History and context of journalism lecture/reading three;

Karl Marx and the communist manifesto;

Karl Marx believed in the utopia of communism. He said that until his time ‘philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point however is to change it.’

He believed everything you could explain about society by analysing the way economic forces shape social, religious, legal and political processes and that man is a productive animal, creating the environment he inhibits, dominating because of the ability to create tools and co-operate, shaping society and culture as these abilities and technologies develop (technological determinism).

The idea of technological determinism leads onto Marx’s teleological view of history, believing that history is headed somewhere and developing forwards, which was influenced by Darwinism and the theory of evolution.

Through these beliefs, Marx is said to have created an ideal which fuses Hegelian philosophy, British empiricism, revolutionary politics and scientific method. Hegelian in terms of the process of history in the form of the dialectic; the spirit of history seeks self-understanding. History ends when the spirit achieves full self-knowledge. Marx’s is seen again to be influenced by Hegel in his ideas of class struggle being the battle between good and evil (dialectical; the bourgeois = thesis, Proletariat = antithesis and the synthesis of the process being communism). Marx’s revolutionary ideas are identifiable in his similarities with Rousseau, in that property is the cause of class struggle and is what caused us to be civilized. The fact the proletariat are unable to possess property, Marx believed they were ideal for a revolutionary class because they ‘have nothing to lose, but everything to gain.’

And highlights Marx’s concept of alienation of the proletariat; belief of a reality as it has been conditioned, not as it truly is. Class consciousness is the way for the proletariat to truly know themselves and what they are capable of and what Marx believed was the only way to begin the end of bourgeois exploitation through capitalism. 

Communist manifesto;
The first section of the manifesto 'Bourgeois and Proletarian' suggests that class struggle 'sprouted' from the 'ruins' of a feudal society.
He believed there to be a hostile divide in society, one in which the bourgeois were in possession of the proletarian; forming a new kind of oppression and struggle. These two classes were seen by Marx to be directly against each other.

The dialectic of historical materialism;

1. Primitive communism: as in co-operative tribal societies.
2. Slave Society: a development of tribal progression to city-state; Aristocracy is born.
3. Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class; merchants evolve into capitalists.
4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the proletariat.
5. Socialism: workers gain class consciousness, and through proletariat revolution depose the capitalist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, replacing it in turn with dictatorship of the proletariat* through which the socialization of the means of production can be realized, wealth is distributed evenly, the people work together slowly causing the state to 'wither away'.
6. Commuism: a classless and stateless society. 

Historical materialism for Marx shows that class struggle and desire for high exchange value have given power to the bourgeoisie, gradually, over time and that he believes this to be the reason for historical and social progression to its current state of capitalim. '[The bourgeois]torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left no other nexus between people than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment".
The ideal state of society is communism and would be the end of the Hegelian idea of a dialectical progression of history.

Marx says the bourgeois ' has resolved personal worth into exchange value,' and have created a false consciousness of the proletariat through politics and religion, undermining and exploiting them further.  He believed that he bourgeoisie could not exist 'without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.' And in doing this, they have succeeded in gathering masses within the population, centralizing the means of production and concentrating property in few hands (of the bourgeois). Creating the Proletariat- 'a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital.'- who are then exploited and alienated.


Marx believes that drive for the bourgeois to create capital through the exploitation of the proletariat means that the proletariat lose personality and character; they are seen as machines to produce profitable commodities, even though they could be considered commodities themselves. 
'Masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers.....Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois state'

Proletariat - a revolutionary class:
Marx believed that the development of industry and the growing need for capital would lead the proletariat into becoming class conscious and, in doing so, will go through many changes during the progression to revolution and gaining the means of production through the overthrowing of bourgeois. 'the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more.'
Though, for Marx, capitalism was inevitably doomed to collapse because it held flaws within it that would ultimately destroy itself; the proletariat will only speed up the process. Here is a summary of his ideas of the process (drummed into my head at A-level);

- Capitalism becomes highly productive and the surplus produced would be reinvested into strengthening capitalism and making it even more productive. 
- The working class grows and polarisation between the bourgeois and proletarian occurs. 
- Capitalism gradually leads to overproduction and slumps in need for products happens regularly meaning lower wages and mass unemployment. 
- Thus leading to inequality and alienation; class consciousness grows among the working class. 
- Because capitalism is a world wide ideal, countries will being to compete resulting in wars and imperial competition. 
- The class conscious will then begin to revolt because of class consciousness and will eventually bring down the mechanisms of capitalism from within.