Marx's belief in Communism

First of all in order to understand Marx's idea and why he wanted a society with Communism it's important to notice that we have went through different stages of history. The different stages Marx believes we will go through are primitive communism, slave society, Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism. Marx had critiques of every type of society except for communism. In our world today we have five countries that claim to be Communist they are People's Republic of China, North Korea, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Laos, and Republic of Cuba. These countries all claim to be Communist, but they do not fit the criteria of what Marx believed to be Communist. Communism is his ultimate goal and this is where there will be a classless society where everyone is completely equal. The five countries above that I listed do not have a society where everyone is completely equal and that is why we still do not have a country in our world that is truly a Communist country. While in theory I think a true Communist society could be a good idea, I don't believe it will ever be achieved. Coming from a society with capitalism we see many inequalities so people may like the idea of complete Communism. I can't personally say I like the idea because it takes out the aspect of personal achievements and striving to be better than others. But, I do agree that for many groups of people who continue to be oppressed complete Communism would be ideal. I believe if we asked people in the U.S. what they think of a society with complete Communism the middle and upper class would not want it and the lower class and people in poverty would want it. I personally just don't like the idea of working harder than your neighbor, but still being completely equal and receiving the same income as them. I think Marx shot a little high when he was aiming for a completely classless society. I feel like we will always need leaders and stratification in order for productivity to excel. We are a money driven society and take pride in individualism and the idea of complete Communism gets rid of our drive to exceed others. I also liked the idea that was brought up in class about what would we do if a crisis were to occur and we had no leaders to step up. I think this was a perfect example to show that chaos can and will occur if we do not have leaders and stratification in our society. One other thing that I think would be problematic is that we would not have individuals who want to work in harder occupations because they would not be receiving any more income than someone who is doing an easier job. This would mean less resources and services for people in our society because we would not have specialists willing to go to school for 8 years just to receive equal pay as someone else doing a simpler job. I just don't think it's possible to have complete equality so I really don't think Marx's idea of complete equality will ever take place. I do however think that Marx had a good idea of complete Communism, but I don't think he foresaw our society being as money driven and as focused on individualism as we are today.

 

This is a picture of Xi Jinping, the leader of the People's Republic of China. I decided to use this picture to show how easy it is to see that while the People's Republic of China claims to be Communism they clearly are not. It was simple to just type in the leader of People's Republic of China on Google and have this image pop up. It shows that they have a leader who is not equal to the rest of the people in his society therefore they cannot claim complete Communism. The five countries I listed above that claim Communism all have leaders and people that stick out that show we have not yet reached what Marx had believed was Communism.

 

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Durkheim Division of Labor

I found Emile Durkheim's theory on division of labor to be very interesting. He focuses on specialization of labor to discuss division of labor. He believed that as a society we should focus on one specific task or occupation and specialize in that. It is more important in his opinion to have individuals who are very good at a specific task and invest ourselves completely in it. If we learn to specialize in a specific task we will have people who are more focused on one specific duty instead of trying to do other tasks that take time away from what we are actually the best at. I completely agree with the way he describes this theory. I believe people in the American society try to be good at to many things in life instead of focusing on something that they have a true passion for and are very successful at. As an example many middle school or high school kids play two or more sports, if they would invest all their time into one sport they may be able to be exceptional at that sport instead of being average at two sports. This is just a minor example, but when it comes to the work force it gets much more important to be able to specialize and excel in the specific task you need to perform. I think in our society today we do have division of labor present which especially in service jobs. For example a heart surgeon is specialized to be able to operate on the heart, and a brain surgeon is specialized to operate on the brain. So clearly his theory is present and I think it is very necessary. It is not good to push people to perform to many tasks where they are overwhelmed and cant succeed at the task that is most important for them. One thing that wasn't intended of division of labor, but that I think is important is the fact that we have people working together to make a final product. I like the thought of each people performing the task they are the best at and bringing together a final product that is made by each individual specialized in their own area. One thing that Durkheim said that really stuck with me is that our conclusion is not that it is good to press specialization as far as possible, but as far as necessary. I believe that our society has used Durkheim's division of labor idea and it has helped us develop specialists in our society that we can trust. I strongly believe in division of labor and I feel it is important for each individual to fully invest themselves in something and completely give everything they can into that task.

I took a picture of an assembly line to demonstrate division of labor. Each individual in an assembly line has a specific task that they specialize in and they create a final product together.

Individualism and Alexis de Tocqueville

I chose to focus on Tocqueville's view of Individualism because it is something that affects everyone in our society. Individualism refers to separating yourself from your surroundings to reflect on yourself. I believe the way our society is changing to be more individualized puts a lot more emphasis on each individual to earn their way. I like the idea of putting more emphasis on individuals to earn their way, however I think by doing this the same minority groups will be put at a disadvantage and oppressed. He believed in aristocratic behavior because it causes more other oriented behavior and less self-interested behavior than a democratic society. I strongly agree with this. In our democratic society we are so caught up in our own lives that we often fail to care about others and how our actions will be affecting them. Being an individual focuses on yourself and not the whole society. Individualism is culturally learned which makes sense because Americans value achieving and getting things on their own.

We all want to have more money, bigger houses, better cars, etc. I think the term individuals really display the greed we all contain in having more than we really need. That is why individualism and materialism go hand in hand and that is the area of individualism that really interests me. It’s very important to want to work for the things we have, but we should not put more emphasis on the goods we're obtaining than the work we're doing. I believe materialism is a vicious cycle; we really are only trying to get money to buy more things just to keep up with other people or to flaunt what we have. Tocqueville is highly critical of materialism and I think this is largely due to Americans valuing materials more than people. Our society is gearing more and more towards a society full of individuals and it’s scary to think about how many and wrapped up in their own lives and not caring about the common good of all of society. people will continue to be left behind because of the lack of care we have for the others around us. Tocqueville only really looked at the negative aspects of individuals which I do agree with, but it is also nice to have a society that cherishes individual accomplishments and rewards people for the hard work and success. Tocqueville’s negative aspects he presented about individualism are still very relevant today because we have people that are very focused on materialism and wrapped up in their own lives and not caring about the common good of all of society. I chose to use this chart as supporting material because it shows that Americans really do believe that the individuals are in control of the success in their life, while many other large countries think that success is determined by outside forces.