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Monday, December 6, 2010

Marxist Political Theory

MARXIST POLITICAL THEORY
Marxism is an ideology that developed out of, and drew inspiration from the writings of Karl Marx (1818-83). The core of Marxism is a philosophy of history that outlines why capitalism is doomed and why socialism and eventually communism are destined to replace it.

The Marxists (Marx, Linen, Mao and the likes) do not regard individual or group interests and conflicts as natural. According to the Marxists, the conflicts among the individuals are man-made. The Marxists hold the view that conflicts among the individuals or groups are irreconcilable.

Micheal Duverger says, “Politics for the Marxists is conflict, struggle, in which power allows those who possess it to ensure their hold on the society and to profit by it.”

According to the Marxists, the so-called common interest, for all practicable purposes, becomes and is always the interest of the economically dominant class, that politics is class politics in a class society.

The characteristic features of Marxist political theory are:-
  1. The conflicts among the individuals and groups are a feature of the class society.
  2. The common interest is nothing but the interest of the economically dominant classes.
  3. The state is never a neutral institution. Rather, it protects and promotes the interests of the possessing classes and exploits and suppresses the non-possessing classes.
  4. Politics arises in the class society. It is an activity of the possessing classes, and among those who have the economic power.
  5. Politics is a competition among the people of the possessing classes. Among themselves, they clash for the power; against the non-possessed classes, they wage the class war.
  6. The class war is a phenomenon that exists only in class society. In the classless society (socialist society and communist society) there is no class struggle.
  7. Revolution serves as locomotive of history, pushing the lower stage of social development (or material development) of society to its higher stage.
  8. Politics ceases to exist in the classless society, though it remains in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the socialist society so as to abolish capitalism and establish socialism in full. That is what makes politics an instrument of class struggle as also a means to bring about socio-economic changes.



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