Full transcript of “Karl Marx | Founding Fathers of (Contributors to) Sociology 6”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 Hello, you're welcome. You're welcome onto my channel today and it gives me great joy to observe you are viewing this video. I'm Professor A. I am a lecturer in the university. I'm a sociologist. On this channel, I do a number of stores, but all these stores I do, you can easily cluster them into four and sociology and research are very central to them. Today, I'm going to be talking about carax. Wonderful. You're going to be very explosive and you have to stay tuned. It may be a little extended compared to my previous video videos and just because Kamar asks one of the most phenomenal most strategic most revolutionary most pragmatic thinkers of his generation whose impacts can still be fed today in
0:45 social sciences, humanities and beyond. Meanwhile, if you have not subscribed to this channel, kindly go ahead and click subscribe on your screen right now to join my family of subscribers. Click subscribe. Tap subscribe button on your screen right now. Kax 1818 to 1883. He reigned in the 19th century and he was born in modern day Germany and died in modern day London that's in England. But throughout the period of karmat he was so profound profoundly different from many of his generation looking at Engels you know looking at a lot of other people that they reign together he was a big different among
1:31 among them because he was very pragmatic he was forceful about his thought like people you talk about like even a com and Max Feber and the rest of them. Don't forget this video is within the series of founding fathers of sociology contributors of sociology. Even though unlike comp unlike Emma Dai unlike Max Vber Kax was never primarily a sociologist no but we only find his ideas very tangentially and strategically directly or indirectly relevant in sociology. And that's what we are appropriating his ideas in sociology. So but you cannot teach
2:17 sociology today without teaching or learning the thoughts of Kamax. Max can be described as a philosopher, historian, economist, social crusader, philosopher. So he's a man he was a man with so many hand because of his strategic contribution because of the multiplicity of his ideas. So and that is very important because and this multiplicity of his ideas actually made him to be considered among the most controversial philosophers, thinkers of his time because his ideas were very thoughtprovoking and very revolutionary and you know when somebody or someone is revolutionary questioning the status quo he would tend to be very controversial and that's why you know he was also he
3:03 moved away from Germany at the point and moved to you know England for different reasons and he was also advocating you know um social political change, revolution, structural disruptions for progress. He was interested in social change that because he was tired of the oppression of his time in the 19th century. They know don't forget also all these also talked about the founding fathers and the and the origin of sociology. He was tired of the inequality injustice of his period and he was looking for a way to get a more egalitarian and and a more equitable society. This is very you have to understand this and that's why he was also talking about conflict conflict. In
3:49 fact can be regarded as a founding father of the conflict perspective in sociology. Meanwhile, there's a video on this channel on Marxism. Marxism talks about the perspective theical orientations of Kamax. View that video. In fact, you cannot sufficiently enjoy this video or have a total understanding of this video or carax without viewing the video on Marxism which I've dropped before now though not within the series of founding fathers or contributors but I was was in my series on on theories and perspective and two major findings of Kas you know you talk about D capital or what's commonly known as capital you know in English and the most profound the most impactful of his thought through which you can easily understand
4:34 the social revolutionary perspective can be easy is the was the the communist manifesto the communist manifesto it was not a book it was like a pamphlet and he wrote it with Frederick Engel you know he wrote capital and then he he co-horted the pamphlet on the the communist manifesto with Frederick Engel and from this capital and this the communist manifesto you could easily see through the mind of Kamas through these two volumes These two publications strategically compressed all his ideas. In fact, all we know about Kamas could be traced to his writings on the the the the communist manifesto and the cap capital you know and if you look at it was looking more
5:22 towards explaining what was happening in society and why it were this were happening and what should be done. So he was not like an amcha theorizing compared to other thinkers. He was theorizing he was philosophizing at the same time giving you know a direction a pathway towards achieving the change that he was actually looking for. And I will now tell you about his main contributions and you have to follow me very closely. I will synthesize his main contributions in a way that you will be able to understand what the major contribution of kamas was what is commonly called historical materialism. historical materialism where where Kas was tracing the history of our society and that's where you find this very common quotations that the history of
6:11 all itto existing society is the history of class struggle. He was tracing the history of all societies, different societies until he got to capitalism that you could understand the struggle between classes, the people who have the rich and the poor. He called the rich the bugeoisi, the owners of the means of production. I'll talk about this later. And the proletariat, the poor who are involved in production processes through the sale of their labor and they get wages. So he was saying the conflict the the the the talking about the history of our society is driven by material conditions that all societies have their history and progresses and changes within the material conditions in their
6:57 time in history. Talking about the mode of production and the relation of production. Mode of production talks about the dominant the predominant structure strategies through which societies produce produce their needs products and services the dominant structure the dominant approach the dominant system through which societies industry produce what they need to survive and this what we call mode of production and I'll tell you different modes of production later on stay tuned then within this dominant modes of production you have what we call kas call relations of production which talks about how people in production processes relate among themselves especially from the perspective of Kamax if you break it into people who owns the mod of production the employers the modes of
7:43 production the owners and those who don't own those are the laborers who sell their labor in production processes so in the capitalist system you have the the people who have the factories who have the machines what call the forces of production later on this is what we call mis of production in economics in Contemporary economist but kama has considered this one forces of production. These are things that are brought together in production of goods and services. Talk about the technology, you talk about the product, you talk about the land, you talk about the fund, the capital. The only thing separated by kax was actually the labor which the poor people contribute in the production processes. I hope you are following this. It's a bit interwoven but I'll break it down. So these modes of production are the structures through which or arrangement organizations
8:30 processes through which goods and services are produced. These modes of production relations of production talk about how people in the production processes relate among themselves. essentially taking it vertically, hierarchically talking about the interactions between the people who owns the means of production, the rich, the buozi and the proletariat the poor who don't own the means of production who set their labors to earn wages in the production processes for kamas this class they bring class struggles the upper class the owners of production the lower class the people doing home production who said they are labor so for kax What you have is constant antagonism in society because the owners of B production continue to exploit the
9:16 people who don't own production and the people who owns who don't own are continually exploited and they they will be continue to rebel antagonize their oppressors and for Kamas in the long run this class antagonism will continue until there is overthrow of the buoiz the exploiters by the poor who said their labor and this constant agonism will become full scale conflict that will lead to revolution and this revolution will usher in a new direction that will then lead to overthrow of capitalism and capitalist mode operation will be overthrown will lead to socialism where the state will own everything on behalf of the others. Eventually socialism will give way to communism through which to which everybody will own everything on behalf
10:02 of everybody to everybody according to his needs at that point in time. And for social capitalism is the ultimate end. Communism is the ultimate end or after after capitalism. For ka kas capitalism of his own time and today can be considered as inhumanity of humans to humans humans oppressing humans because it's all about capital accumulation the rich of the rich and continuous poor of the poor. So cap for Kas capitalism was evil until today evil according to Kamas because it's based on exploitation and capital accumulation where the rich
10:48 continue to accumulate capital at the expense of everybody at the exploitation of the poor. And for for kamas these poor people will be transformed from class in itself as a form of identity to class for itself where they will build class consciousness to antagonize to fight against the oppressors the people want of production to overthrow them and take over the society and society become more equitable and don't forget also the period of the cold war view my channel videos on sociology of the third world you will understand what I mean by cold war. A time where Soviet Union, you know, was an example of a communist society where the United States and the
11:35 West are considered examples of capitalism. So, Kamas was looking at Europe and America as example of capitalism that must be overthrown where there must be a society like the Soviet Union where communism was reigning supreme. And this was actually the the the model that Kamas was propagating that the overthrow of the rich like like in the US and Europe and the rest of them and to transformation to examples given by the Soviet Union USSR that's will be around contemporary Russia but Russia itself USR got disintegrated after the cold war during the cold war and now the model that kamas was using is no longer visible that's why people
12:21 are contally criticized Kax and Marism that he's been criticized to extinction because even the model he was looking at the USSR has has disintegrated and many in the USSR have moved towards even the capitalist society and even the current Russia and China that one can still be looking at as a communist societies are themselves drawing closer to capitalist elements. If you look at China today, you look at Russia, to what extent can we say they essentially communist because all we can see in capitalist society can be seen in those places too. And that's why some people say capitalism has won compared to what Kamax was pushing. So that's I've I've wrapped so many
13:08 things in my explanation. So now I've explained his materialism but in my explanation I've moved to other things areas but I will break them down now. But I'll be more I'll be faster so that this video does not become too lengthy. So and I've mentioned the issue of most of production which is a which is a major contribution of kamax most of production I've explained it as dominance structure strategies process through which societies produce what they need in terms of goods and services and what are these modes of production in history really if you want to take it back to the issue of historical materialism. What are the historical societies that have existed that have been driven by material conditions and the time by material condition? Now you have one primitive communism. Communism at a very primitive level different from
13:54 what KA was pushing. Then you have slavery, slave societies where the articles of trade were human beings where people are sold into slavery. Then from primitive communism to slavery then to feudalism. Feudalism where you land is the major article. You can say okay primitive communism as a mode of production. You can say slavery as a mode of production say feudalism as a mode of production where land was the article of trade. You still have the element of this today where you have the two classes the two category of people. The lords are also known as the nobles. Then you also have the peans also known as the serves. The lords own the land. The nobles own the land. Then the peant and the serves work on the land as a
14:40 lower class who don't own land which was a means of production and they they work on the land and they pay royalties in different ways they serve the lots by tilting the land and producing and pay royalties rent or other things to service that relationship after feudalism come about capitalism which was actually the major issue of interest in his own time where you have now the most of production industrialization don't forget originating from social social disorganization and the rest of it societies must produce to survive to meet his needs. You know capitalism is a private ownership of mis production and wealth in the hands of the few and kas believe that because of the constant antagonism like I've explained between the owners of m production the upper class and the
15:27 budoisi and the people said their labor without means of production but set their labor in the means of production will continue to antagonize and this will lead to revolution that will change the structure of society to socialism where state owns everything then again after that to communism where everybody owns everything in everyone according to his needs. So these are the most of production and these are the approach. Then for Kas the concept of economic determinism where Kas believe that the economic superructure determines the role of people in society and the class of people that whether your level whether you own the Moration or not will determine your your class your status and the opportunities available to you in that society. So in simple time
16:14 economic position economy's ownership will determine every other thing in that society whether you have power whether you have influence whether you have authority whether you have quality of life will be determined by your position in the economic system in the mode of production that is do you own the means of production or you don't if you own you are higher class if you don't you are poor and you are in the lower class it talks about the class struggle which is true there have been argument that kama has never mentioned class But we know you can't discuss class whether from his original ideas or later on as neomist class is central to the karks when you discuss it that is which class do you belong there are two classes in society don't forget I spoke to you about vber in the video on vber verbber believed in the
17:00 multi-dimensional approach to class don't go and view that video that you may not have mean of production but you may have charisma or authority or traditional authority but for can there are two classes only upper class lower class buddo proletariat rich and poor depending whether you have the means of production or you don't own it so constant class antagonism class struggle between the rich and the poor is a major element contribution of kas there's also issue of alienation alienation you know is a major concept in for kas where it talks about the estrangement of workers even though they work in the mean of within the mode of production and But they are alienated. They don't own themselves. They their their assistances within the most opposition is determined
17:47 by the rich. They are alienated from their product. They produce goods and services but they don't have control over it. Some of them they cannot even use it because it's too expensive for them. Even they not in control of their labor because some places they have to clock in and clock out. They is their labor even their they are separated from their themselves. They don't have control over themselves. So their total identity and entirety is owned by the rich in the mean of in the mode of production. People owns the forces of production forces of production med contribution talking about what is brought together in the production processes to produce goods and services. I told you technology talk about capital you talk about machines you talk about even land and the rest of it. Labor is the only thing that is now appropriated
18:33 and people are exploited through that. So alienation is a major concept. I have a you know conflict perspective talking about conflict that must ensue because of the class struggle. So I have a video on conflict perspective on this channel. View that video. So we generally believe that Kamax can be regarded as a father of critical sociology talk about where you begin to analyze power struggles begin to analyze inequality whether along gender or economy. So that's what critical sociology talking about struggle you know political struggle power struggle you know and struggle for authority and control of resources. So he's the father of class theory. He's he was the father of critical
19:18 sociology. Talk about conflict and crisis and the rest of it and class struggle. Talking about class and class structure in society. I've mentioned all of this. Then you also talk about communism you know and socialism. They also talk about you know uh forces of production. I've mentioned he spoke about relations of production where people the relationship in the production process between the halves and the have not and the fact that class will transfer from class in itself in terms of identity to class for itself that they will come together and organize and overthrow the but that has not happened and it's not looking that capitalism is gaining more grand and you know communism has disintegrated but he's talking about surplus value too surplus value for kamas is what be
20:04 considered as the unpaid unpaid fee, unpaid salary, unpaid wages for labor is is the excess that supposed to be given money that supposed to be given to laborers that the owners of refuse to pay them by underpaying them. That's what it call surplus value. But this is what is called profit in economics or even in business. It's called profit. But for Kama something like profit is called believe that is a result of exploitation. Is this money that would have been paid to the people in the lower class in the production processes but the the owners of m production the rich refuse to pay and continue to accumulate capital for their own benefit by underpaying the workers. The money
20:51 that is not paid to the workers enough that's what they call profit and cameas believe this is not profit it's called surplus value of labor that was not paid sufficiently and they are exploited so for kmeras no profit what it is is surplus value is as a result of exploitation you know exploitation by under overusing labor and underpaying labor by through which the rich the owners of this production continue to accumulate capital so I've mentioned of production. I've mentioned relations of production. I've mentioned surplus value. I've mentioned capital accumulation. I've mentioned mod of production. I've mentioned materialism. I've mentioned alienation. All of this maxism unraveled. View the video on
21:38 conflict perspective. View the video on maxism and you will become professor of magazine. Welcome to KMAX. Till I see you in my next video. Thank you for keeping my company so far. Click subscribe till I see my next video.
