ALFARO, Nathaniel D.

4POL2

January 18, 2013 Asst Prof. Dennis Coronacion

Final Paper in POL265: Is Marxs ideas still applicable today? Contrary to popular belief, the ideas espoused by Marx are still evident and can be continuously seen in modern society due to the high level of capitalism that has occurred in the world and unknowingly, some Marxist ideas are exhibited by the people. Majority of the worlds paper believe that after communist societies has been destroyed by democratic countries, the ideas that were introduced by Marx would not influence anyone anymore since its principal advocates have already been destroyed. The purpose of this paper is to identify whether Marxs ideas are still applicable in the world today despite the fact that there has been massive amount of development that has occurred in the world which has changed the earths landscape, and seeing that it has already been more than a century and a half since Marx formulated his philosophy is there any possible way in order to identify if his ideas would fit in the modern times wherein his ideas are heavily frowned upon. Marx and Capitalism: The ideas of Marx and the living conditions set by a capitalist society has always become intertwined as Marx would always present an opposition to the proposed aid advocated by Capitalism. For this very reason, as long as a capitalist society continues to exist and to dominate the world, the relevance of Marxism would remain high as the two has become inseparable with Marx becoming Joker to Capitalisms Batman. Marxs ideas revolve around the call for a working-class revolution that would bring about equality among all men and in doing so he tries to practice what he calls praxis which is the combination of theory and practice (Deutsch & Fornieri, 2009). Class antagonism was greatly despised by Marx which is identified as the great contrast between the social classes of men. It has become more evident in the society today that the class antagonism that was presented by Marx has become more revealed with a wider disparity between the rich and the poor rising due to the advent of globalization and the growth of capitalism (Kaufman, 2011). Passages that can be seen in the communist manifesto such as:
"The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country...In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands (Marx, Communist Manifesto, 2004)."

amazingly presents an image of the world today despite the fact that it was written a very long time ago, it can be seen that there is an interconnected international community that is dominated mostly by corporations and the reign of profit has reached deep and far into every level of society and the technological advancements that are
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being released become more of a threat to the very existence of man instead of being tools in order to enhance mans living situation (Maass, 2002). Marx and Engels were able to illustrate an image of todays situation from more than a cen tury and a half ago not because they were psychics and had the ability to foresee the future, but it was because they were able to fully understand the workings of the capitalist system that was continuing to rise during their time allowing them to predict the possible outcome that would be produced if the capitalist society continued to grow at the pace that it grew more than half a century ago (Maass, 2002). Marx continues to be relevant since he and Engels, were the only ones who were able to understand the dynamics of capitalism and were also the only people who were brave enough to stand in its direct opposite even though they are faced with stark opposition from the businessmen who benefits the most from this type of society. Development of Marxist thought: Marxism continued to grow not only because of the initial ideas that were introduced by Marx but was also due to Marxists who followed this school of thought and provided some innovations wherein Marxism would be able to adapt to the shifting times. It was in the 19th century when Marxism became influential in Russia and has been used by Lenin in his attempt to change Russian society to a more communistic one despite the fact that they were not a successful capitalist society which prevented him from realizing Communism as Marx had originally thought, instead, Lenin tried to introduce variations by skipping some of Marxs dialectic just so he could reach the state of Capitalism (Deutsch & Fornieri, 2009). Following Lenin, it was Mao Zedong who was also greatly influenced by the ideas that were espoused by Marx and as Lenin did, he tried to establish a communistic society in a state wherein here was no industrial sector as it relied solely on its agrarian economy and again, variations were offered in order to apply communism to China, although both were relatively successful in implementing the ideas of Marx, their methods raised the eyebrows of many people and contributed to the negative image of Marxism (Deutsch & Fornieri, 2009). Funny as it may seem, the hippie generation was actually an ideology that was greatly influenced by Marx as the person responsible for the development of such ideology was Herbert Marcuse who was a Marxist in the late 20th century who tried to imagine life for men who are free from the constraints that are imbued by the capitalist society (Deutsch & Fornieri, 2009). It would now make sense as to why hippies would often renounce their personal property in favour of making love and not war. There are also more alternative Marxist ideologies which has been preached over the years aside from the three that was mentioned above, and despite all of the attempts of democratic capitalist countries in destroying Marxism and communist
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ideologies, new variations always seem to pop up. Philosophers such as Edward Bernstein, Rosa Luxemburg, Antonio Gramsci, Gyorgy Lukacs, and the Frankfurt school are some of the other Marxists who offer their own interpretation of Marxs ideologies. The Frankfurt school is an institute of social research that was founded in 1923, under Mx Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno which became the prominent institute of Marxist research in the west and id responsible for the conceptualization of critical theory which is similar to what Marx has always preached, Praxis (Sargent, 2009). Herbert Marcuse and Jurgen Habermas are intellectual products of this institution and both have made significant contributions to the social sciences. But what is the importance of identifying philosophers who have followed and have offered variations to the teachings of Marx? It is because by doing so; we gain further and stronger evidence how Marxism is still able to become an important philosophical tool in order to explain the society as it is today and is still relevant when looking for the solution for the problem that plague todays society. In the past few years, there has been a small body of work that aims to explore and develop the current situation of Marxism to be used as a tool of social analysis and many would agree that the most important contribution and relevance of Marxism in todays society is by applying Marxs insight into capitalist exploitation to contemporary economic relations in capitalism (Sargent, 2009). In trying to further explain the relevance of Marxist thought today, then we could focus on the three schools of thought that has become dominant in trying to explain the relevance of Marxism today: post-Marxism, analytical Marxism, and ecological Marxism. Post-Marxism refers to the collapse of Marxist theory since the fall of USSR and other European countries who have abandoned communistic principles due to the expansion of liberal free market economies based on democracy which has led many political commentators to claim that Marxism has died down (Best, 2000). It can be observed that in todays world, this has become the dominating knowledge which is known by many people, since as mentioned earlier, due to the fall of countries who have tried to establish Communism which led them to conclude that Marxism is no longer relevant. The consequence of the situation which some European countries faced was the weakening political orientation in society as the class did not have any determining political behaviour anymore and without such, the predictions made by Marx has become unlikely to occur (Best, 2000). Post-Marxism attempts to modernize Marxism in the face of social and political changes by taking into account the contemporary relationship between class and individuals, but with the difficulties that have been mentioned above, it has become a challenge to try and present the relevance of Marxism today.

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Analytical Marxism is the attempt to apply the methodology of analytical philosophy to contemporary economic theory to Marxism in an admixture that produces a complex, economically sophisticated form of market socialism (Sargent, 2009). Ecological Marxism sees development as a process that would seem to have complete disregard of nature and seems to only bring about its destruction. For Marx, human being must relate to nature and is a part of nature as it provides them with the material means to life and its relationship to nature is through the production of goods by transforming nature into products for human use and the reproduction of resources to assure the continuity of society (Foster, 1998). But it is also contended by ecological Marxists such as John Bellamy Foster that the technological and demographic factors are not the major cause of the destruction of the environment around us, although they are a part of it, the main reasons are firmly related to the social relations of production which is the ever-expanding drive for accumulation; it follows that the technological and demographic factors does is not subjected to the will of the individuals but is actually responsive to the interest of the capital (Foster, 1998). Combine the responsiveness of technological innovation to the ever-expanding drive for accumulation of the capitalists; it would result to exhausting the worlds natural resources in the blink of an eye. Today, ecological Marxism is one of the most relevant applications of Marxism in todays society as it has come the concern of many interest groups the fast decline of natural resources and its destruction which led them to look for the solution in order to address the problem that is presented by the largely consumer-based and capitalistic society. Marxism on the environment and globalization: It has been said many times that the environment remains as a very popular topic today especially with the growing decline of natural resources due to the consumer-based economy where the people live in. Interestingly, Marxs ideas can still be applied to the issue and is strongly evidenced by the fact that ecological Marxism is one of the main branches of Marxist school of thought that exists today. Globalization is one the phenomena that has been increasingly evident throughout the development of the worlds history and is prospered due to capitalism and the expansion of human labour to other countries. If globalization is to be summarized, it is first and foremost, economic globalization wherein the world economy is experiencing a high level of internationalization but even so, affects the world and social development on many levels such as: nation-state, region, and world; along with every aspect of the economy, politics, culture, social life, and ecological environment (Van Cap, 2002). All of the levels in society that is affected by globalization are affected in both ways, positively and negatively.

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The reason why Marx is often faced in direct opposition to globalization is due to the factors that are openly embraced by economic globalization because commodity, services, capital, and human resources increasingly flow freely across national boundaries which would then circulate throughout the world, all of which are openly criticized by Marx in his major works (Van Cap, 2002). Although Marx and Engels did not use the term globalization from more than a century and a half before, they were able to clearly illustrate dynamics of a globalized society as they did with the modern capitalist society. Through the text:
Products chase the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, and establish connections everywhere. The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. . . . It has drawn from it stood. All oldestablished national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe (Marx, 2004).

Marx and Engels were able to figure out the methodological process of internationalization in production. Economic globalization was a natural tendency that arose from the process of economic internationalization and is shaped by indispensability of economic internationalization (Van Cap, 2002). Conclusion: The posited question was whether the ideas of Marx which were conceptualized one hundred fifty years ago are still applicable even with all of the developments that occurred from then up to now. The point that was wished to be address in this paper is to try and explain how Marxs ideas are still applicable by incorporating them to the situation of the world today. It is important to understand how Marxism gradually developed into the understanding that it is today so that its variations can be understood and to find which of them could fit to the description of the world today. It is found that the ideas that were espoused by Marx 150 years ago are still evident to the society today and even if it can be considered ancient due to the longevity of his philosophical thought it has been amazing to found how perfectly suited it is up until today. It can be concluded that Marxism is still very relevant today and despite how hated the subject of Marx is by college students, its study would greatly benefit the members of the academe since there are a plethora of ways how Marxist ideologies is practically applicable to everyday life.

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Works Cited
Best, G. (2000). Post-Marxism. Active Sociology . Deutsch, K., & Fornieri, J. (2009). An Invitation to Political Thought. USA: Thomson Wadsworth. Foster, J. B. (1998). The Communist Manifesto and the Environment. The Socialist Register , 169-187. Kaufman, P. (2011, July 26). You Might be a Marxist. Retrieved January 16, 2013, from Everyday Sociology: http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2011/07/you-might-be-a-marxist.html Maass, A. (2002, July 6). Is Marxism Relevant today? Retrieved February 27, 2013, from Socialist Worker: http://socialistworker.org/Featured/Stories/Debate_Maass0706.shtml Marx, K. (2004). Communist Manifesto. Penguin Adult (Original Work Published in 1848). Sargent, L. (2009). Contemporary Political Ideologies: A Comparative Analysis 14th Edition. Belmont: Wadsworth. Van Cap, C. (2002). Marx and Engels on Economic Globalization. Nature, Society, and Thought, vol. 15, no.2 , 241-246.

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