The First Of A New Historical Period

At the end of the eighteenth century, with the rise of the enlightenment and the industrial revolution came the development of the capitalist economy. As mercantilism faded with the developments of the industrial revolution, capitalism, a new economic system developed. Capitalism is a system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth are controlled chiefly by private property owners who are free to seek profits in competitive conditions. Capitalism can be broken down into five functional components; self-interest, private property, division of labor, competition, and the invisible hand. Each component is an integral aspect of capitalism both at its inception and in our contemporary global economy.

The simplistic perception of capitalist society varies greatly among Smith and Marx. Smith believed that capitalism is a mechanism designed to curb man's selfishness and put it to work for the general good of all (Baumol, 1976). Conversely, Marx believed that capitalism is based on neither good nor evil, but a product of historical circumstances or experience (Baumol, 1976). Marx also believed that the law of motion in capitalism frustrates, rather than facilitates, the individual ends (wealth). Marx believed that wealth divides capitalists by class, and that workers must develop in a universal class (Levine, 1998). Marx also disagreed with Smith in believing that production must cease to be a labor process if it

Marx thought of capitalism in a pessimistic way, he saw the relationship between the employee and employer in a capitalistic society as toxic. To Marx, in a capitalistic society the employee would always be at a constant struggle for power be never endlessly repressed by the bourgeoisie. The employer would pay employees only what they needed to survive making it impossible to move up in class or society. He also recognized that in capitalism everything becomes corporatized. Things like marriage go from a sacred bond between two individuals that once never included money or the government, to something that is regulated by the national government and must be done through the federal court and include ties between the individual's financial status. Small businesses would also become corporatized, a local family doctor has now become part of a larger practice that brings in complex forms of payment such as insurance instead of simply paying a small family doctor directly. He also goes into the downfall of capitalism. The way capitalism works is through a series of economic highs and lows, each high is marked by prosperous times, high employment rate, and overall happiness. But the lows are marked by deterioration of the national economy, low employment rates, and struggle for all classes. To Marx’s these highs and lows are what's killing capitalism with each low being worse than the last until the people revolt and create a new form of government. The next would be socialism and once this fell like capitalism, the new governing system would be communism. Communism is an ideal system where people are never struggling for money and are paid based on their needs rather than their particular job. Through this system a

Perhaps the definition of failure has changed as in the last century capitalism has created wealth like nothing done previously in human history. At the same time, socialism has spent the last century subjecting millions of innocent people to tyranny and poverty. But somehow, its tenets live on in the millennial of the world’s richest countries. And what has followed is an arbitrary connection between the free enterprise system and declining rates of economic and social phenomena. So with the charges against capitalism more severe than ever before, we may as well present the facts.

The five major revolutionary changes that the bourgeoisie brings about through capitalism are market economy, private property, wages, imperialism, and financial institutions. Marx and Engles say these changes are bad because they widen the gap according to income making mobility between classes inaccessible and ultimately making equality unattainable. Marx believed that the market economy worked in a capitalist society to direct repression of movements to keep the elite as elites and the lower class in the lower class. The fluidity of money in capitalism is okay, for the first few years there is no change, and people are almost equally spread. But, as time moves forward the distance between the first class and the middle class widens The same goes for the middle class to the poor and an even larger gap between the poor and the elite as I am sure you can imagine.

These concepts that Marx promotes, increase in prevalence amongst the various, current government systems. In regards to capitalism, Marx gives the warning of merely having

The Communist Manifesto left a tremendous impact on a society that was rapidly becoming industrialized, and its effects can even be seen on the dominating economic system of the twenty-first century. In the later nineteenth century, however, industrial capitalism was on the brink of ruin. “On many occasions during the past century, Marxists have thought that capitalism was down for the count . . . Yet it has always come back with renewed strength.” Industrial capitalism succeeded in the face of communism, despite numerous economic disasters. As the capitalist economists hopefully noted at the time, these economic earthquakes, temporary in character, soon cured themselves and left capitalism unscathed. Karl Marx sought to create

Karl Marx, in the Capital, developed his critique of capitalism by analyzing its characteristics and its development throughout history. The critique contains Marx’s most developed economic analysis and philosophical insight. Although it was written in 1850s, its values still serve an important purpose in the globalized world and maintains extremely relevant in the twenty-first century.

With the demise of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the government model of a totalitarian state led socialism was utterly discredited and thus popular opinion is largely against the relevance of Marxist theory in the 21st century. As a result we are left with the alternative, capitalism, as the pinnacle of human social organization and dialectically the end of human history. The fact that this system has proven to be efficient at industrial development and the allocation of resources, is not up for debate, however many of the flaws that Marx had criticised still exist today. This is the problem that keeps Marxism relevant in contemporary society. Key aspects of capitalist society have been proven to be unstable, tension between the workers and the ownership class has risen. Both are products of the inhumane economics system that is the status quo today.

Theorists began to recognize capitalism as pre-industrial society developed economically and major social changes began to occur. Modernization resulted in industrialization, urbanization and bureaucratization as the workplace shifted from the home to the factory, people moved from farms into cities where jobs were more readily available and large-scale formal organizations emerged. Classical theorists’ observations addressed numerous facets of social organization and interaction that came about as a result of modernization; however this essay will focus on their ideas regarding capitalism and the capitalistic society. Over

Capitalism started up as a system of investing and sharing money in order to increase the value of resources in the future. Capitalism was just an economic system, but then soon turned into a complex system of ethical practices. Harari defines capitalism as, “a set of teachings about how people should behave, educate their children and even think” (Harari 314). This economic system evolved along with the people that were endorsing it. Capitalism enables the rich to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer. There are many benefits to capitalism, but there are downfalls as well, and these downfalls tend to be masked because of the rapid speed capitalists grow at. Harari first presents a definition for capitalism, and soon goes into great detail on why capitalism, while fast paced and unforgiving, is able to stand unwavered while other productions fail.

CONTINUING CRISIS: A Global Capitalism Perspective. International Review of Modern Sociology, 38(2), 169-198. Retrieved from

The specialised critique of capitalism found in the Communist Manifesto (written by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels), provides a basis for the analysis and critique of the capitalist system. Marx and Engels wrote about economical in relation to the means or mode of production, ideology, alienation and most fundamentally, class relations (particularly between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat). Collectively, these two men created the theory of Marxism. There are multiple critiques of Marxism that attack the fundamental tenants of their argument. Several historical events have fueled such criticisms, such as the fall of the Soviet Union, where Marxism was significantly invalidated and condemned. On the flip side, Marxism has been widely supported in times of capitalist hardships. What viewpoint a person will hold towards Marxism is largely dependable on the economical environment in which they live. Further, it is also important to remember that Marx and Engels lived in a very different era than today’s society, and the concept of capitalism may have arguably changed quite a lot over time. Therefore, the principles found in the Manifesto may often have to be refurnished and reapplied to fit different economic environments.

Anyone who is anyone can easily state that Karl Marx, born in 1818 and died in 1883, is one of the founders of sociology, seeing as Marxism was named after his theories and thinking. (Biography) However he also developed and constructed many theories when talking about the economy, philosophy and history and is best known as a communist (Biography). A great part of his life was used writing two of his well-known books, Das Kapital, written in 1867 (Marx, 2012: xii), and The Communist Manifesto, written in 1848 (Marx and Engels, 2013: 8). Where these works of art surround the topics and Karl Marx’s notion of capitalism and communism. To answer the questions at hand, why does Marx believe that capitalism is set to destroy itself, and, are his predictions believable in light of the sociological evidence available to us, one must first define capitalism. According to the Oxford Dictionary, capitalism is “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state” (Oxford Dictionary). On the other hand, in more sociological terms it is more complicated than that. Capitalism according to the Dictionary of Sociology is “a system of wage-labor and commodity production for sale, exchange, and profit, rather than for the immediate need of the producers” (Dictionary of Sociology, 2009: 59). And according to Marx, capitalism is “the socio-economic system where social relations are based on commodities

As the world continues to go through changes, we observe that there are many patterns in history that continue to repeat over and over again. We constantly question the state of the world and what our past has currently let us to. How did our ideas become about? What has influenced our patterns of thought? How do our interactions amongst others in society differentiate with our relations in the past? When observing the current state of the world, it is quite easy to come to the conclusion that society is nothing like it used to be. However, when you are looking at the structure of our capitalistic society the world remains the same. Literature and theories of Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx, the three classical social theorists,