Marx wrote his revolutionary works at the industrial, capitalistic London where men, women and children covered in soot worked until the very limits of their existence in the new era of the triumphant, ever developing bourgeoisie.
"We proceed from an actual economic fact." that is " The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion the devaluation of the world of men"
"In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven."
"Empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge has to take its place."
Marx explains how the bourgeoisie plays the most revolutionary part through history and how it replaces the other systems and then the point it reaches:
"It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single unconscionable freedom - Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."
While I was reading Marx, I could not help but compare the capitalism in Switzerland and in Turkey. In capitalist Turkey, the ruling class is lumpen bourgeoisie and their hegemony is strong whereas in capitalist Switzerland, it is at least bourgeoisie who has not tried to cut the way of the Marxist thinking with coup d’états Switzerland, while being capitalist, is somehow a social state in itself. Yet Switzerland is capitalism. I think it is just like how the punk adventure that starts with the Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the UK ends with the million dollar punk rock bands' video clips in MTV channel. The capitalism takes its alternative, and makes use of them. Most of us, while reading novels make use of Marxist thought but at the same time we do not care about the underpaid Chinese workers, caught in the fetishism of commodities, perhaps, we wait for the next model of iPhone.
Marx as a very political thinker started from what is real and there in the society, and by doing so, he revealed what the new era of bourgeoisie held within itself.
Alienation of the workers towards the product and the production process itself as a result of the "forced labour" ; the class-struggle as a result of "the accumulation of capital in a few hands"; the fetishism of commodities as a result of the delusion that hides the labor behind the production and instead makes the product seem like it has an objective existence(NA) of its own; the world market as a result of bourgeoisie's need to "nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere" and thus, in a world where bourgeoisie is "over the whole surface of the globe" the cosmopolitan character of production; the world literature, as a result of the contemporary impossibility of the "national one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness". The list goes on and of course, it is a long list.
"The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part."
Alienation of the workers towards the product and the production process itself as a result of the "forced labour" ; the class-struggle as a result of "the accumulation of capital in a few hands"; the fetishism of commodities as a result of the delusion that hides the labor behind the production and instead makes the product seem like it has an objective existence(NA) of its own; the world market as a result of bourgeoisie's need to "nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere" and thus, in a world where bourgeoisie is "over the whole surface of the globe" the cosmopolitan character of production; the world literature, as a result of the contemporary impossibility of the "national one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness". The list goes on and of course, it is a long list.
"The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part."
Marx explains how the bourgeoisie plays the most revolutionary part through history and how it replaces the other systems and then the point it reaches:
"It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single unconscionable freedom - Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."
While I was reading Marx, I could not help but compare the capitalism in Switzerland and in Turkey. In capitalist Turkey, the ruling class is lumpen bourgeoisie and their hegemony is strong whereas in capitalist Switzerland, it is at least bourgeoisie who has not tried to cut the way of the Marxist thinking with coup d’états Switzerland, while being capitalist, is somehow a social state in itself. Yet Switzerland is capitalism. I think it is just like how the punk adventure that starts with the Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the UK ends with the million dollar punk rock bands' video clips in MTV channel. The capitalism takes its alternative, and makes use of them. Most of us, while reading novels make use of Marxist thought but at the same time we do not care about the underpaid Chinese workers, caught in the fetishism of commodities, perhaps, we wait for the next model of iPhone.
Yeah, I often think of this in relation to US politics: that on a global scale, we are all as closed-minded as the Republicans refusing healthcare and preschool.
ReplyDeleteAs for Switzerland, it strikes me as the perfect hegemonic society.