Do you think that Marx’s vision of how workers are oppressed describes workers today?

Question

Marx follows Hegel to a certain extent. For Marx, Hegel is correct in claiming that a driving dynamic of human history has been the relationship between the bourgeoisie (owners) and proletariat (workers). Marx saw the factory owner as a kind of master, the factory worker as a kind of slave. Today we are told that we are in a post-industrial or the information age....Do you also think If it does, is his forecast of a workers’ revolution likely? If not, why not?

I just had class and this topic was quite interesting so I would like to know what others think!

Answer 1

The biggest problem with Marx is that his analysis of Capitalism is based on the fallacious assumtion that a good's value is directly dependent on its labour inputs.  Economists don't analyse value like this any more -- the accepted method relies on the principle of marginal utility.  The value of a good is expressed in terms of the marginal utility it provides to the buyer, which means it's completely subjective.  That is, there is no way to determine the value of a good simply by analysing the inputs.  Without a market, no good is actually worth anything.

Without the labour theory of value, Marxist analysis of Capitalism as an "alienating" force doesn't hold.  That is, the capitalist isn't "cheating" the labourer out of his labour value in order to make profit.  In fact, Current Economic theory suggests that the driving force of the economy is *not* profit maximisation of firms, but the general maximisation of utility, both individual and aggregate social.

Modern Economics predicts a free market equilibrium where all commodites exchange at their marginal utilities and at the marginal amounts of the different factors of production necessary to produce them. Thus, careful analysis places the free market at a Pareto Optimum: the situation where social utility is maximised and at the same time all factors of production are employed most efficiently.  Moving away from the free market to a Maxist system would lead to inefficiencies in the market and therefore decrease social utility.  That is, the social welfare is poorer under Marxism.

It's not entirely Marx's fault, however.  The labour theory of value is inherited from Classical Economists like Ricardo and Smith who, while correct about so many other things, were dead wrong about this.

In any case Hegel would be ashamed to see how Marx debased his dialectical idealism by making everything about money.

Answer 2

Great and well done question, Nitta.

Well, first the fact that we are on another age (be it 'new age', information age whatever) does not deny the industrial one, does not puts away the one Marx thought of.

Second, it's not the case that I think of it nor not: it's a fact, a consumed fact -- the relation between the owners (production means) and the workers (modern slaves) is today prety like the one from that time, plus: it's totally normalized, I mean: formalized and, what may be worst, is naturalized.

Third, I have to go! Have a nice class discussion! N sorry for bad Egnsilh!

, you know,

Answer 3

yes and no. yes that the bourgeoisie exploit the workers in not paying them what the labor is truly worth to the ruling class.. but i think he failed to recognize that it may not be the same value to the worker i.e. someone who puts a wheel on a car is invaluable to to producer because it is vital to the whole but the action itself is simple and not so valuable to the worker.

i personally find this through out Marx and tend to dislike like him because he seems ignorant to me

Answer 4

In some ways, no. There are minimum wage laws, restrictions on child labor and a much larger professional class than there was in Marx's time. However, in some aspects it is. A lot of workers have seen their real wages drop, have minimal or no benefits, and there have been massive layoffs. There is intense competition for many jobs and little incentive for employers in many industries to treat their employees well due to the mass of workers available. This is certainly fertile ground for future strife, if not revolution.