Senior Seminar
Study Guide Thirteen: Karl Marx
March 26, 2014
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What economic system was Karl Marx primarily talking about in Das Kapital?
What are the stages of socities development according to
a. Adam Smith
b.
David Ricardo
c.
Karl Marx
According to Marx, how is labor treated differently by feudalism and capitalism?
According to Marx, as capitalism spreads throughout the world what happens to the diversity we see in the
world?
According to Marx, what is the basic conflict in capitalism?
What rights did workers generally have prior to the 20th century?
According to Marx, what would happen to the population of owners (of capital) and workers over time
under capitalism? Was he right? What did Marx think would be the logical consequence of these
population changes?
Dialectical materialism is the name given to Marxian philosophy. This approach builds upon Hegel, who
examined the world of ideas in terms of the thesis, anti-thesis, and the synthesis.
Marx applied this approach to this material world. In terms of feudalism and capitalism, what is
a. the thesis.
b. the anti-thesis.
c. and the resulting synthesis.
With respect to society, what are
a. the forces of production.
b. the relations of production.
Star Trek introduces the technology of the “replicator”. What would this technology mean for the future of
capitalism?
What is the “labor theory of value” (which Marx takes from David Ricardo)?
How is surplus value created in a capitalist economy? Who creates the surplus value and who gets to keep
this?
Does Marx accept the Malthusian Population Theory? Why or why not?
What is the reserve army of the unemployed and what happens to the size of this army over time?
What does Marxian analysis assume about the bargaining power of workers?
What is a “monopsony”? How did Joan Robinson define “exploitation”?
Why did JB Clark argue that workers are not exploited under capitalism?
What does the study of sports teach us about the ideas of Marx and Clark?
How does Marx explain the business cycle? How does the business cycle lead to the end of capitalism?
Marx offered a number of ideas and predictions. Which of the following seems consistent with the
empirical evidence and which are not? Be sure to define each term employed.
a. reserve army of the unemployed (be sure to note the role this has in Marxian analysis)
b. falling rate of profits
c. tendency of capitalism to experience business crisis (how does Marx see this happening?)
d. increasing concentration of industry
e. increasing misery of the proletariat
f. collapse of capitalism
What is “centrally planned socialism”? When was this system first implemented (and was Marx around to
see this)?
Did “centrally planned socialism” exist prior to the 20 th century?
What was the level of economic growth in the Soviet Union from 1928 to 1960? What was the level of
growth after 1970? What explains the difference?
Did people outside the Soviet Union think centrally planned socialism would work?
How did the Soviets handle the problem of incentives under centrally planned socialism? Did these policies
work?
Why didn’t centrally planned socialism develop in the United Kingdom and in other industrialized
countries? Has a country ever progressed from capitalism to centrally planned socialism?
Chapter Six:
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The Inexorable System of Karl Marx
What is the significance of 1848?
Did Karl Marx envision a communist revolution in Russia?
Who wrote “The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844”?
How was Marx generally employed in his life? What was his primary source of income?
How open-minded was Marx?
What is ‘dialectical materialism”?
What determines the “superstructure” (i.e. societies laws, culture, and institutions)? According to Marx,
can a hunter-gatherer society adopt the “superstructure” of an industrialized society?
“History is a ceaseless struggle between” what? What is the struggle about?
How would capitalism evolve into socialism?
a.
What is the “labor theory of value”?
b.
Did Marx invent the “labor theory of value”?
c.
What is the source of profit for a firm in a capitalist economy (assuming – as Marx did – that firms
were competitive)?
How does competition for workers impact a firm’s profit? How do firms overcome the impact competition
for workers has on a firm’s profit?
What did Marx think would follow capitalism? Who primarily took up the task of explaining the next
system?
According to Heilbroner, what are “two extraordinary properties of Marx’s analysis.”?
According to Heilbroner, which Marxist predictions came true?
How does the diversity of capitalism undermine Marx’s predictions of the future of capitalism?