FREE ESSAY ON KARL MARX ESSAY

KARL MARX ESSAY

Through out history money, wealth and capital have dictated a way of life to the masses.
Wealth dictated the lives that the rich lived and the lives of the poor that worked for
and surrounded them. In some cultures your class could never be escaped in life, you had
to wait for your next incarnation, while in other cultures the idea of wealth transcended
a life and allowed for growth from one class to another. This is the reality of a
capitalist society that was first discussed by Karl Marx in the 19th century.
When Karl Marx first penned his shaping works on communism, he assumed that the
relationship between workers and capital would always be opposing. While most rejected
his overall theories, they did not argue with the basic idea that the interests of
workers would always be at odds with those of owners. This is one of Marx's only theories
that has proven to be true. As a consequence, over the years, that thought has guided the
marketplace in terms of deciding wages, working conditions and other worker centered
benefits.
The bourgeoisie (rich/owners class), by rapid improvement of production instruments and
by powerful means of communication, drew all, even the most underdeveloped nations, into
civilization through production. Their fast development and ability in many cases to
exploit the worker allowed them to get a foothold in the market. So capitalism evolved
into globalization. This is the major reason why all other systems, communism included,
found themselves chasing the idea of wealth through production.
According to Marx, the 'capitalist mode of production' is a product of the 'industrial
revolution' and the division of labor coming from it. By virtue of this division, Marx's
capitalist reality is more and more splitting into two great factions directly facing
each other off; these classes are; the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The processes in
which the two classes were formed and the setting in which they presently exist have
molded their thinking and the products of their thinking. In other words, the 'human
nature' of the members of both classes is largely shaped by their positions within the
two groups. Given the conformist nature of the human person, considerable light may be
thrown upon the major features of Marx's reality by means of an investigation of the
types of 'human nature' that he assigned in this economic theory. 
In Marx's capitalist reality, division of labor is a necessary condition for commodity
production. This division attacks the individual/worker class at the very root of their
life so that they are converted into 'a crippled being'. By the process in which they are
crippled they experiences acute alienation, which defines them forever. The alienation
according to Marx has several dimensions. In the first, the worker is estranged not only
from the act of production, but also from the products of his labor. Next, because the
workers activities belong to another, namely the capitalist, the worker translates this
separation as a loss of his self. Which abstractly means that he is estranging himself
from himself through the act of production. In the last form, the alienation takes the
form of estrangement of one man to another man. Partly because the division of labor
creates a hierarchical structure among the workers themselves and partly for the previous
reason that the workers are the property of the capitalist and are seen as human capital.

Nevertheless the non-worker, the capitalist, is also caught in his own web of alienation.
But there is a difference between the two and how they interact. By virtue of the
property relationship of the worker to non-worker. The non-worker in theory does
everything against the worker, which the worker does against himself; but he the
non-worker does not do against himself what the worker does to himself. So, whereas the
worker's activity is a torment to himself, the capitalists' activity is his means of
support and success. Division of labor and the human nature that it has molded in all its
alienated and crippling forms are, therefore, fundamental and integral parts of the
paradox of facts that Marx implanted in his reality regarding capitalism. 
But when Marx wrote this he did not realize or account for accumulation and the
concentration of wealth in the hands of individual capitalists. This concentration takes
place in a process of fierce competition among the capitalists involved. Consequently,
concentration is accompanied by an increasing centralization of capital caused by the
transformation of many small into a few large capitals. This advantages of the capitalist
process of production, caused or may have even been invented to intensify mass misery,
oppression, slavery, degradation and exploitation.
In the long run, in the past, or as we see today capitalism does cause oppression in
three major ways. One is the simple systematic theory of the bourgeoisie versus the
proletariat. The rich controlling the poor, the rich profiting from the poor, and the
rich exploiting the poor and much as is today legally possible. The second is the
breakdown of the worker in order to have more control. In past capitalism this has been
much clearer but it still exists today, workers fear the people they work for, therefor
they don't demand the necessities they need to work. They fear the non-worker and don't
demand what they need because they have been broken down, dehumanized, and forced to
fight their internal feelings as opposed to their outer conditions. The final way that
capitalism breeds or causes oppression is through its growth and profit potential. Just
as when the capitalist idea was first imagined it still moves amazingly fast. Money can
make more money easier and quicker that people with no money trying to make it. This is
why the bourgeoisie have stayed in control and the oppressed proletariat have remained in
their positions. Their oppressed positions caused by capitalist thoughts.