Why Study Marx?
Sociological Meanderings Towards Collective Well-Being
Workers–such as the folks at Amazon and Starbucks–are attempting to unionize amidst difficult working conditions and rising inflation. Gas prices are really high right now. And Oil companies are raking in the profits. Shipping companies are also charging more for their services–and again, making huge profits–and thus food, electronics, basically, everything, is more expensive right now. Most of us are struggling in the face of these rising costs and shortages (of baby formula!), while a few corporations are making record profits. All of this is to say that studying Marx and Durkheim is still relevant, even if reading their writing feels impossible.
Many of you might also be wondering why we are learning Marx, especially given the atrocities that have been committed in the name of Marxism (think Stalin & Mussolini). Many of you come at this curiosity (or even, outright anger or dismissal) from various places: maybe you or your family lived in a communist country — maybe your family members even fled those regimes — or, maybe you have a strong aversion to socialism and/or communism, or an affinity to capitalism.
So, let’s address this. I said this in the audio lecture, but I want to highlight the point, so please read on: teaching/learning Marx does not mean that we support historical Marxism. First, and importantly, Marx’s ideas are not the same as Marxism. Marxism refers to all the people (not Marx himself) who took up his ideas and turned them into political ideologies, some of which have been successful, and others of which have been violent failures. To learn more about historical Marxism we’d have to take a history class or a political science class, and this is a Sociology class. So, what are we trying to learn, then? And to what end?
First, Sociologists, like Marx, are always keeping a critical eye on how the economy is structured (no matter whether it’s feudalism, slavery, capitalism, socialism, economic democracy, or some new idea that hasn’t been drummed up yet). That is, we are always analyzing how society is organized through the lens of collective well-being. I can’t say this for certain, because he died in 1883, but I feel pretty confident as a result of having read and studied Marx’s original writing, that he would not have supported Stalin (as one example). Marx was critical of INEQUALITY, and if attempts at socialism produce inequality (as they did in the U.S.S.R., largely because of corrupt dictatorial governmental policies), then Marx would remain critical. And, no matter what Marx would say, this is what the Sociological perspective concludes: inequality in any form is sociologically unsustainable.
In the United States, for example, racist housing discrimination has long been structured in government (in the form of FHA lending practices, for example) as well as in the economy (through realtors’ redlining practices). The results of this practice reach far and wide, and we will discuss this throughout the semester. But for now, I want to focus on the 1960s and some of the protesting and rioting that happened during this era. After the Watt’s rioting in 1967, the “president of the NAACP Roy Wilkins remarked on the centrality of housing to urban discontent” and said that “…I have been astonished to find the number of people who consider housing, the refusal of housing as a crushing rebuttal of their…position as human beings, as citizens…there is nothing more humiliating…” (Taylor, 2019, p. 55).
In Wilkins’ words, inequality is dehumanizing. In addition, inequality weakens social trust, and thus, solidarity. Weakened solidarity produces what Durkheim called “anomie” and Marx calls “alienation.” Collective well-being requires that we feel welcomed as a part of the collective, and dehumanization produces the opposite effect.
So, as sociologists, we are not “married” to any particular economic structure. In this class, we won’t argue that capitalism is “better” than any other idea, nor will we put forward a preference for socialism (I have personal opinions — that are probably not what you think they are — but alas, this is not about my opinions, but about the Sociological perspective). Instead, what we will argue is that no matter what kind of economy we have — currently it’s capitalism — we will keep a critical eye on how the capitalist economy is organized and the extent to which it produces inequality.
A quick scan of a Google search — “coronavirus and inequality in the US” — produces these headlines:
Now, for those of you who read Chapter 2 and learned a bit more about the scientific method, this is not a representative sample, so we can’t make any grand claims about these headlines. But, we can highlight the emergence of a pattern: inequality in the United States exists and is a problem. We will explore this further when we get to later chapters, exploring both the U.S. context and global inequality.
What’s our ultimate goal? To (re)organize society in such a way so as to produce collective well-being. But, given Marx’s arguments about history and social change (listen to the lectures!), we know that how we organize is constantly changing. Thus, we have to be prepared to respond to the current historical moment and (re)organize towards equality, as opposed to remaining attached to a specific type of arrangement (e.g. the current iteration of capitalism in the United States).
Or, put another way: everything changes. When I was born there was no Facebook; I was 30 when Zuckerberg thought it up (I do not have an account). Now Facebook is Meta and Zuckerberg’s net worth is about $80 billion dollars (do you think he’s feeling high beef, eggs, and gas prices in the same way that you and I are?). In 10 years, who knows what it will be or if it will still exist. To quote George Harrison, “all things must pass.”
So, hopefully, this helps separate the conversations. We are not talking about taking Marx’s ideas and forming them into a political ideology and arguing for communism. Instead, we are using Marx’s ideas about social change and inequality to make the Sociological argument that inequality is an outcome of social organization, as well as a problem for social solidarity, and thus, we argue that society needs to (re)organize for equality.
Happy learning,
Dr. Monica
