Marxism

-Edited by Jessica MacNeil

__**Karl Marx (1818-1883)**__ Karl Marx was partly the inspiration of the Russian Revolution. He was a German economist and the founder of revolutionary communism. He was largely ignored by scholars in his own lifetime and his ideas only gained rapid acceptance in the socialist movement after his death in 1883. Until quite recently almost half the population of the world lived under regimes that claim to be Marxist. This very success, however, has meant that the original ideas of Marx have often been modified and his meanings adapted to a great variety of political circumstances.Marx had claimed that nationalities were irrelevant and that the common bond between people was not their nationality, but their working class status.

__**What is Marxism?**__

Marxism is an economic and social system based upon the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The Russian Revolution was partly the inspiration of Karl Marx, and before his death he wrote his //Communist Manifesto// (1848) and //Das Kapital// (1867), which both explained his theory of communism. Marxism includes 4 connected parts: a method for understanding how societies evolve and change, an analysis of how the capitalist economy works, debate about how capitalism can be challenged and defeated, and reflection on the nature of a socialist or communist future.

-The first is a __**materialist to history**__. The term "materialist" refers to the way we organize our economy, its materials, technology, labour skills and knowledge to produce our means of existence. This is termed the mode of production.

-The second element is the importance attached to __**class division**__, the interaction of social classes in the economy - those who do the work and those who give the orders, those who sell their labour power and those who own the means of production as their private property, enabling them to exercise property rights over what is produced, how, by whom and where. Marxists believe that class conflict is inherent in capitalism and that class struggle is an important element of social change.

-The third element is the approach to __**historical change**__. Social tensions and conflict within a society produce a struggle between elements of the old order and elements of the new order, out of which emerge a new form of society which is a combination of old and new. The resulting new society is evidently going to produce its own contradictions and new sources of conflict.

-The fourth element of Marxism is its __**commitment to socialism**__. Marxism holds that the capitalist economy is inefficient and unstable and that crises that generate conflict and struggle for change are inevitable. The effects of these crises, including a depressed economy and unemployment, can be offset by such means as marketing, product innovation, and the use of cheaper sources of materials and labour through a process of global expansion.

Bibliography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism Falk, J. A. //History Twelve Student Workbook//. Surrey, B.C.: Hazelmere Pub., 2000. Print.

-Rachel Carich