Marxist theory

The soundbite criticisms of capitalism are legion, yet it’s harder to offer alternatives, aside from the vague notion of 'something else'. Despite the carnage of trying to socially engineer equality in the 20th century, nevertheless the myth persists that capitalist wealth creation is superfluous and money is readily available to a small number of elitists called a government under common ownership, who distribute, or simply print more paper. Ironically, the ones shouting the loudest against capitalism are often those dependent on the profits of capitalism to provide the welfare payments needed to keep them alive.

The working definition of Marxism is a theory that analyzes the relationships of classes and the social conflicts that are within the classes. Marxism claims that this conflict is between the rich and the poor. This theory entails thoughts of socioeconomic differences and focuses the systematic view of the economy. The theory of Marxism is very prevalent in the novel, “The Other Wes Moore.” “The Other Wes Moore”, and a short story titled, “The Lottery” are great example of the differences within social classes.

The futuristic society that Huxley imagines revolves around class. Its these class issues that cause most of novel’s, A Brave New World, internal conflicts. I will be looking at this novel trough the Marxist Lens. Humans are categorized into different castes, for their birth it is determined what they would be and what they can achieve when they go out invoiced. The classes are forced to be able to be distinguished as they are dressed per their class, “Alpha children wear grey …Gammas and Deltas… all wear green, … Delta children wear Khaki.” (Huxley, 27). We also learn later in the novel that Beta wear maroon and Epsilons wear Black. The different classes are taught through hypnopaedia that they are good at their place, “I’m really awfully glad I’m Beta, because I don’t work so hard” (Huxley, 27), this prevents the proletariat from rebelling against the aristocrats. The reason this system is in place because the elite were concerned that opportunities were given to those who were less influential. Therefore, the Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon embryos are poisoned. This results in them being not as intelligent as the Alphas, and Betas. Which means that the proletariats are there to severe and they can’t even change that because they like where they are in society.

Different textual mediums have the effect of exploring various representations of political personalities and situations and their impact on individuals and society. This is apparent in Aldous Huxley’s satirical novel Brave New World (BNW) (1932) and Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi (1982) where both composers use their mediums to showcase different perceptions of politics and people for a range of audiences. Huxley’s BNW creates social critique on how the growing trend of consumerism, totalitarianism and science may impinge on the lives of citizens. Gandhi recreates the events of a historical figure to represent the impact of colonisation on society. Both texts present control as well as freedom through commenting on political personalities,

AQA AS/A SOCIOLOGY ESSAY: CRITICALLY EXAMINE MARXIST PERSPECTIVES ON TODAY’S SOCIETY Classical Marxism is a conflict structural theory which argues that, rather than society being based on value consensus as functionalists would contend, there is a conflict of interest between different groups (social classes) because of the unequal distribution of power and wealth. Marxists are also interested in the way in which social change can occur, particularly in sudden and revolutionary ways. However, there are differences between Marxists especially over the way which social change can come about. For example, humanistic Marxists like Gramsci give a greater role to the conscious decisions and actions of human beings than do structural Marxists

Looking through the Marxist Lens helps the reader understand certain parts of the text. A Marxist reading of a text is looking to see the difference social status of the characters. The Marxist lens generally focuses on who has the power and money and who does not which defines if they are in the upper or lower class. It also revolves around the results of the differences in power and money and the setting or time period. The time period is important because a person that has $1,000 in 2015 is not rich while a person with $1,000 in 1774 is like having more than $30,000.

The theory of Marxism was founded on the ideas created by Karl Marx, he stated that materialism has become part of our nature and that it has created grounds on how we live in our reality. Marxist criticism argues that literature shows a reflection on reality, specifically how the power of social institutions have affected not only the economic world but the mind and ideals of society. Through literature we can see the mental difference in characters based on their social standing. The difference in class is referred to as socioeconomic; Marxists believe that the socioeconomic divide is much stronger than that of race, gender, religion and intelligence. We see through the difference in class levels that the poorer characters tend to have issues that revolve around the word that they live in; while more wealthy characters tend to have more selfish problems. Marxist addresses the classes as follows: The Bourgeoisie, those who have and are fortunate; the proletariat, the have nots/ laborers. We will see through the stories of the characters from our literary works how the issues of the two classes differ, and how they affect the groups internally. I believe that this theory is important to literature because much of what Marxism creates a foundation on is how the literature that we study is a direct reflection of our reality, and through the study of this theory we can better understand this “reality” that we have found ourselves

Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West is a fictional representation of many problems faced by the world in the past and present. It follows the life of Elphaba, who later becomes the “Wicked Witch of the West”, a result from her life experiences as a rebel against the Wizard of Oz, her unfortunate appearance of green skin, and several other trials she’s faced. Maguire was born in Albany, New York and lost his mother in childbirth. His father was a writer, but was very ill at the time of Maguire’s birth, so he and his three older siblings had to stay with family and Maguire even spent time in an orphanage before moving back with his father and his new wife. His family

The Marxist theory of historical materialism understands society to be determined by the relationships which people enter into with one another to fulfill their basic needs, for instance to feed and clothe themselves and their families. In general Marx identified five successive stages of the development of these material conditions in Western Europe.

Through the theoretical approach of Marxism, The Beauty and The Beast (2017) is a Disney film that depicts the divide between class structures in a traditionally oriented society. The Marxist theory is used as a tool to analyze the film in order to have the ability to examine the core concepts of the theory and investigate the theme of the film in its entirety. The film depicts two class structures that consist of lower, peasant-like villagers and a middle-class structure. The film depicts various social hierarchy’s that attempts to challenge humanities perception of power through the theory of Marxism. This paper will describe how the theoretical approach of Marxism applies to the Disney film, The Beauty and the Beast (2017) through

According to Marxism, there is a struggle or conflict between individual rights and social rights. In many regards, Marxism places more emphasis on societal rights than it does on individual rights. In fact, some critics even state that Marxism ignores the rights of the individual altogether. As can be observed when Marxism is implemented under the umbrella of communism. However, Marxism takes into account the inequality and unfairness that exists in society. The inevitable truth is that contrasting groups in society will always conflict with one another and will be unable to agree on the way in which resources should be distributed. Furthermore, there is also a difference between genders, specifically in terms of the equity of how the roles

Marxism are set of views acknowledged by many individuals and a lot of views presented in works of other authors are often compared to the ideas that of Karl Marx. Here, the idea presented by George Bernard Shaw in his play is compared to Marx’s ideas on Marxism and social hierarchy relationship. There exists a relationship between the viewpoints of Karl Marx and George Bernard Shaw in the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The interpretation of the social hierarchy by each author disagrees with one another. With these circumstances, Marxist theorists will admonish the idea portrayed in the play because of contradicting interpretation that

Karl Marx, also a philosopher was popularly known for his theories that best explained society, its social structure, as well as the social relationships. Karl Marx placed so much emphasis on the economic structure and how it influenced the rest of the social structure from a materialistic point of view. Human societies progress through a dialectic of class struggle, this means that the three aspects that make up the dialectic come into play, which are the thesis, antithesis and the synthesis (Avineri, 1980: 66-69). As a result of these, Marx suggests that in order for change to come about, a class struggle has to first take place. That is, the struggle between the proletariat and the capitalist class, the class that controls

All economic theories share common roots, they attempt to address the basic question of how an economy can, and should, be maintained. One of the most influential economic philosophies is Marxism. The fact that economic theories can share common roots is especially evident in Marxism; It even shares a basic premise of laissez-faire with capitalism, a philosophy it directly contradicts (Sowell 12). In studying Marxism, two basic necessities must be addressed; the nature of Marxism and its basis, and the political and economic implications of Marxism.

This next unit of theory is entitled "Ideology and Discourse." The theorists we're examining--Althusser, Bakhtin, and Foucault--are discussing how ideology works, and how ideologies construct subjects. All of these theorists are coming from a Marxist perspective, using ideas and terms developed in Marxist theory, though only Althusser actually claims to be a Marxist. So to start off, I want to talk a bit about some basic ideas of Marxist theory.