Chris Craig’s “Some Thoughts on Ideology” explains some of the ways hegemony and ideology function in a capitalist culture, exploring a few subtle (and some not so subtle) ways in which we, as capitalist subjects, are conditioned to value a system which promotes exploitation and greed above all else. While these examples are certainly valuable insights upon which our understanding of Marxism depends, we thought it might be useful to think about the economic and historical aspects of Marxist theory. One could argue that Marxism in its most basic form is an economic theory, and that understanding the theories of economics it analyzes and promotes is basic to any further application of the theory, be it literary, cultural, or historical.
Central to Marxist economic theory is the commodity and commodity production. In the first chapter of Capital, Marx defines a commodity as “an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another.” The production of commodities depends on two things: first, the existence of a market of exchange, and second, the social division of labor to produce different commodities for exchange. Marx holds that the conditions of this exchange are dependent on the use-value, the actually usefulness of the commodity, and the exchange-value, which is determined by the labor time necessary to produce any given commodity. The exchange value is what is expressed in the price of a commodity. The idea that the labor time required to produce a commodity determines its value is called the labor theory of value, which forms the premise of Marxist economic theory.
Marx argues that capitalism is a distinctive economic system because it not only involves the exchange of commodities, but also the advancement of capital, that is, money or assets that are available for investment. Capital that is ‘left over’ after the costs of production have been met is profit, the accumulation of which is the ultimate goal of capitalism. In order to generate profit, capitalism needs three things—exploitable resources, exploitable labor, and exploitable markets. Clearly, exploitation is a theme here. The capitalist always seeks to get more for less, much in the way a consumer bargain hunts at a sale. In terms of resources, lower prices or more efficient technology can allow the capitalist to pay less for the same quantity and quality of material. Chris mentioned the way that capitalists seek to exploit labor—wage slavery, meaning that the worker must produce surplus value, or value that exceeds the worth of the worker’s effort. On a basic level, this means that the capitalist must get the laborer to do ten hours of work for five hours of pay. Marx argues that it is this exploitation of the laborer that generates profit, an idea known as the surplus value theory of profit. The laborer is exploited from another angle as well, as a consumer in an exploitable market. If capitalists can produce more for less while demand increases, then prices can be set higher, generating further profit. In another way, if capitalists can find new commodities and create demand for them, this will also further profit.
As Chris explains, there are various ways of convincing the laborer and the consumer to participate in a system that exploits them. For the laborer, this means wage slavery. In wage slavery, the capitalist pays the laborer just enough to keep him or her coming back to work and producing, but not enough that he or she is able to take the steps to escape their enslaved position. This works because the laborers do not have capital of their own, thus all they have to sell is their labor. For the consumer in the capitalist market, hegemony and ideology work together to convince an individual to buy those jeans or that ipad. In either case, the capitalist creates conditions which trap the consumer and the laborer in their subservient position.
It is this fact that led Marx to write in the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” Marx’s theory of historical materialism, something we spoke about in class, posits that societies progress and decline according to material conditions. That is, the economic base and superstructure’s ability to develop or diminish human productive power. Marx argues that humans are essentially productive beings, and that it is the structure of a society, in terms of economics, legal institutions, and political administration, which determine the degree of this production. It is important to note that Historical Materialism emphasizes the productiveness of the society of a whole, thereby defining this productiveness in terms of interdependent relationships and cooperation. This idea is explained in Marx's Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy, in which he says that "Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand." The failure of any society to promote productiveness, then, leads to the decline of that society. Furthermore, Marx suggest that at this point of decline, workers become aware of their subjugation and the alternatives available to, leading them to revolt. Hence, the Communist Manifesto call to arms, “Working men of all countries unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.”
Marx’s theories of economics and historical materialism have, like all theories, developed over time as new scholars come to understand and interpret them. While many of Marx’s original theories have been altered to account for original gaps in logic or misconceptions generated by the text, the principles discussed here provide an overview of Marxist economic theory which is vital to understanding Marxism as a broader theory. A compilation of Marx’s work is available here. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is also a useful site for getting a general background on many prominent theories, an overview of Marxism can be found here.
