Introduction to Marx's Capitalism

Capitalism According to Marx
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Capitalism According to Marx
Karl Marx is one individual who is well-known because of the way he stood in opposition to capitalism. As he tried to analyze the society and the interactions that take place therein he came up with the theory of materialism in which he concluded that capitalism is the machinery that makes materials necessary for human liberation (Aronowitz, 2016). However, he went ahead to determine that there were many dynamics within capitalism which could not allow man to practice that freedom (Fuchs & Mosco, 2015). As he advocated for communism, he also established the idea of class, stating that class played an important role in capitalism because it is through it is the one that reveals the exploited and those who exploit (Felluga, 2018). This paper analyzes Ernest Mandel’s quotation regarding Karl Marx’s stand on capitalism which states that: ''Capital is thus,” from the Marxist point of view, “a social relation between men which appears as a relation between things or between men and things.''
Being that the high class individuals were the ones who owned the things that were needed for production, they tended to exploit those who did not have such things and had to depend on the former for employment and payment (Shanin, 2019). This means that there was a class that gained profit at the expense of another. This, he saw as an unfair state of events which denied equality to people in terms of resource distribution (Fuchs & Mosco, 2015). In fact, Marx declared that gaining profit and mass accumulation of wealth is wrong and man should not practice it (Aronowitz, 2016). He argued that as man sought to gain wealth, he got involved in conflicts with other men as well as things, which ended up in the development of class and class struggles.
When describing capital, the means by which man is able to create more commodities, Marx brings out a concept that reveals not just a mere object but rather a metaphysical object that is both physically and theologically significant (Van der Pijl, 2016). As long as man does not act on a commodity, it remains in its original state for as long as anyone can tell (Fuchs & Mosco, 2015). The same is the case even if the commodity is transformed into another object by a laborer (Shanin, 2019). In that case, the laborer and the material that he uses for a connection whose measurement can only be determined using the use-value of the commodity.
For example, when a carpenter extracts a tree from a forest, the tree remains in its original form as long as it remains to be wood. When the carpenter converts it into a tree, it still remains a tree although its value increases depending on its use. Also, a creation gets established between the carpenter and the chair. However, the moment the chair becomes a commodity and gets sold, it loses its connection with the carpenter and assumes a new value which is measured using money, being that money is the universal mode of exchange which is globally accepted and recognized. At that juncture, the commodity is no longer measured by the value of the material that the carpenter used to make it nor with the energy and resources that the laborer used but rather, by the amount of money paid for it.
It was at this realization that Marx made the assertion that capital, or commodities, are products of social interactions between humans and things in the environment (Felluga, 2018). This element happens in different ways. First, the end product of the material which eventually makes the product is in itself a reflection of the social characteristics of the work of men on them. The amount of time and skill that the workman will have as he or she interacts with the material is what will determine the value of the actual product, which is later referred to as commodity or capital (Fuchs & Mosco, 2015). Second, there is a social relationship between the product or commodity, with the buyer or capitalist who changes the direction of interaction from being a laborer-material interaction to that of buyer-commodity interaction (Van der Pijl, 2016). The latter is measured using money-value while the former is measured using use-value.
Marx continues that this situation is an unfair state because it hides the actual producer of commodity and replaces him or her with the product through which a social relationship is supposed to exist between the buyer and the laborer; with the basis of the relation being money (Shanin, 2019). When people meet such products in the public or in the market, their ownership has changed and they are only identified with the sellers. To make it worse, these are institutions or groups of people who seek profit and as result, deny the laborers of the benefit that is rightfully theirs (Aronowitz, 2016). The commodities end up being identified with the money-value which sellers brand them but the social interactions between the laborers and the commodity remains concealed (Van der Pijl, 2016). Such a state of situation, as Marx described it, is both unfair and unjust and yet, the highest result of capitalism.
Under such cases, Marx states that there is an alienation that takes place on the laborer and the product respectively, resulting in a loss of identity of the product (Fuchs & Mosco, 2015). There was separation between laborer and product because the latter only makes products that even he or she cannot use. Secondly, the workers get alienated from their own self because they cannot exercise their free will nor gain profit for their skills and knowledge (Felluga, 2018). There is also a separation a separation between the laborer and the means by which he is producing the product. This aspect is visible especially being that the laborer only works to be paid for the work done thus, losing the connection with the work that he or she is doing (Van der Pijl, 2016). Lastly, Marx identifies the alienation that happens between the laborer and the rest of the members of the society, with their only connection being the means of exchange so that as the laborers hands over the finished products, they get paid and leave, forming no connections with the buyers.
As he compared this current society to the primitive society of old, Marx found profound differences which he used to approve the latter’s way of life (Felluga, 2018). According to him, all people in the medieval society were dependent of each other so that there were no classes or levels which divided the interdependence between them. As a result, he admires such conditions because they provided a condition in which there was no need for products to move in different levels where it will hide the original labor (Shanin, 2019; Van der Pijl, 2016). Instead, he confirms that labor and product alike found a profound place in the hearts of people so t...