Marxism "A Quotation"

"Whether Marxism is considered a philosophy, a theory, a method or a movement is of little concern. Its goal is to change the world. For too long the world's people have been oppressed, suppressed, deluded or cajoled into believing that reality is simply the way things are. No, a thousand times no! If we remove the blinders placed upon our eyes, the plugs within our ears, and the walls encasing our thoughts placed there by the so-called upper classes of society, we will be free for the first time to examine how our own thoughts and allegiances have been manipulated so that many of us have actually accepted the values and beliefs of a group of people whose only goal is to keep us in our place by now and then pacifying us with a meager increase in salary."

Theme of Marxism

According to Marx, history and therefore our understanding of people and their actions and beliefs is determined by economic conditions. Marx maintains that an intricate web of social relations emerges when any group of people engage in the production of goods. A few, for example, will be the employers, but many more will be the employees. It is the employers (the bourgeoisie) who have the economic power and who will readily gain social and political control of their society. Eventually this "upper class" will articulate their beliefs, their values and even their art. Consciously and unconsciously they will then force these ideas, or what Marx calls their ideology, upon the working class. In such a system, the rich become richer, while the poor become poorer and more and more oppressed. To rid society of this situation, Marx believes that the government must own all industries and control the economic production of a country to protect the people from the oppression of the Bourgeoisie.