Karl Marxs Greatest Hits

Karl Marx's Greatest Hits Karl Marx, born May 5, 1818, is considered one of the founding thinkers of sociology, along with Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Harriet Martineau. Though he lived and died before sociology was a discipline in its own right, his writings as a political-economist provided a still deeply important foundation for theorizing the relationship between economy and political power. In this post, we honor Marxs birth by celebrating some of his most important contributions to sociology. Marxs Dialectic Historical Materialism Marx is typically remembered for giving sociology a conflict theory of how society operates. He formulated this theory by first turning an important philosophical tenet of the day on its headthe Hegelian Dialectic. Hegel, a leading German philosopher during Marxs early studies, theorized that social life and society grew out of thought. Looking at the world around him, with the growing influence of capitalist industry on all other facets of society, Marx saw things differently. He inverted Hegels dialectic, and theorized instead that it is the existing forms of economy and productionthe material worldand our experiences within these that shape thought and consciousness. Of this, he wrote in  Capital, Volume 1, The ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought. Core to all of his theory, this perspective became known as historical materialism. Base and Superstructure Marx gave sociology some important conceptual tools as he developed his historical materialist theory and method for studying society. In The German Ideology, written with Friedrich Engels,  Marx explained that society is divided into two realms: the base, and the superstructure. He defined the base as the material aspects of society: that which allow for production of goods. These include the means of productionfactories and material resourcesas well as the relations of production, or the relationships between people involved, and the distinct roles they play (like laborers, managers, and factory owners), as required by the system. Per his historical materialist account of history and how society functions, it is the base that determines the superstructure, whereby the superstructure is all other aspects of society, like our culture and ideology (world views, values, beliefs, knowledge, norms and expectations); social institutions like education, religion, and media; the political system; and even the identities we subscribe to. Class Conflict and Conflict Theory When looking at society this way, Marx saw that the distribution of power to determine how society functioned was structured in a top-down manner, and was tightly controlled by the wealthy minority who owned and controlled the means of production. Marx and Engels laid out this theory of class conflict in  The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848. They argued that the bourgeoisie, the minority in power, created class conflict by exploiting the labor power of the proletariat, the workers who made the system of production run by selling their labor to the ruling class. By charging far more for the goods produced than they paid the proletariats for their labor, the owners of the means of production earned profit. This arrangement was the basis of the capitalist economy at the time that Marx and Engels wrote, and it remains the basis of it today. Because wealth and power are unevenly distributed between these two classes, Marx and Engels argued that society is in a perpetual state of conflict, wherein the ruling class work to maintain the upper-hand over the majority working class, in order to retain their wealth, power, and overall advantage. (To learn the details of Marxs theory of the labor relations of capitalism, see  Capital, Volume 1.) False Consciousness and  Class Consciousness In  The German Ideology  and  The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels explained that the rule of the bourgeoisie is achieved and maintained in the realm of the superstructure. That is, the basis of their rule is ideological. Through their control of politics, media, and educational institutions, those in power propagate a worldview that suggests that the system as it is is right and just, that is is designed for the good of all, and that it is even natural and inevitable. Marx referred to the inability of the working class to see and understand the nature of this oppressive class relationship as false consciousness, and theorized that eventually, they would develop a clear and critical understanding of it, which would be class consciousness. With class consciousness, they would have awareness of the realities of the classed society in which they lived, and of their own role in reproducing it. Marx reasoned that once class consciousness had been achieved, a worker-led revolutio n would overthrow the oppressive system. Summation These are the ideas that are central to Marxs theory of economy and society, and are what made him so important to the field of sociology. Of course, Marxs written work is quite voluminous, and any dedicated student of sociology should engage in a close reading of as many of his works as possible, especially as his theory remains relevant today. While the class hierarchy of society is more complex today than that which Marx theorized, and capitalism now operates on a global scale, Marxs observations about the dangers of commodified labor, and about the core relationship between base and superstructure continue to serve as important analytic tools for understanding how the unequal status quo is maintained, and how one can go about disrupting it. Interested readers can find all of Marxs writing digitally archived here.

Ludwig Von Mises essays

Ludwig Von Mises essays Ludwig Von Mises was born in 1881 in Austro- Hungarian city of Lemberg. Ludwigs father was a successful engineer, which is where Ludwig found his inspiration to work hard. When he turned nineteen Mr. Mises enrolled in the University of Vienna. Here with the great learning atmosphere of the University he studied economic greats Carl Menger, who is the founder of the Austrian school and also attended the seminar of the great professor at the school Eugen Von Bohm-Bawerk. Ludwig Von Mises received his doctorate at age 27. In 1912 after receiving his PhD Mises started his first piece of work, The Theory of Money and Credit. Mises, unlike other Austrian economist that came before him, which followed the classical school in separating money from the rest of the economy, and analyzed it in separate theoretical terms. Mises argued that just as the price of any commodity is determined by supply and demand, so is the purchasing power of money, its price. Mises showed in his work that prices increase faster or slower than the money supply, the amount and speed of price increases depending on peoples desire to hold cash. He also argued that because prices increase only relative to one another, monetary inflation brings about redistribution of wealth, from savers and earners to banks and government and its connected interested groups. Even more damaging are the business cycles of booms and busts that monetary inflation causes. In broad outline, when government inflates, it lowers the interest rate below the p roper market level, which depends on saving. The artificially low interest rate misleads businesses onto making uneconomic investments and creates an inflationary boom. When the credit expansion slows or stops, investments errors are revealed and bankruptcies and unemployment result. Central Banks like Federal Reserve will inevitable create the business cycle. What is to be done to stop the cycle? Mis ...

Widget Manufacturing Case study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Widget Manufacturing - Case Study Example rom investments in Mexico, but were affected by the global recession which reduced the Mexico GDP from an average of 2.3 percent to a – 6.5 percent. Despite the I.M assurance that the firm will have alternative methods to reduce the FX in expenses such as payroll, purchasing, and lease costs, there are major risks involved, which Arnold has to address. After investing in Mexico, the widget company will experience three types of currency volatility risks, which include transaction exposure, translation exposure and economic exposure. The three major risks are not covered in the IM assurance and hence Arnold’s concerns are logical and valid. In prior to investing, the Widget Manufacturing capital management should analyze the capital investments involved in a larger perspective. The main aim of the capital management team is to ensure that the value of the firm increases gradually and to uphold profitability. Therefore, Arnold should consider several other factors other than the currency volatility (FX rates); the factors to be considered include, but not limited to, Support capital, liquefaction value, account receivables and payables, and general risks. Support capital is the supplementary resources that are required to enhance productivity of the mainstream capital; they include infrastructure, labor, management etc. Before investing, Arnold should consider the possibility, whether Widget Manufacturing will find the desired workers, management, and sufficient infrastructure network to support the proposed venture. Similarly, he should consider the liquefaction/resale value of the investment, following the thriving un stable economy at the time of decision-making; it is highly likely that the capital will depreciate after investment. The risk calls for an indepth analysis of Mexico market to ensure that the business withstands the competition and attracts a reasonable liquefaction value in case of collapse. In addition, account payable and account receivables