Communist Manifesto
What is Hegel's dialectic and how did it inspire Marx?
Struggle between two forces informed Marx's Historical Materialism (i.e. master/slave, nobility/peasant, bourgeois/proletariate)
What are the Means of Production? (x + y)
Natural Resources + Instruments of Labor
What is a commodity? And how is it's value determined?
Commodity is something that is bought and sold, or exchanged in a market. It's value is determined by the labor put into it.
What are the five modes of production?
primitive, ancient, feudal, capitalist, communist
What is Clickwork?
Work done online on a crowdsourcing platform, usually paid on a per-task basis. The work typically includes Web research, text creation, tagging, categorization, search engine optimization and translation.
What are three accusations made against Marx that he addresses in the Communist Manifesto?
Abolition of Property, Abolition of the Family, Abolition of Countries/Religion
What are the only ways that Capitalists can compete and drive profit?
Exploiting the Worker and Technological Innovation
Can you define 'use-value' and 'exchange-value'? What is the difference?
Use-Value - tangible features of a commodity which can satisfy some human requirement, want or need, or which serves a useful purpose.
Exchange-Value - market-produced features of a commodity in relation to it's exchange with other commodities
With changes in modes of production what are the two inevitable increases according to Marx? (i.e. think about the arrows)
increasing productive forces, more fine-grained division of labor
What is Piecework?
Work that is required when the machine or manufacturing system hits its limits. Piecework are jobs that can be broken down into small, distributable tasks that could be carried out off-site, without stopping production or diverting resources away from the factory floor.
What are the three of the enemies of Communism Marx identifies? (you can describe them)
Feudal Socialists, Petty-Bourgeois Socialists, Conservative Socialists, and Critical-Utopians
How is labor-power (the driving force in society) commodified?
Wage-Labor
How does a 'commodity' become a 'commodity fetish'?
A fetish occurs when the signifier eclipses the signified.
Commodity fetish happens when the labor and social relations behind a commodity are obscured by the market. Material relations between persons are transformed into social relations between things.
What is the function of ideology according the Marx?
Ideology obscures the realities of historical materialism and class struggle.
What is Ghost Work?
Labor that is obscured and often devalued. It's different from piecework and clickwork in that it highlights the alienation that occurs when a worker is contracted out.
What are three demands made in Marx's 10-Point Program in the Manifesto
abolition of land ownership, abolition of inheritance, graduated income tax, centralization of credit in national bank, centralization of communication/trasnportation, abolish distinction between town/country, free education for all children in public schools, etc.
What is Capital?
Capital is a set of social relations through which accumulated labour is made productive, over and over again, by putting living labour at its service.
What are four kinds of alienation that occur in Capitalism?
Alienation from the thing produced, the productive activity, 'species being', and fellow human beings
How does Marx envision a transition from Capitalism to Communism.
Revolution of the Proletariate, Socialist State run by the Workers owning the Means of Production, Withering Away of the State
What is Workism?
The belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one’s identity and life’s purpose; and the belief that any policy to promote human welfare must always encourage more work.
What drives the following feelings of modernity: “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”
Poverty of the Worker
Can you draw a theoretical diagram using the following Marxist language (i.e. labor power, raw materials, instruments of labor, relations of production, mode of production, forces of production, means of production).
labor power + raw materials = means of production
means of production + labor power = forces of production
forces of production + relations of production = mode of production
Contrary to Marx's notion of the modes of production:
increasing productive forces (i.e. home appliances), leads to LESS division of labor (i.e. less servants, more responsibilities for housewife)
LESS alienation, MORE affective/emotional investment
What are the four circumstances that must be considered in a historically-materialist analysis of the world?
People must satisfy their material needs, new needs are produced through this that must be satisfied, family/social relationships drive history, these relationships determine industry and exchange.
What is AB5 - name two pros and cons?
California law which limits the use of classifying workers as independent contractors rather than employees by companies in the state.
Pros: Full-Time Benefits, Overtime Pay, Workers Compensation in the case of Injury, Social Security, Guaranteed Minimum Wage, Guaranteed Work
Cons: Limited Flexibility, Burdens Industry, Difficult to Enforce, etc.