Marxism

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation, analyses class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and takes a dialectical view of social transformation. Marxism uses a materialist methodology, referred to by Marx and Engels as the materialist conception of history and now better known as historical materialism, and to analyze and critique the development of class society and especially of capitalism as well as the role of class struggles in systemic economic, social, and political change. First developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century, it has been the foremost ideology of the communist movement. Marxism does not lay out a blueprint of communist society per se and it merely presents an analysis that concludes the means by which its implementation will be triggered, distinguishing its fundamental characteristics as based on the derivation of real-life conditions. Marxism considers itself to be the embodiment of scientific socialism, but it does not model an ideal society based on the design of intellectuals, whereby communism is seen as a state of affairs to be established based on scientific design. Rather, it is a non-idealist attempt at the understanding of material history and society, whereby communism is the expression of real movement, with the parameters derived from real life.

According to Marxist Theory, class conflict arises in capitalist societies due to contradictions between the material interests of the oppressed and exploited proletariat--a class of wage laborers employed to produce goods and services--and the bourgeoisie--the ruling class that owns the means of production and extracts its wealth through appropriation of the surplus product produced by the proletariat in the form of profit. This class struggle that is commonly expressed as the revolt of society's productive forces against its relations of production, results in a period of short-term crises as the bourgeoisie struggle to manage the intensifying alienation of labor experienced by the proletariat, albeit with varying degrees of class consciousness. In periods of deep crisis, the resistance of the oppressed can culminate in proletarian revolution which, if victorious, leads to the establishment of socialism--a socioeconomic system based on social ownership of the means of production, distribution based on one's contribution, and production organized directly for use. As the productive forces continue to advance, socialism would be transformed into a communist society, i.e., a classless, stateless, humane society based on common ownership and distribution based on one's needs.

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