Ciclo con generaci´ on de coherencias

Marx’s ideas have been influential in politics, sociology, history, economics and philosophy. However, Marx’s ideas have also inspired great works of fiction. Robert Tressell’s novel is a moving and informative defence of socialist values with a heartfelt message. The novel is centred on a group of painters who are set the task of renovating a house, owned by a wealthy family. As the novel unfolds, a picture emerges of daily toil, in poor working conditions, for pittance wages, and lives characterised by hardship and job-insecurity, by ill-health and fear. The novel charts the ways in which material conditions of life gradually foster a consciousness of social class and the nature of exploitation. Many of Marx’s ideas are explicitly discussed, explained or refuted by the central characters in the book.

Of course, human relationships are not just constituted by economic relationships of the kind described above. We interact with other people on a day-to-day basis in the home, in a university, and in many other contexts such as a mosque or church perhaps. Our lives and our relationships with others are profoundly affected by government policies and we have to obey the law. We also ‘engage’ with others indirectly when we read about events happening away from our locality, or watch pro- grammes on television. Marx believed that the economic ‘base’ supports a range of other political and social institutions, such as the state, the law courts, the church, the family, the education system, and what we now call the ‘mass media’. Contemporary structuralists sometimes refer to these institutions as the ‘superstructure’ of society. The superstructure is intimately connected with, but conceptually distinct from, the economic base. Marx devoted a great deal of time to trying to elucidate the relation- ship between the economic ‘base’ and the political, social and legal ‘superstructure’. He believed that ultimately economic forces drove (determined) social and political change, and much of his work was concerned with explaining how and why such change occurred. The relationship between base and superstructure has been much debated within Marxism.

By combining some of Marx’s ideas on the historical and changing nature of human societies – known as ‘historical materialism’ – with Marxist economic analysis, it is possible to construct a

coherent analysis of the overall structure of capitalist societies which can then be used to inform our understanding of the individual ‘parts’. To simplify, Marx claimed that human societies were made up of various institutions and forms of social organisation which fulfilled a particular function or role in terms of the overall social system. He believed that, as societies changed over time, so too did forms of social organisation, practices and institutions.

Marx believed that the dynamic force propelling change of this kind was economic: that is, the dynamic of change was rooted in the particular ‘modes of production’ of society. Marx also believed that productive forces developed over time as humanity developed more knowledge of/mastery over, nature. As modes of production advanced and changed, the superstructure of society also changed. So, at different periods in history we find different modes of production – agricultural, industrial and so on – and a corresponding system of legal and political forms of organisation and social relation- ships. Marx argued that social relations could be characterised in different ways – feudal, bourgeois and so forth.

Marx was not alone in seeing a close ‘fit’ or correspondence between the economy, social relation- ships and political institutions. At roughly the same period of history, ‘functionalist’ thinkers like Durkheim were arguing that the social, political and economic spheres of life were intimately con- nected. However, whereas functionalists likened society to something like a natural organism, Marx regarded societies as riddled with internal tensions and conflicts. He argued that all forms of social and economic organisation, to date, were based on forms of oppression and exploitation. Moreover, all systems contained inherent contradictions, based on their exploitative nature, which eventually

Figure 3.1 Robert Tressell’s novel, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, encapsulated the idea that people such as these were giving their labour so that others could be rich. Tressell’s novel encourages people to look forward to a glorious socialist future.

brought about their downfall. Marx believed that this process of historical change was usually violent. During periods of transition emerging classes struggled for ascendancy over the old ruling order and established their own dominance over the rest of society.

From a Marxist perspective the French Revolution, and the subsequent period of social turmoil/political upheaval, were illustrative of a process by which an emerging social class (the bour- geoisie) rose up and displaced the established ruling class (the ancien régime or aristocracy). Marxists continue to view classes in terms of their relationship to society’s mode of production. So, contemporary capitalism is characterised by a ruling class (bourgeoisie), which owns/controls the means of production, and the working class (proletariat), who must sell their labour to survive.

Before considering how Marx, and Engels, provided a theoretical framework which has been used to develop a structuralist analysis of international relations we need to draw out the ways in which Marx’s ideas about the relationship between economics, politics and society are later used to develop an elaborate structural analysis of capitalism (see the Author Box on Louis Althusser).

Marxism is often dismissed as ‘ideological’, but structuralists make their claims on the basis of what they regard as ‘scientific’ analysis. Though Marx was unable to allow for many factors (and hence was ‘wrong’ in some of his arguments), he was actually trying to suggest that what was hap- pening was based on certain observable, inevitable processes. History was ‘pre-determined’ in the sense that capitalists could not prevent their own demise and workers were destined to inherit the world and build a better and brighter future.