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Marxism: The Positive And Negative Outcomes Of Marxism

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This essay will discuss Karl Marx (1818-1883) and his theory Marxism. This essay will discuss the history of Marxism, how it was created and the positive and negative outcomes of Marxism. It will highlight key factures and issues regarding Marxism and how it was intended to be used when created. The term Marxism can be defined as Central to Marxist theory is an explanation of social change in terms of economic factors, according to which the means of production provide the economic base which influences or determines the political and ideological superstructure (Oxford Dictionaries, 2014). Marxism was a contributing factor with regards to sociology despite Marx work being unscientific, this essay will show how this theory may have worked in …show more content…

During the 19th century there was huge emphasis on class. The two classes consisted of the capitalists and workers. Capitalism was a huge topic among society in this time and during the industrial revolution. When Marx highlighted the issue regarding class division his theory was designed to remove this issue. Marxism was designed to eliminate this issue and create a classless society which is known as communism (McDonald, 2009). During the 19th century and the problems regarding classes he draws attention is the capitalists which include the high paid, high class members of society and the working labours, which include the standard middle working class members of society. Marx calls these two classes the Bourgeoisie and the Proletarians (McDonald, …show more content…

Marx stated capitalism was a form of alienation and due to the unequal relationships with regards capitalists and workers they could not reach their full potential (IPA, 1992:12). Alienation was regarded as meaningless and had turned workers from workers that had a job and task to do into working machines. This means workers are unable to achieve fulfilment, meaning and satisfaction in their jobs due to alienation. Marx believed there was four ways in which capitalism could and successfully alienated the working class. Firstly the workers were given and told the ways in which product was produced. The workers would be alienated the product, and also any other co-workers. Then lastly alienation from human potential (Macionis & Plummer

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