Origins and Developments of Capitalist Modernity Marx and Weber

Marx is considered a modernist because his views and theories fit the meaning of Modernity, which are human freedom and the right to free choice. To Marx, Capitalism is a barrier to the notion of human freedom and choice. Five aspects of his political theory which are modern, is how he views human nature, effects of Capitalism on human natures with emphasis on significance of labour, class struggles within Capitalism, the demise of Capitalism and the need for the transition to Communism. In this essay I am going to study Karl Marx and Max Weber views on Capitalism and how they think it has originated and developed.

Marx belief of human nature is that it changes over time; it is historical and dynamic. In understanding human nature, it is important to understand what part labour plays in human nature. "To be Human is to labour," (88) therefore Marx believes that Humans work in the world with other Humans in exchange with nature to get what they desire. Thus since human nature is dynamic so are humans' wants and desires. In order to achieve one's wants and desires one must labour with others around them and with nature itself. Since labour is the activity of a group, the ever-changing world created through the labour of those groups also creates the humans themselves and directly affects them. Through labour, humanity creates, and is responsible for the world that they live in. Marx suggests that Capitalism leads to the centralization and concentration of living spaces of where people live, their means of production, monopolies and the distribution of more power to the bourgeoisie. The success of Capitalism is directly connected to capital and wage labour. Capitalism's goal is to increase profits called accumulation; profits then reinvested else where to make more capital. Capitalism flourishes by extracting surplus value, or profit, from the commodities produced by the working class. Without capitals and profits there are obviously no wages and a place to do any type of labour power; and without wage labour, capital cannot increase itself. Both are dependent on each other for the flourishing of Capitalism. Capitalism is a form of life that does not do justice to human abilities and capacities; it is a division from basic powers to humans and the exploitations of human workers. Workers are forced to sell their labour power to capitalists and capitalists have no choice and are forced to exploit labour to gain capital; therefore the labourers are commodities themselves in the capitalist market. As the result of Capitalism, labour has been under admonition and oppression. Instead of picturing the world as it is, Capitalism pictures the world in a distorted view. A view that leads to the alienation of the true meaning of human nature. The view that places the labourers product as being more important than the labourers themselves; thus the labourers are objectified. Labourers then don't realize that they themselves are the people who are in control of the product that they produce.

"Alienated labour hence turns the species-existence of man, and also nature as his mental species capacity, into an existence alien to him, into the means of his individual existence." (64)

The distorted view leads to the misinterpretation of self, of the working class who are cut off from their essential powers. They fail to realize that the world is of their own making and that they have the ability to create and recreate the world in which they live in. Marx's theory of privileging of economic matters places an emphasis on class struggles that are related to the forces of production as well as the relations of productions. Economics is the production of the exchange of goods and services through labour arrangements. In every society there is a way to distribute goods and services called a mode of production. The mode of production is the combination of the forces of productions; like raw materials, technology or labour forces; and the relations of productions or the relationship among human beings related to forces of production. One's relations of productions in a Capitalist society determine one's location in the mode of production, that is, their class. In a Capitalist society everyone is located in a class, either the class of the bourgeoisie (capitalist) or the proletariat (working class). More important than any talent or skill, the class position is the fundamental factor that determines one's life as a human being. To be bourgeois (capitalist) is to own many properties; to be proletariat is having no property and living under the rules of the bourgeoisie.

"The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with . . . the means of productions, and of property. It has . . . centralised means of productions and has concentrated property in a few hands." (162 & 163

To Marx, class is a restriction and a restraint on the means and the modes of production; the labourer is dependent upon the wage labour and has no individuality. Taking the capital out of the hands of the capitalist and spreading the profit and properties equally with the proletariat. Marx wants the proletariat to have the ability of free labour, where separation of class no longer exists; and that can be true in a Communist society. Marx's theories predict that the contradictions and weaknesses within capitalism will cause increasingly severe economic crises and deepening impoverishment of the working class. The rich get richer (the bourgeoisie) and the poor get poorer (the proletariat). In order for the bourgeoisie to survive, the most important factor is the arrangement and growth of the capital; wage labour is a must for capital. Therefore wage labour rests solely on the rivalry between the labourers. "What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave -diggers." (169)

The bourgeoisie, who choose to exploit their workers for their surplus value, will find that they are indeed setting a trap for themselves since labour is a must for capital. If the workers will not work there is no capital to invest in anything. Once the workers are fed up with their situations and realize there is a need to get together for a revolution and change of labour, the bourgeoisie will have lost everything they owned; and that will lead to the end of a class based society. In the resulting classless society of Communism, the coercive state will be replaced by rational economic cooperation.

The accumulated labour in Communism is not just to benefit one and only one person; but it is to benefit the workers as well as the employer. Everyone will be rewarded according to how hard they work and people will have the equal chance of being able to move up the social ladder.

"The modern bourgeois

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