SİYASAL DÜŞÜNCE - Deneme Sınavı - 8

Ideology hides the unacceptable sides of the reality.

According to Marx, class struggle is the driving force of social change.

Anarchy is typically defined as a society without state. Anarchism aims to eliminate the state and liberate people from political domination and economic exploitation. The roots of anarchism can be found in the thoughts of Taoists in ancient China, Greek philosophers, rioters in Middle Age Europe, and the leftists in the English Revolution. But it has become a clear ideology only after the collapse of feudalism. As an ideology “which combined the Renaissance’s growing sense of individualism with the Enlightenment’s belief in social progress”, anarchism emerged at the end of the 18th century.

Only for anarchists, the main source of social injustice is the existence of the state.

Leo Tolstoy was a Pacifist Anarchist.

Alienation is the process through which the workers become foreign to their labor, species, and themselves. B is the correct answer.

In his surplus value theory, Marx adopts Ricardo’s iron law of wages. C is the correct answer.

Capitalism is an economic mode of production depending on the private property in which the means of production are owned by a small group of individuals. D is the correct answer.

Means of production include tools, machinery, factories, materials and land; and together with labor power, they constitute productive forces. E is the correct answer.

The superstructure of the society is composed of all of the non-material institutions in the society such as religion, government, law, education, art, values, ideology and so forth. A is the correct answer.

There is a fundamental contradiction, a conflict of interest between the two classes. C is the correct answer.

With Proudhon and Tolstoy, Godwin objected to the use of violence. A İs the correct answer.

Godwin is commonly accepted as the founder of modern anarchism. B is the correct answer.

Bakunin is known as the founder of collectivist anarchism and violent anarchism. E is the correct answer.

Malatesta advocated a form of communism which involved the common ownership of property and the socialization of production. D is the correct answer.

The intellectual life of Marx was mainly shaped by a unique combination of Hegelianism, French socialism and British political economy, so the correct answer is C. In general, the intellectual life of Marx was shaped by a unique mixture of Hegelianism (I. Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, L. Feuerbach), French socialism (J. J. Rousseau, H. Saint-Simon, P.J. Proudhon) and British political economy (Adam Smith and David Ricardo). In addition to these, he was also influenced by many philosophers and thinkers including but not limited to Epicurus, Young Hegelians, Robert Owen, Max Stirner and Charles Darwin.

The information about the other concepts in the options are as follows:

Marx accepted and adopted the dialectic as the essential logic of history. But, he did not accept the metaphysical assumptions of Hegel. Like Hegel, Marx also considered the dialectic as a means of accomplishing historical progress through struggle; yet he changed it since, for Marx, it was materialism which inspired the dialectic, not spiritualism.

Marxism and Anarchism both (a) emerged as reaction to the severe oppression during the mid-1850’s, (b) are materialists, (c) accept Marx’s surplus value theory, (d) believe that working class has the potential to destroy capitalism and create a classless society, (e) believe that the only way to destroy capitalism is revolution. The main differences among them are largely related to state. According to anarchists, the reason of class existence is the state, if there were no state, the society would be a classles one. Thus, if the state is eliminated, the classes would not exist anymore. Marxists on the other hand, considers that the state is the consequence of the class conflict. They consider that the capitalist state must first be overthrown in order to defeat capitalism. However, after the revolution, a proletarian state will take place and protect the achievements of the proletarian revolution.

Marx believed that humans express their creativity, develop their humanity, and fulfill themselves through work. Work, in other words, is a form of self-creation. However, work under capitalism causes alienation. Alienation is the process through which the workers become foreign to their labor, species, and themselves. workers became a part, a gear of the machine they operate.

The three aspects of alienation can be summarized as followings (Cuff et al, 2013, p. 24-6; Baradat, 1991, p. 157-8; Swingewood, 1998, p. 86-97):

In his surplus value theory, Marx adopts Ricardo’s iron law of wages. Ricardo asserted that the fundamental motivation of capitalists is to make profit and accumulate capital. Therefore, they would pay wages just enough for the survival of the workers, because this wage is enough for the workers to come back to work the next day. The function of this subsistence wage is to prevent workers from accumulating enough capital to gain independence from the production process. Marx considers that capitalism enslaves workers because they have to work in order to survive, and the means of productions are owned by a small group of capitalists. In short, workers are wage slaves in capitalism, and “their masters pay them only the most meager wages” (Baradat, 1991, p. 159). Under Ricardo’s iron law of wages, the workers’ intrinsic value is the money just enough to feed themselves and their families. However, workers are forced to produce value which is greater than their intrinsic value. The value that workers produce above their wages, which is at the survival level, is called surplus value that is appropriated by capitalists as their profit.

As also understood form the information given, all of the statements related to the surplus value in the options are correct, so the correct answer is E. For instance, if a worker has to work five hours to produce the supplies for the survival of him/herself and his/her family, and s/he is forced to work 12 hours, yet paid only subsistence wage, it means that the capitalist seize seven hours of surplus value. Marx asserts that any profit that the capitalists make from the labor of their workers is exploitative, because the surplus value can be produced only by the worker and it belongs to the laborer. Marx did not condemn profit itself, but he argued that the profit should not become a private property of capitalists. He thought that capital, which was produced by all, should be owned by all. In other word, private citizens should not be allowed to monopolize the means of production and seize the surplus value. In capitalism, however, capitalist is “a villain, a parasite who lives by sucking the economic lifeblood of the proletariat, and must be erased from society” (Baradat, 1991, p. 160).

Dialectical materialism is the scientific foundation of Marx’s theory. The roots of dialectical materialism lie in the dialectic method of Hegel, who developed a theory of history focusing on change. According to Hegel, the world moves toward a goal, which is predetermined by God. He called this goal as “idea” and believed that people could not understand, change or escape from it. The history for Hegel is the process of change brought on by a struggle that only ends when the idea is fulfilled. Until then, the existing state of affairs, or any “thesis” is to be challenged by a new idea that is known as the “antithesis” in his perspective. Then, a conflict occurs between the thesis and antithesis, which is called the “dialectic process”, and results in a “synthesis” that consists of all the good parts of both. The synthesis then becomes a new thesis, and the dialectic process continues as such. In short, history for Hegel was unavoidably progressive, today’s reality would become a part of a better tomorrow, and each new era would exceed and improve the former one. Marx accepted and adopted the dialectic as the essential logic of history. But, he did not accept the metaphysical assumptions of Hegel. Like Hegel, Marx also considered the dialectic as a means of accomplishing historical progress through struggle; yet he changed it since, for Marx, it was materialism which inspired the dialectic, not spiritualism. Marx claimed that the dialectic was a conflict among worldly interests, and ideas were the results of such conflict (Baradat, 1991, p. 152-4). According to Marx, class differences caused conflict among human beings. What ended a historical era and caused the rise of a new era so far has been the struggle between opposing social classes. Humans have passed through four historical stages, all of which had particular economic (the foundation) and political (superstructure) systems. These stages are the primitive communism, slavery (empire), feudalism and capitalism. The antithesis of every stage emerged within that stage itself. For example, private property emerged in the era of primitive communism and created social classes.

As also understood from the information given, all of the statements related to dialectical materialism in the options are correct, so the correct answer is E.

According to Marx, there are two basic parts in every society, these are the substructure and the superstructure. The economic system is the foundation of the society. In other words, it is the substructure, or material base. The substructure is divided into two factors, the means of production and the relations of production. The means of production are the resources and technology that a society makes use of. Means of production include tools, machinery, factories, materials and land; and together with labor power, they constitute productive forces. The relations of production between social classes are determined by the affiliation between humans and the means of production. The ruling class in every society consists of people who own the property of the means of production. Therefore, in a pastoral animal breeding society, the owners of the most of the livestock is ruling class. In an agricultural society, the ruling class consist of people who own most of the land and agricultural implements such as the ploughs. In industrial society, the capitalist class, namely those who own the factories and productive machines, rule the society. The superstructure of the society is composed of all of the non-material institutions in the society such as religion, government, law, education, art, values, ideology and so forth. It is determined by the foundation of the society; and every institution it includes is arranged to suit the ruling class. In every society, the social institutions in the superstructure justify the economic system as well as the power inequality in society through values and norms. Institutions, such as laws, ideologies, education and religion, create and maintain sympathetic, positive attitudes towards the economic and the political system. In addition, in political regimes such as representative democracy, there is an illusion that masses have control over the governments. However, the governments are in fact led by the leading capitalists. Hence, the superstructure ensures the domination of the ruling class.

As also understood from the information given, the statements related to the substructure and the superstructure in the options II, III, IV and V are correct, so the correct answer is E. The statement in the option I is not correct because of the fact that the economic system is the foundation of the society. In other words, it is the substructure, or material base, not the superstructure.