Zia ur Rehman Bazai, Jaffar Shah and Arif Ullah

1. Marxism
ZIA UR REHMAN, JAFFAR SHAH, ARIF ULLAH AND ASAD KHAN

2. Introduction to Marxism
Zia ur Rehman

3. Human Geography
• 10,000 years ago, Nomadic
life
• They were Hunter and
gatherers.
• Population:5-8 Millions

4. 1st Agricultural revolution
 8000 B.C
 People started agriculture near big rivers
i.e. Indus, Ganges, Nile, Amazon,
Yangtze, Tigris, Euphrates and
others.
 Population start growing.
 1 A.D: 300 Millions
1750: 800 Millions

5. Industrial Revolution
 1750
 Start of Class difference and
Class conflicts
 Entry of Karl Marx :
5 may 1818
 1900 A.D: 1700 Millions
 2000 A.D: 6000 Millions
 2011 A.D: 7000 Millions
 Current: 7.47 Billion
(Worldometers 18 Dec 2016)

6. Karl Marx brief History
 He was a German Philosopher, Economist,
sociologist, Journalist, and revolutionary Socialist
 Born 05 May, 1818, in German City of Trier to a
Middle Class Jewish family
 Studied early Political Economy and Hegelian
Philosophy
 Lived and worked in Berlin (1836-1843), Paris (1843-
1845), Meet Friedrich Engels in 1844, Brussels (1845–
1848), London (1850–1883),
 Died in London on 14 March 1883 (age 64)

7. Karl Marx…
 Karl Marx's studies have provided a basis for much in socialist theory
and research. Marxism aims to revolutionize the concept of work
through creating a classless society built on control and ownership of
the means of production. Marx believed that Economic Determinism,
Dialectical Materialism and Class Struggle were the three principles
that explained his theories.

8. What is Marxism
Dialectics, Class Conflict, Class Struggle, Alienation, Value,
Commodity Fetishism, Surplus Value, Historical Materialism,
Theory of Base and Superstructure, Communism, Socialism,
Idealism, False Consciousness, Economic Determination and etc.
 A Set of Theories, or
system of thought and
analysis developed by
Karl Marx in the 19th
Century in response to
Western Industrial
revolution and the Rise
of Industrial Capitalism
as the predominant
Economic Mode

9. But wait…
 All Marxist theories are not Written solely by Karl Marx
 Life long friend and Supporter Friedrich Engels
too.
 Friedrich Engels was a German philosopher, social
scientist, journalist, and businessman. He founded
Marxist theory together with Karl Marx. In 1845, he
published The Condition of the Working Class in
England, based on personal observations and
research in Manchester.

10. Publications
 All Marxist theories are published in

11. The Communist Manifesto (1948)
 It Argues that “The history of all hitherto existing
societies is the history of class struggle”. As Class
struggle is the engine room of history, to understand
the course of history.
 By analyzing the class relations that typify different
historical epochs, the antagonisms and forms of class
struggle embodied in such class relations.
 The development of class consciousness and challenges
the dominant classes through revolutionary moments.
 Producing new modes of productions and forms of
social organization.

12. Preface to the Contribution to the
Critique of political Economy (1859)
 Focus on the unfolding logic of a system,
rather than class struggle.
 It argues that Society’s Economic
organization consists of a distinctive pattern
of forces and relations of productions.
 A foundation arises a complex political and
ideological superstructure, where economic
development impacts upon societal progress

13. Das Kapital (1867)
 It more concern with the genesis and dynamic of
capitalism.
 It less concern with the forecasting how capitalism would
be overthrown, than considering how it had developed
and how it functioned.
 The key to understand this logic is the ‘COMMODITY’
form of social relations- a form that is most fully
developed only in Capitalism.
 Mclellan (1971) states about Das Kapital, “It refers to class
struggle mainly in the context of the struggle between
capital and labour, within capitalism, rather than over it
suppression.”

14. Origin of Marxism
 Marxism has its main intellectual origins in German philosophy, English political
economy, and French utopian socialism
 It is from the German philosopher, Hegel, that Marx learned a way of thinking about
the world, in all its fluid complexity, which is called "dialectics"
 The British political economists, Adam Smith and David Ricardo, provided Marx
with a first approximation of his labor theory of value
 From the French utopians, especially Charles Fourier and the Comte de Saint-
Simon, Marx caught a glimpse of a happier future that lay beyond capitalism
 Along with the paradox of an Industrial Revolution which produced as much
poverty as it did wealth
 These are the main ingredients that went into the formation of Marxism

15. Capitalism
 Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of
production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism
include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary
exchange, a price system, and competitive markets. In a capitalist market
economy, decision-making and investment is determined by the owners of the
factors of production in financial and capital markets, and prices and the
distribution of goods are mainly determined by competition in the market.

18. Some themes we need to know
 Dialectical Materialism: Analyzing materialism’s form only but to see its essence and
figures out contradictions such as social strifes and conflicts
 It also analyze political and historical events result from the conflicts of social forces and are
seen in terms of contradictions and their solutions.
 All Conflicts are due to material needs
 Historical Materialism: Marxist interpretation of history in terms of the class struggle.
 The basic philosophy is that everything is material and that change takes place through the struggle of
opposites
 Conflict of Interest: According to Marxism Social life is based upon “conflict of interest”.
The most fundamental and important of these conflicts is that between “Bourgeoisie” and
the “Proletariat”.

19. We need to know…
 Concept of Social Class: Its more than a descriptive category; Social class is used to explain HOW
and WHY societies change. Class Conflict represents a process whereby change comes about through
the opposition of social classes as they pursue what they see to be their (different and opposed)
collective interests in society.
 Political theory: Two fold theory
 To expose the political and economic contradictions inherent in Capitalism.
 To establish a future communist society
 Means of Production: Marx characterized human history in terms of the way in which ownership of
he means of production was the most important single variable involved in the characterization of
each distinct period (or Epoch) in history.
 Marxists tend to divide Capitalist society into two related “Spheres on influence”
 The Economic base (or infrastructure)
 The political and ideological superstructure.

20. We need to know…
 Individuals are not the focal point of Marxist theories but “Social Structures”
because individual are only significant when they act together as a class. That is,
when people develop a consciousness of themselves as belonging to a particular
social class and act upon awareness to produce social change (a “class for itself”)
 False Consciousness: Marxist use the concept of false consciousness to explain
how the Proletariat is co-opted by a ruling class into the values of Capitalist society.
 According to Marxist approach the mass media and popular culture are centrally
important in the spread of false consciousness, in leading people to believe that
“Whatever is, is right”.

21. False Consciousness

22. We need to know
 Alienation (Cut off): How do the ways n which people earn their living affect their bodies,
minds and daily lives?
 Workers in Capitalist society do not own the means, machines, raw materials, factories, which
they use in their work. These are owned by the capitalists to whom the workers must sell
their “labour power” or abilities to do work, in return for a wage.
 Alienation’s two aspects
 Labour who produces surplus value is alienated labour. The capitalist benefits from the
labour and this labor no longer belongs to the laborer.
 Capitalism also forces the worker to become alienated from himself. Labour become a
commodity, when he has to sell his labour power (a commodity worker is not a fully
human).

24. Marxist Sociology
 Study of Sociology from Marxist perspective
 Marxist Sociology is “a form of conflict theory associated with…
Marxism’s objective of developing a positive (empirical) science of
capitalist society as part of the mobilization of a revolutionary working
class.”
 American Sociological Association has dedicated a section to Marxist
sociology who are, “Interested in examining how insights from Marxist
methodology and Marxist analysis can help in explaining the complex
dynamics of modern society.”

26. Marxist Sociology cont…
 Key Concepts and issue are…
 Historical Materialism: : Marxist interpretation of history in terms of the class struggle.
 The basic philosophy is that everything is material and that change takes place through the struggle of
opposites.
 Modes of Productions: How people relate to each other, and to their society as a whole, through their
productive activity, and the forces of production.
 The relation between capital and labour
 Bourgeoisie (Have) :Those who won and control the means of production in society
 Proletariat (Have not) :Those who simply sell their labour power in the market place of Capitalism

27. Key Question by Marxist Sociology
 How does capital control workers?
 How does a mode of production influence the social class?
 What is the relation between worker, capital, the state and
culture?
 How do economic factors influence inequalities such as
those relating to gender and race?

28. Marxism as an Economic theory
 It looks specifically at the capitalist economic system
 To analyze “how the forces and relations of production work with in the capitalist
mode of production”
 Surplus value: A worker in factory work on raw material to make a object. The objet
(raw material + labor) is worth more than the original raw material. Now what the
labor adds in is called Surplus value in Marxist theory. Laborer is paid for the work,
that payment is figured in terms of reproduction of what the laborer will need in
order to comeback the next day (i.e. food, rest, shelter, cloths etc), and not in term
of what value the laborer added to the taw material.

29. Marxist as a Economic Theory
 The goal of Capitalist production: Sell the object made with its surplus value and the reproduction of
laborer, by giving payment to the laborer in the for of wages.
 Thus the capitalist/factory owner get the benefit of the value added by the laborer and the laborer gets
the cost of his reproduction in the wages.
 The Idea of Alienation: Workers in Capitalist society do not own the means, machines, raw
materials, factories, which they use in their work. These are owned by the capitalists to whom the
workers must sell their “labour power” or abilities to do work, in return for a wage.
 Alienation’s two aspects
 Labour who produces surplus value is alienated labour. The capitalist benefits from the labour and this
labor no longer belongs to the laborer.
 Capitalism also forces the worker t become alienated from himself. Labour become a commodity, when
he has to sell his labour power (a commodity worker is not a fully human).

30. Share of Production

31. Marxism as Economic Theory
 Now the laborer can not exercise his free will to determine his actions. Worker who is commodity in the labor
market is Alienated from humanness.
 Alienation of humanness is called double Alienation of laborer/proletariat.
 This double Alienation, exploitation by the Capitalist lead to basic contradictions of capitalism that produce the
Dialectic (the struggle between owners and workers, labor vs capital) which produces social change or history and
this leads to SOCIALISM.
 Dialectical Materialism: Analyzing materialism’s form only but to see its essence and figures out contradictions such
as social strips and conflicts
 It also analyze political and historical events result from the conflicts of social forces and are seen in terms of
contradictions and their solutions.
 All Conflicts are due to material needs
 Historical Materialism: Marxist interpretation of history in terms of the class struggle.
 The basic philosophy is that everything is material and that change takes place through the struggle of opposites.

32. Bourgeois vs. Proletariat/Employer vs. Employee

33. Marxism as an Economic Theory
 Superstructure: The superstructure of a society includes Culture, Institutions, Political
Power structures, Roles, Rituals, and norms.
 Base: The basic way a society organizes the production of good e.g. Employer-
employee work conditions, the technical division of labor and property relations,
which people enter into for the necessities and facilities of life.

34. SUPERSTUCTURE AND BASE

35. Marxist Literary Criticism
 Marxist literary Criticism based on Socialist and dialectic theories
 According to Marxists, even literature itself is a social institution and has a specific ideological function
based on the background and ideology of the author.
 The Simplest goals of Marxist literary criticism can include an assessment of the political ‘tendency’ of a
literary work, determining whether its social content or its literary form are ‘progressive’
 To analyzing the class constructs demonstrated in the literature.
 The English literary critic and cultural theorist, Terry Eagleton, defines Marxist criticism this way:
“Marxist criticism is not merely a 'sociology of literature', concerned with how novels get published
and whether they mention the working class. Its aim is to explain the literary work more fully; and this
means a sensitive attention to its forms, styles and, meanings. But it also means grasping those forms,
styles and meanings as the product of a particular history.”

37. MARXIST THEORY IN LITERATURE
Jaffar Shah

38. GENERAL QUESTIONS OF MARXIST THEORY
 How economic base determines the superstructure?
 (Superstructure of a society includes its culture, institutions, political power
structures, roles, rituals and norms. Superstructure means all social activities or
systems such as politics, religion, philosophy, morality, art and science.)
 Marxist theory is aimed to look at the relations between economic base and a
particular aspect of superstructure called ideology or ideologies such as religious
ideologies, political ideologies and aesthetic ideologies.
 Ideology is how a society thinks about itself; the forms of social consciousness.

39. GENERAL QUESTIONS OF MARXIST THEORY
 Ideologies supply all the things that people believe in, and then act on.
 For Marx, ideology as part of the superstructure, generated by economic
base, works to justify the base; the ideologies present in the capitalist society
will explain, justify and support the capitalist mode of production.
 In the nineteenth century, the southern US culture was slave labor as the
economic base. All the Superstructures, such as organized religion, local and
national politics and literature worked to uphold slavery as a good economic
system.

40. MARXIST VIEW OF LITERATURE
 Literature is part of the culture’s superstructure.
 Thus, literature is determined, in both form and content, by the economic base.
 Literature also participates in the articulation of forms of cultural ideology. For instance,
novels and poems might justify or attack religious beliefs, political beliefs, or aesthetic
ideas.
 Marxist view of literature is meant to highlight gross injustices, inequalities being the
result of class struggle. Marxist theorists aim their writings at social change.
 Literature is a reflection of culture.
 Culture can be influenced by literature.
 Literature can instigate revolution.

41. FOUR MAIN AREAS OF STUDY
 (A) Economic power
 Forces of production shape society. Those who own the means of
production dictate the formation of society. Bourgeoisie class can
manipulate politics, government, education, art and media.
 Capitalism creates commodification (a desire for social value__ not
for innate usefulness).

42. (B) Materialism versus Spirituality
 Social values reflect material goals, not abstract ideals.
 The quality of person’s life is not destroyed by spiritual failure but by
material failure.

43. (C) Class Conflict
 In a Capitalist society, there is conflict between social classes.
 The owners and workers will have different ideas about the division of the
wealth, and the owners will eventually make decision.
 This constant conflict called dialectical materialism instigates change.
 The Proletariat are prevented from wanting to overthrow the oppressors.
 The real social division is class. Divisions of race, ethnicity, gender, and
religion are artificial and distract the proletariat from unity and rebellion.

44. (D) Art, literature and ideologies
 These are the vehicles by which the Bourgeoisie impose their value
system on the Proletariat.
 Bourgeoisie materially support the writers and painters. They do not
allow offensive things get published. Bourgeois are also primary
consumers.

45. • FREDERICH ENGELS AND IDEOLOGY
 Ideologies function as an illusion.
 These ideas disguise or mask what is really going on.
 Ideologies signify the way people live out their lives in class society, tie people to their
social functions, and thus prevent them from a true understanding of the real forces
and relations of production.
 Illusions created by ideology create false consciousness in people. Workers are
deluded into thinking that they are not exploited by the capitalist system.
 In this view, literature is also a kind of illusion, a kind of ideology that prevents people
from seeing the real relations of production at work.
 There are also other views such that literature works on existing ideologies and
transforms them, giving these ideologies new shape and structure.

46. MARXIST LITERARY THEORISTS AND CRITICS
ASK
 How the economic base of any culture, and particularly of capitalist cultures,
influences or determines the form and/or content of literature?
 How literature functions in relations to other aspects of the superstructure,
particularly ideology?
 Does literature reflect the economic base?
 Does literature reflect other ideologies?
 Do literary works create their own ideologies?
 How literature can work as a force for social change?
 Can literature be part of dialectical struggle to eradicate capitalism and bring
socialism?

47. MARXIST LITERARY THEORISTS AND CRITICS
ASK
 Is literature part of the Bourgeois justification of capitalism?
 Who are powerful and powerless people in the text?
 Is there any class conflict/struggle?
 Is there fair distribution of wealth?
 What are the values of society?
 Do you notice any system of oppression? Have you rejected or accepted that
system?
 What is author’s opinion about class relations?
 Does the work serve as propaganda for, or against the status quo?

48. A WRITER UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF
MARXIST THEORY EXAMINES:
 History as Historical materialism
The writer hopes to show that all human relations are at root a
struggle between oppressor and the oppressed for control of the
means of production.
 Writing as means of controlling ideology
If ideology is the means of hegemony, the oppressed must gain
control of their own ideology.

49. READER AND CRITICS UNDER THE
INFLUENCE OF MARXIST THEORY EXAMINE:
 The Work as ideology
Marxist theory argues that any work of art functions either consciously or
unconsciously as ideology.
These ideologies serve to oppress or rebel against the oppression.
 The work as a record of historical relations
A Marxist influence reading of a text would be interested in the examining
of characters as the oppressed.

50. FAMOUS LITERARY WORKS THROUGH
THE LENS OF MARXISM
 UTOPIA 1515 (Sir Thomas Moore)
 ADAM SMITH
 He is known as the father of economics.
 He developed a labor theory of value.
 His famous work are
 The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments
 THE MOTHER (Maxim Gorky)
 HEART OF DARKNESS (Joseph Conrad)
 THINGS FALL APART (Chinua Achebe)

51. FAMOUS LITERARY WORKS THROUGH
THE LENS OF MARXISM
 THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS (Arundhati Roy )
 A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN (Virginia Woolf)
 EMMA (Jane Austen)
 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (Jane Austen)
 JANE EYRE (Charlotte Bronte)
 GREAT EXPECTATIONS (Charles Dickens)
 OLIVER TWIST (Charles Dickens)

52. FAMOUS LITERARY WORKS THROUGH
THE LENS OF MARXISM
 TESS OF THE DU’RBERVILLES (Thomas Hardy)
 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
 JUDE THE OBSCURE
 VANITY FAIR (William Makepeace Thackeray)
 ADAM BEDE (GEORGE ELIOT)
 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Can Subaltern Speak)

53. FAMOUS LITERARY WORKS THROUGH
THE LENS OF MARXISM
 FABIAN SOCIETY (Intellectuals who advocated reforms to avoid revolution)
 OSCAR WILDE (The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest)
 GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (Pygmalion, Man and Superman, Arms and the Man)
 H.G.WELLS (The Time Machine, The History of Mr. Polly)
 THE RAPE OF THE LOCK (Alexander Pope)
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION(1789-1799) AND J.J. ROUSSEAU
 His philosophy was put into practice in the French Revolution. His idea of the social
contract got fame.
 PRELUDE (William Wordsworth)
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND (P.B. Shelley)

54.  KATHERINE MANSFIELD
 The Doll’s House
 The Garden Party
 FRANTZ FANON
 Was a Martinique born Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist , philosopher, revolutionary,
and writer.
 His works addressed the problems of developing national consciousness in the
oppressed people.
 BERTRAND RUSSELL
 In Praise of Idleness

55. MICHEL FOUCAULT: Discourse,
Power/Knowledge, and The Author Function
Arif Ullah

56. MICHEL FOUCAULT (1926-1984)
 French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, philologist
and literary critic.
 He is a founder of school of thought, a way of thinking about how
the world( and literary texts which are part of the world) operates.
 Foucault is interested in examining how discourse creates
relationship of power/knowledge which then ultimately drives
human thoughts and actions.
 For him ideology is always expressed in discourse, in texts
produced as knowledge about a certain topic or area. These
discourses make us think about a topic and also create methods
to deal with it.

57. DISCOURSE
 A discourse is the mixture of all kinds of writing, talking, thinking, and
acting about a certain topic or idea. Take the example of ‘blindness’.
The ‘discourse’ on blindness consist of all the texts written about he
idea of blindness from every possible perspective.
Writings suggest that blind people have an increased sense of hearing,
therefore must be more musically inclined than sighted people.
Blindness= musicality

58. DISCOURSE
 Discourse shapes the relations between power and knowledge.
Foucault sees power/knowledge as inseparable, but not as binary
opposites.
 He argues that all operations of power are based on these
discursive forms of knowledge. The best example of this is the
frequently-heard phrase ‘Studies have shown that.....’, which
produces a discursive form of knowledge which then becomes the
basis for action.

59. FOUCAULT’S IDEA OF POWER
 Power is usually conceived of as a form of repression, like Althusser’s RSAs. But for
Foucault, power operates much more like Althusser’s ISAs which creates situations,
relationships and subjects, rather than just punishing them.
 The goal of power is, thus, to create subjects who act properly and don’t need the
police or other enforcement agencies to use physical punishment to get them to
behave.
 Foucault is interested in the creation of ‘good subjects’ who obey the rules because
they’ve internalized a belief in the truth of those rules.
 He says that discourse, like ideology and like a literary text, produces subject
positions which then govern any individual’s choice, actions and beliefs.

60. How do discourses create subjects that
behave well and follow the rules?
 Foucault talks about a society based on
surveillance—a kind of
power/knowledge—which he says is
typified by the ‘Panopticon’.
 In eighteenth century circular prisons
were made with hundreds of cells and a
central tower, called Panopticon, from
which guards watched the prisoners.
The prisoners could not see into the
Panopticon.

61. Panopticon

62. How do discourses create subjects that
behave well and follow the rules?
 The prisoners' behavior was thus regulated not by guards with guns, but
by prisoner’s own awareness that he is always being watched.
 Western contemporary culture is regulated by the same panoptical
mechanisms. There are surveillance devices everywhere including fake
cameras that make u think they are real so that you don’t do anything bad.
 One of these mechanisms is ‘photoradar’: if you speed or fail to stop for a
red light, you might not get caught by a cop but rather receive a ticket in
the mail a week later.

63. FUNCTION OF ‘AUTHOR’
 In his essay What is an author, Michel Foucault says that while studying a particular concept, people
give more importance to the solid and fundamental role of the author, rather than the concept.
 However, this traditional notion of individualization of the author has shifted, owing to two major
themes that emerged:
 Writing freed itself from the necessity of expression. The meaning of the text was no longer
confined within the writing of the text. Thus the essential basis of writing was not the emotions
under which it was composed or the subject inserted, but the creation of an opening where the
writing subject disappears.
 The relationship between writing and death. In past, like in Greek narratives, the work had the
duty of creating immortality, it now has the right to kill its author. The author becomes a victim
of his own writing, and through his absence, his presence is guaranteed.

64. FUNCTION OF ‘AUTHOR’
 If we consider that an individual is not an author, what do we make of the things written, said or
communicated by an individual? Also, will an author’s work include every thing that he has ever
written or said?
 He says an author’s name is not just a proper name, but functional. His name is functional in
relation to his or her works, and characterizes a particular manner of existence, circulation and
operations of a discourse.
Two types of positions of an author:
 Trans-discursive position
 Initiators of discursive practices
 The author as a center was constructed to establish unified meaning from the text, but now, text
itself becomes meaning. Author or the unified subject is displaced from the center, but not
removed entirely.

65. Thanks for
Bearing me