Thepfusalie Theunuo
Sazolie College, Jotsoma
Why Marx? How much relevant is Marx? What Marx has to say about our Society? “If Marx were to be alive in this Century, the world would be different” says David Harvey, a prominent American scholar.
Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in the city of Trier, Germany and died at the age of 65 in 1883. At his funeral, Fredrick Engels, the true companion of Marx remarks, and I quote “An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by the militant proletariat of Europe and America, and by historical science, in the death of this man. The gap that has been left by the departure of this mighty spirit will soon enough make itself felt... Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case”.
When one hears about Marx, there are so many different misconceptions of his thought. Since many of his doctrines became official ideology of many socialist regime who has either failed or remained more of a capitalist regime, more often than not, his figure is even made worst by those revolutionary groups who have arm themselves against the state in the name of socialism, thus when we talk about Marx there is a sense of fear, a revolutionary figure written in blood and fire. Indeed Marx was a revolutionary but what Marxist adopted from him is not the interpretation of Marx, but those understanding of Marx by themselves. So, many of them who tend to be revolutionaries are only capitalist hidden under the mask of socialism, which is the worst form of capitalism says Slavoj Zizek, a Slovenian philosopher and Hegelian Marxist.
Apart from Marx vast philosophical doctrines, what does his political economy tells us about our society. From Marx famous passage in the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), in which he summarized his conception of a human society and I quote,
“The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies can be summarised as follow. In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political, intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but there social existence that determines their consciousness. At certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or- this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, form the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been develop, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois mode of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The Bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production- antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals social conditions of existence- but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation (Marx 1859)”.
Perhaps his interpretation of political economy is relevant to relook into our society, not only in the form of economic determinism but our social existence that keeps shaping the kind of transition we are moving into. Capitalism has reached our village and towns giving a new point of appropriation. Our backward technology of production has become mismatch in the global world market of production, transition has become unbalance/uneven and our agricultural production is unable to sustain us, our society has become diversified. In this dire situation where do we look? What alternatives do we have? Is creating a balance transition the only solution? but where will such solution come from? Will that come from Sovereignty? Let us be clear of what kind of society we are living, nationalism has failed to give us solution, government has failed, more over every institutions have failed. In the mean time and for the first time, there is a capitalist regime without the proletariat, legal institution have defended this capitalist appropriation. Unless we realised this features of capitalism, transition in our society will continue to be imbalance, the poverty of our intellectual will force us to become a harmless creature that lives in control and the contract of political lies.
Will Marx be able to revolutionise our sense of human being, definitely I belief it will, there is a poetry we look with pleasant eyes, mind and soul. For in poetry, there is an ideal meaning embedded in the material conditions of our human existence. So let there be poetry of Marx in every soul that moves and breath. In the letter to his father, Berlin 1837, Marx wrote “At such a moment of transition we feel compelled to view the past and the present with the eagle eye of thought in order to become conscious of our real position. Indeed, world history itself likes to look back in this way and take stock, which often gives it the appearance of retrogression or stagnation, whereas it is merely, as it were, sitting back in an armchair in order to understand itself and mentally grasp its own activity, that of the mind”.
.JPG)
