Marx analyzed history and society through the lens of class struggle. He believed that throughout history, society has been divided into opposing classes such as slave and master, peasant and aristocrat, and most currently, bourgeoisie and proletariat. Marx argued that the capitalist system established by the bourgeoisie, while advancing technology and industry, has created new forms of oppression and inequality. He predicted that recurring economic crises under capitalism would grow increasingly severe and ultimately lead to its demise, to be replaced by a socialist and communist society without classes.

1. Karl Marx, Part 2
HTH 1002 History of Thought II
Kara Heitz

2. “The history of all hitherto existing society is
the history of class struggles. Freeman and
slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,
guild-master and journeyman, in a word,
oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant
opposition to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a
fight that each time ended, either in a
revolutionary re-constitution of society at
large, or in the common ruin of the
contending classes …The modern bourgeois
society that has sprouted from the ruins of
feudal society has not done away with class
antagonisms. It has but established new
classes, new conditions of oppression, new
forms of struggle in place of the old ones …
Society as a whole is more and more splitting
up into two great hostile camps, into two
great classes, directly facing each other:
Bourgeoisie and Proletariat …”
- Marx & Engels,
Communist Manifesto

3. Marx’s Philosophy of History
• History defined by class
struggle
– Masters v. Slaves
– Aristocrats v. Peasants
– Bourgeoisie v. Proletariat
• Oppressor/Oppressed
relationship
• Scientific “Laws of History”

4. • Capitalist Stage:
Bourgeoisie
v.
Proletariat
• What comes
after capitalism?
– Socialism:
“dictatorship of the
proletariat”
– Communism
From Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
publication , 1911

6. Effects of Bourgeoisie & Capitalism
“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has
got the upper hand, has put an end
to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic
relations. It has pitilessly torn
asunder the motley feudal ties that
bound man to his "natural
superiors," and has left remaining
no other nexus between man and
man than naked self-interest, than
callous "cash payment." It has
drowned the most heavenly
ecstasies of religious fervor, of
chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine
sentimentalism, in the icy water of
egotistical calculation …”
- Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto
• Demolished old feudal
order
– Social relationships not based
on supposedly “natural”
divisions or religion anymore
– Now differences based only
on money

7. Effects of Bourgeoisie & Capitalism
“The bourgeoisie, during its rule of
scarce one hundred years, has
created more massive and more
colossal productive forces than
have all preceding generations
together. Subjection of Nature's
forces to man, machinery,
application of chemistry to industry
and agriculture, steam-navigation,
railways, electric telegraphs,
clearing of whole continents for
cultivation, canalization of rivers,
whole populations conjured out of
the ground--what earlier century
had even a presentiment that such
productive forces slumbered in the
lap of social labor?”
- Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto
• Industrialization
– Productive forces,
wealth creation
– Science and technology

8. Effects of Bourgeoisie & Capitalism
“The bourgeoisie, by the rapid
improvement of all instruments of
production, by the immensely facilitated
means of communication, draws all, even
the most barbarian, nations into civilization.
The cheap prices of its commodities are the
heavy artillery with which it batters down
all Chinese walls, with which it forces the
barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of
foreigners to capitulate. It compels all
nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the
bourgeois mode of production; it compels
them to introduce what it calls civilization
into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois
themselves. In one word, it creates a world
after its own image.”
- Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto
• Globalization
– Imperialism

9. Effects of Bourgeoisie & Capitalism
• Alienation
• Commodity Fetishism
• Exploitation of
workers
– Surplus value
• Increasing income
inequalities
– “Immiseration of the
Proletariat”

13. Effects of Bourgeoisie & Capitalism
• Capitalism as crisis prone
– Boom and bust cycles
– Ex. Overproduction crisis
• Crises get so big & frequent = capitalist system eventually fails

14. Major Financial Crises of the Modern Capitalist Era (1800-Present)
19th century
• 1813 - Danish state bankruptcy
• Panic of 1819 – pervasive USA economic recession w/ bank
failures
• Panic of 1825 – pervasive British economic recession in
which many British banks failed
• Panic of 1837 – pervasive USA economic recession w/ bank
failures; a 5 year depression ensued
• Panic of 1847 – collapse of British financial markets
associated with the end of the 1840s railroad boom
• Panic of 1857 – pervasive USA economic recession w/ bank
failures
• Panic of 1866 – the Overend Gurney crisis (primarily
British)
• Panic of 1873 – pervasive USA economic recession w/ bank
failures, a 5 year depression ensued
• Panic of 1884
• Panic of 1890
• Panic of 1893 –collapse of railroad financing in USA which
set off a series of bank failures
• 1893 - Australian banking crisis
• Panic of 1896 – an acute economic depression in the
United States
20th century
• Panic of 1901 – crashing of the New York Stock Exchange
• Panic of 1907 – pervasive USA economic recession w/ bank
failures
• Panic of 1910–1911
• 1910 – Shanghai rubber stock market crisis
• 1929 – 1940 - Wall Street Crash of 1929, followed by the
global Great Depression
• 1973 oil crisis – oil prices soared, causing the 1973–1974
stock market crash
• 1973–1975 – United Kingdom banking crisis
• 1980s – Latin American debt crisis – beginning in Mexico in
1982
• 1987 – Black Monday, the largest one-day percentage decline
in stock market history
• 1989–91 – United States Savings & Loan crisis
• 1990 – Japanese asset price bubble collapsed
• Early 1990s – Scandinavian banking crisis: Swedish banking
crisis, Finnish banking crisis of 1990s
• Early 1990s recession
• 1992–93 – Black Wednesday, speculative attacks on
European currencies
• 1994–95 – economic crisis in Mexico, speculative attack and
default on Mexican debt
• 1997–98 – Asian Financial Crisis, devaluations and banking
crises across Asia
• 1998 Russian financial crisis
21st century
• Early 2000s recession - Dot-com bubble
• Late-2000s - US subprime mortgage crisis & housing bubble
• 2008–2012 Icelandic financial crisis
• 2008–2010 Irish banking crisis
• 2008–2009 - Russian financial crisis
• 2008–2010 - European sovereign debt crisis
• 2009-2015 - Greek government-debt crisis
• 2014 - Russian financial crisis
• 2015 Chinese stock market crash

15. "Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic
revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose
but their chains. They have a world to win.
WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!“