Feminist Theory

Marxism/Historical Materialism

Reading: Karl Marx, pp. 340-343, in Losco and Williams; Feminist Frameworks, pp. 119-120; Excerpts from Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, pp. 343-347, and Excerpts from The German Ideology, pp. 348-354 in Losco and Williams.

Karl Marx

b. 1818, in Trier, Germany

d. 1883, in London

Discussion Questions on Marxism: What economic, social and political changes are shaping the world in which Marx is writing? How do these conditions dictate his choice of subjects?

The most significant theorist of the modern era?

Agree? Disagree? How can I assert this?

Early Life

Precocious

Jewish family, converted to Christianity so his father could practice law

Education

Studied in Bonn and Berlin, later Jena, Switzerlan

PhD Thesis, Philosophy, Democritis and Epicuris

Fell in with the Young Hegelians

Embraced Hegelian dialectics, but divorced themselves from his conservatism

Too radical to get an academic job

Began writing on social and political issues as a journalist

Eventually, expelled from Germany for his radical views

Lived in Paris began collaboration with Friedrich Engels there

Then Brussels

Germany for 1848 Revolution

Then, settled in London

Wrote for the rest of his life with the financial support and intellectual friendship of Engels

The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844)

Critique of Hegelian political economy, German Idealism

“Let us not be like the political economist who, when he wishes to explain something puts himself in an imaginary state of affairs Such an original state of affairs explains nothing…He presupposes as a fact and an event what he ought to be deducing….Similarly, the theologian explains the origin of evil through the fall, i.e., he presupposes as an historical fact what he should be explaining. We start with the historical fact of political economy” (Marx, in Losco and Williams, 343)

This is the answer to the Discussion Question, What does Marx say about writing about a “state of nature” as many liberal theorists do?

DQ: What are the most fundamental facts about labor and the life of laborers in the world in industrial society?

DQ: How is a laborer like/not like an animal?

Alienation

From one’s product

From the activity of production

From one’s fellow human beings

From one’s “species being”

DQ: Does Marx’s critique apply equally well to the condition of female workers as to male workers?

DQ on The German Ideology

In The German Ideology, what is a “materialist” interpretation of history and what other approaches to history are there?

What are the primary stages of history that Marx identifies in The German Ideology?

Does Marx write about the roles/status of women in German society in the various stages of history?

What would a feminist critique of historical materialism entail?

Is there room for Marxist feminism or for feminists to consciously employ historical or dialectical materialism as a mode of an analysis?