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Marx's thoughts on political economy and his critiques on capitalism stem from the question that all human society must face; what must we do to survive? Mainstream economics questions how we organize ourselves to meet the unlimited wants of people by allocating scarce resources. Political economy focuses on social institutions and implications that the economy creates. Marx saw economics as the key to any society.
Through the modes of production, classes form and changes occur. He saw capitalism as, simply the latest in a series of modes of production and that it, too, will yield to some other mode of production in the future (Sackrey, 27). Capitalism is rooted in historic change. His ideas of surplus value from private property, systems of command from class separation and a general commodification of man and labor through estrangement tarnish the idea of work itself.
Private property, systems leading to class separation and labor estrangement that inequality and ownership create are the fundamentals. Most important to Marx's theoretical argument against capitalism is the idea of private property and personal ownership. By owning large portions of land, firms and corporations will control and own all that is produced. As in agriculture the farmer takes the crop of his land, ownership of the plant and capital and labor ensure control of whatever is produced to the capitalist. This principle is the basis of many other arguments of Marx.
By owning the property you own both the means of production whatever is produced. In his Communist Manifesto, Marx saw ownership as the inevitable lead to profit maximization. Since capitalist own the property, they, in effect, own the labor time that is put into producing something. This creates class distinction and wealth. Property in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labor, (Communist Manifesto, 8). Ownership provides the luxury of doing what you please with what you produce.
This is the notion of the surplus value, the extra amount that is created by a worker per day. For the most part, this is directly turned into profits. Bowles expands on many of Marx's political economy ideas with parallel examples and more importantly, explains how Marx's ideas have extended into other institutions we see today. For example, he describes how capitalists have taken the notion of ownership and surplus value to create relationships of command and power.
By having ownership of labor, the capitalist, with just cause, may fire an employee. Using this to their advantage, capitalists uses fear tactics and emotions to influence workers. In chapter three, Bowles explains, It is the ability of one person or group to control others information, playing upon their fears, hopes, insecurities or other emotions in order to promote the interests of the powerful person, (Bowles, 55). Private property leads to control of workers and human emotion. Marx would have most likely inferred this as a rational path of capitalism. Where Bowles really expands from Marx is the idea that there is a limit at which labor is no longer the process of production, but becomes extraction.
Owning labor time implies that workers owe something back to their employer and must produce the entire time they are at work. The employer extracts as much work as possible. Another way private property creates control, that Marx may or may not have foreseen, is in real estate. Both Kaufman and Ehrenreich point out examples of this. Those who own private property control aspects of others lives external to labor. Ehrenreich points out that real estate markets are inherently going to benefit the wealthy and that low income housing is not profitable and hard to find.
She says that rents are too high too afford with the wages that people actually make. Housing becomes similar to the workplace because of the direct affect of private ownership. Kaufman opens her second chapter is with a like issue. She works to help protect the rights of tenants from landlords. As a result of housing laws, rents are held at set prices, however selling price is open to the market.
Therefore a building owner can make substantial profit by evicting a tenant in order to resell a property. This point marks a real extreme in capitalism. How far will people go for profit. Marx argued that private property would benefit one group while hurt another which is true, but would he have imagined this in free society?
The way owners can control various aspects of peoples lives leads to a second problem Marx saw in the nature of capitalism. Control of production would inevitably lead to class separation and inequality in society. Marx pointed out that societies are shaped by opposing forces that lead to economic change. Economic classes are defined by how the surplus is controlled and used, and classes and the surplus product are the keys to understanding how different economic systems work and how they change (Bowles, 122).
Bowles follows suit to Marx's argument that the labor in capitalism must be controlled. Today we see the distinction between the capitalist and the worker. Although today the relationship is more complicated, it is evident that the Marx's dialectical approach is still valid. In reference to this, there is a statistic in Sackrey on page 27, that claims that almost 90 % of those who work today work for the wealthiest 10 %.
This shows a clear class distinction as well as an intuitive conclusion of private property. In capitalism, people must produce and others must own production. It is evident that one group controls the other in some way. We see systems of control in a few main forms in the United States today. The type of power structure that Bowles finds most common today is referred to as simple control.
It is a top-down organization of work that represents a vertical relationship between worker and employer. It also creates class distinction in a way not as obvious. In terms of class, we identify with those on the same level of the production process. This is a horizontal relationship. Because the producer controls the labor and what is produced, there is an inherent conflict of interest between the two groups. The employers are always going to want more work for a smaller cost.
They wish to increase profit. Workers, on the other hand, want fulfilling work and more free time, but the more work that they put in, the more free time the boss gets. This adheres to the class separation Marx saw in capitalism. Furthermore to push class inequality even farther real wages have been decreasing in this country. Gordon describes the process that has been happening to the working class as the wage squeeze. Companies are making more and more today in terms of rising GDP numbers and upper level income increases.
But low wages are getting lower. A class inequality is obvious. Gordon points out another detail that exemplifies capitalism dividing the classes. The increasing number of managerial positions in the economy implies that workers today cannot be trusted. Firms must create a position specifically to monitor their workers. This cr...
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Research essay sample on Karl Marx And Political Economy
