Ø
What is
produced, how it is produced and how it is distributed (exchanged) determines
everything else in society. In other words, the mode of production determines
the rest of the social structure.
Ø
All modes
of production up through capitalism (primitive communalism, slavery, feudalism)
were based on class conflict
Ø
A key
component of a class system is based on who owns the means of production (tools,
land, labor).
“The
pattern of ownership of tools and materials generally shapes the system of
social classes in a society” (27)
“…the
richest 10% of the U.S. population owns over 80% of all stocks and almost 90% of
all bonds.” …in 1965, the average CEO’s salary was 44 times the average
factory worker’s wages, but today that ratio is over 500 to 1.” (27)
Ø
The Class
Struggle
Ø
Money
reflects or reifies the actual relations between humans in capitalism.
Ø
All other
institutions (legal, political, religious) reinforce the dominant mode of
production.
Ø
Everything
is commodified, even relations between humans. Authors write about the
Beetles’ records being used for commercials, public radio being co-opted by
corporations (e.g. Archer-Daniels-Midland), bowl games being given corporate
names.
Ø
Labor
becoming a commodity was a key moment in history (and poses problems for it
comes with a human attached).
Ø
Labor
power, not labor, is what is being sold to the capitalist.
Ø
Capitalisms
potential for crisis: Employer has interest in oppressing workers, reducing
wages, raising productivity and lengthening the work day; but this creates
potential for a realization crisis – you have produced goods that you
cannot sell.
“The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He is at home when he is not working, and when he is working he is not at home.”
Ø
The division
of labor, first developed by A. Smith, is understood by Marx to create this
effect of alienating labor from the work process. It separates mental from
manual labor. It fragments work itself to disenfranchise the worker and de-skill
the work process.
“…generating ever more tasks demanding simple,
repetitive motions but not much knowledge or control of the whole production
process.” (37) (for example: the
steel industry, Frederick Turner – the father of scientific management)
Ø
Surplus Value and socially necessary labor-time: Workers work part of the day
creating product value that reproduces the cost of their wages. The remainder of
the day is used to produce surplus value which is the origin of profit, rent and
interest.
Ø
Advances in Technology can temporarily solve the capitalist’s dilemma by
speeding up the output produced per hour and thus reducing his/her need for
workers – but this creates the realization crisis mentioned before.
Ø
Other
Tactics: cut
wages, speed up work, bust labor unions, move (or threaten to move) production
elsewhere, maintain a reserve army of the unemployed.
Ø
Other
problems with capitalism: Subject
to booms and busts, tendency to produce centralization and concentration of
capital. The organic composition of capital would continue to grow.
Marx’s
Final Retort: “…the
expropriators would finally be expropriated.”