German Ideology
What is “historical materialism,” and how does it serve as an alternative to idealist explanations of society?
a way to understand the connection between the concrete economic relationships among people and the broad patterns of social order that emerge from them in specific eras.
What is the significance of “use-value” in the labour process?
Use-value refers to the utility of the product, its ability to satisfy human needs. In the labour process, labour always produces a use-value, regardless of the social system. However, under capitalism, the production of use-values is merely a means to an end: the creation of exchange-value and surplus-value. This shows the paradox of capitalist production: it is not primarily concerned with usefulness, but with the accumulation of value.
Why did Marx and Engels reject German idealism as a framework for understanding history?
The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is directly interwoven with material activity and material intercourse of men and appears at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behavior." In other words, it is not ideas that determine the material world, but rather the other way around.
What does Marx mean when he says that “use-value” is the “material depository of exchange-value”?
Marx means that exchange-value cannot exist abstractly; it must always appear in a use-value. A commodity must have some utility in order to be produced and exchanged, otherwise it would not sell in the market. However, in capitalist production, this usefulness is incidental—the true interest of the capitalist lies in the commodity’s exchange-value, particularly the surplus-value embodied within it. Thus, the commodity’s physical utility is merely the necessary form through which value manifests itself.
Why is class struggle is central to understanding history?
For Marx the history of civilization revealed the progressive coercion of human labor and the dispossession of the product of labor from its producers. Driven by greed and need, creative work had become wage labor, the motives for which did not speak to the creative capacity that is essential to what it means to be human. For Marx, work had become inhuman in a literal sense — it contradicted human nature. Hence, the working classes were being both materially dispossessed and estranged from their own human nature as people. Marx suggested the image of the capitalist as a sort of vampire that literally drains away the productive life of the worker objectified in the goods that his labor has created.
How does Marx distinguish between use-value and exchange-value in the context of the labour process?
Marx explains that use-value refers to the utility of a product—its ability to satisfy some human want or need. Every act of labour, across all societies, results in the creation of a use-value. In contrast, exchange-value represents the quantitative worth of a commodity in the market, determined by socially necessary labour-time. In the labour process under capitalism, the worker produces both: the immediate product (a use-value) and, simultaneously, value that takes the form of exchange-value. Importantly, the capitalist is interested less in the usefulness of the product and more in its ability to realize value and, ultimately, surplus-value in the market.
Why do Marx and Engels insist that social change cannot be understood simply through ideas, but must be analyzed in terms of material conditions and productive forces?
Consciousness, ideas, and conceptions are fundamentally linked to human material activity and interaction, arising directly from real-life processes. This includes mental production expressed through politics, law, morality, religion, and metaphysics. Individuals are the creators of their ideas, shaped by their specific development of productive forces and corresponding social intercourse. Ultimately, consciousness is a product of conscious existence, which is itself defined by the actual life-process of individuals.
Why does surplus-value imply exploitation of labour under capitalism?
Surplus-value is possible only because the capitalist appropriates the unpaid labour of the worker. Marx states: “The capitalist does not buy labour, he buys labour-power. The use of labour-power creates value, but part of that value is not paid to the worker.” This appropriation of unpaid labour is the essence of exploitation: the worker creates value that exceeds the value of their wages, which is kept by the capitalist.
What do Marx and Engels mean by the claim that “the ruling ideas of every epoch are the ideas of the ruling class”?
The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.
How does Marx define the source of surplus-value in the labour process?
Marx explains that surplus-value arises from labour performed beyond what is necessary to reproduce the value of the worker’s wages. He writes: “Surplus-labour, therefore, is that portion of the working day in which the labourer produces for the capitalist beyond the value of his own labour-power.” The capitalist pays the worker only for the labour-power’s value, but the worker’s productive activity continues, generating surplus-value.