popularity as he was able to signify different things to different constituents and therefore build a broad base of support among groups that, according to Marx, share few mutual goals and interests. [2]
Finally, Marx draws together the analyses of the political upheavals in France and the economic crises triggered, originally, in England and spreading outward to the continent; and from these analyses builds the argument that these upheavals in France, which seemed like a grand political shift in one nation, marked only minor change within the superstructure of a social and economic system which was multinational in character. [2]
Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary.
The Communist Manifesto, originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party, is an 1848 political document by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London just as the Revolutions of 1848 began to erupt, the Manifesto was later recognised as one of the world's most influential political documents. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle and the conflicts of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms.
In economics and sociology, the means of production are physical and non-financial inputs used in the production of economic value. These include raw materials, facilities, machinery and tools used in the production of goods and services. In the terminology of classical economics, the means of production are the "factors of production" minus financial and human capital.
Bourgeoisie is a polysemous French term that can mean:
Universal class is a category derived from the philosophy of Hegel, redefined and popularized by Karl Marx. In Marxism it denotes that class of people within a stratified society for which, at a given point in history, self-interested action coincides with the needs of humanity as a whole.
Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that views class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and takes a dialectical view of social transformation. It originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism has developed into many different branches and schools of thought, with the result that there is now no single definitive Marxist theory.
While Marxists propose replacing the bourgeois state with a proletarian semi-state through revolution, which would eventually wither away, anarchists warn that the state must be abolished along with capitalism. Nonetheless, the desired end results, a stateless, communal society, are the same.
Marxian class theory asserts that an individual’s position within a class hierarchy is determined by their role in the production process, and argues that political and ideological consciousness is determined by class position. A class is those who share common economic interests, are conscious of those interests, and engage in collective action which advances those interests. Within Marxian class theory, the structure of the production process forms the basis of class construction.
Karl Marx's ideas about the state can be divided into three subject areas: pre-capitalist states, states in the capitalist era and the state in post-capitalist society. Overlaying this is the fact that his own ideas about the state changed as he grew older, differing in his early pre-communist phase, the young Marx phase which predates the unsuccessful 1848 uprisings in Europe and in his mature, more nuanced work.
The 1848 Revolution in France, sometimes known as the February Revolution, was one of a wave of revolutions in 1848 in Europe. In France the revolutionary events ended the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and led to the creation of the French Second Republic.
Lumpenproletariat is a term used primarily by Marxist theorists to describe the underclass devoid of class consciousness. Coined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 1840s, they used it to refer to the unthinking lower strata of society exploited by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces, particularly in the context of the revolutions of 1848. They dismissed its revolutionary potential and contrasted it with the proletariat. Among other groups criminals, vagabonds, and sex workers are usually included in this category.
Classical Marxism refers to the economic, philosophical and sociological theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Leninism and Marxism–Leninism.
Revolutionary socialism is the socialist doctrine that social revolution is necessary in order to bring about structural changes to society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for a transition from capitalism to socialism. Revolution is not necessarily defined as a violent insurrection; it is defined as seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the state is directly controlled or abolished by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests. Revolutionary socialists believe such a state of affairs is a precondition for establishing socialism and orthodox Marxists believe that it is inevitable but not predetermined.
Mahir Çayan was a Turkish communist revolutionary and the leader of People's Liberation Party-Front of Turkey. He was a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary leader. On 30 March 1972, he was killed by soldiers with nine friends in Kızıldere village.
In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the state of affairs in which the working class hold political power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, realised by the nationalisation of the means of production, from private ownership to collective ownership. The revolutionary socialist Joseph Weydemeyer coined the term "dictatorship of the proletariat", which Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels adopted to their philosophy of political economy. The historical exemplar of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the Paris Commune (1871), a socialist-democratic opposition to peace with Germany and the socio-economic conservatism of the French Third Republic, which controlled the French capital city for two months, before being suppressed by Prussian soldiers.
The proletariat is the class of wage-earners in an economic society whose only possession of significant material value is their labour-power. A member of such a class is a proletarian.
Principles of Communism is a brief 1847 work written by Friedrich Engels, the co-founder of Marxism. It is structured as a catechism, containing 25 questions about communism for which answers are provided. In the text, Engels presents core ideas of Marxism such as historical materialism, class struggle, and proletarian revolution. Principles of Communism served as the draft version for the Communist Manifesto.
Permanent revolution is the strategy of a revolutionary class pursuing its own interests independently and without compromise or alliance with opposing sections of society. As a term within Marxist theory, it was first coined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by at least 1850, but since then it has been used to refer to different concepts by different theorists, most notably Leon Trotsky.
Historical materialism, also known as the materialist conception of history, is a methodology used by some communist and Marxist historiographers that focuses on human societies and their development through history, arguing that history is the result of material conditions rather than ideals. This was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818–1883) as the "materialist conception of history". It is principally a theory of history which asserts that the material conditions of a society's mode of production or in Marxist terms, the union of a society's productive forces and relations of production, fundamentally determine society's organization and development. Historical materialism is an example of Marx and Engel's scientific socialism, attempting to show that socialism and communism are scientific necessities rather than philosophical ideals.
Fascist syndicalism was a trade syndicate movement that rose out of the pre-World War II provenance of the revolutionary syndicalism movement led mostly by Edmondo Rossoni, Sergio Panunzio, A. O. Olivetti, Michele Bianchi, Alceste De Ambris, Paolo Orano, Massimo Rocca, and Guido Pighetti, under the influence of Georges Sorel, who was considered the “‘metaphysician’ of syndicalism.” The Fascist Syndicalists differed from other forms of fascism in that they generally favored class struggle, worker-controlled factories and hostility to industrialists, which lead historians to portray them as “leftist fascist idealists” who “differed radically from right fascists.” Generally considered one of the more radical Fascist syndicalists in Italy, Rossoni was the “leading exponent of fascist syndicalism.”, and sought to infuse nationalism with “class struggle.”
