This social formation, which is characterized by the advantage of commodity-money relations, has become widespread throughout the world in different variations.

Advantages and disadvantages

Capitalism, which gradually replaced feudalism, arose in Western Europe in the 17th century. In Russia it did not last long, being replaced by the communist system for decades. Unlike other economic systems, capitalism is based on free commerce. The means of production of goods and services are privately owned. Other key features of this socio-economic formation include:

• the desire to maximize income and make a profit;
• the basis of the economy is the production of goods and services;
• widening gap between rich and poor;
• ability to adequately respond to changing market conditions;
• freedom of entrepreneurial activity;
• the form of government is basically democracy;
• non-interference in the affairs of other states.

Thanks to the emergence of the capitalist system, people made a breakthrough along the path of technological progress. This economic form is also characterized by a number of disadvantages. The main one is that all resources without which a person cannot work are privately owned. Therefore, the country's population has to work for the capitalists. Other disadvantages of this type of economic system include:

• irrational distribution of labor;
• uneven distribution of wealth in society;
• volumetric debt obligations (credits, loans, mortgages);
• large capitalists, based on their interests, influence the government;
• there is no powerful system for countering corruption schemes;
• workers receive less than their labor is actually worth;
• increased profits due to monopolies in some industries.

Each economic system that a society uses has its own strengths and weaknesses. There is no ideal option. There will always be supporters and opponents of capitalism, democracy, socialism, and liberalism. The advantage of a capitalist society is that the system forces the population to work for the benefit of society, companies, and the state. Moreover, people always have the opportunity to provide themselves with a level of income that will allow them to live quite comfortably and prosperously.

Peculiarities

The goal of capitalism is to use the labor of the population for the efficient distribution and exploitation of resources. A person's position in society under such a system is not determined only by his social status and religious views. Any person has the right to realize himself using his abilities and capabilities. Especially now, when globalization and technological progress affect every citizen of a developed and developing country. The size of the middle class is constantly increasing, as is its importance.

Capitalism in Russia

This economic system took root on the territory of modern Russia gradually, after serfdom was abolished. Over several decades, there has been an increase in industrial production and agriculture. During these years, practically no foreign products were imported into the country on a large scale. Oil, machinery, and equipment were exported. This situation developed until the October Revolution of 1917, when capitalism with its freedom of enterprise and private property became a thing of the past.

In 1991, the Government announced the transition to a capitalist market. Hyperinflation, default, collapse of the national currency, denomination - all these terrible events and radical changes Russia experienced in the 90s. last century. The modern country lives in the conditions of a new capitalism, built taking into account the mistakes of the past.

Capitalism- a socio-economic formation based on private ownership of the means of production and exploitation of wage labor by capital, replaces feudalism and precedes the first phase.

Etymology

Term capitalist in meaning capital owner appeared earlier than the term capitalism, back in the middle of the 17th century. Term capitalism first used in 1854 in the novel The Newcomes. They first began to use the term in its modern meaning. In Karl Marx's work "Capital" the word is used only twice; instead, Marx uses the terms "capitalist system", "capitalist mode of production", "capitalist", which appear in the text more than 2600 times.

The essence of capitalism

Main features of capitalism

• The dominance of commodity-money relations and private ownership of the means of production;
• The presence of a developed social division of labor, the growth of socialization of production, the transformation of labor into goods;
• Exploitation of wage workers by capitalists.

The main contradiction of capitalism

The goal of capitalist production is to appropriate the surplus value created by the labor of wage workers. As relations of capitalist exploitation become the dominant type of production relations and bourgeois political, legal, ideological and other social institutions replace pre-capitalist forms of the superstructure, capitalism turns into a socio-economic formation that includes the capitalist mode of production and the corresponding superstructure. In its development, capitalism goes through several stages, but its most characteristic features remain essentially unchanged. Capitalism is characterized by antagonistic contradictions. The main contradiction of capitalism between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation of its results gives rise to anarchy of production, unemployment, economic crises, an irreconcilable struggle between the main classes of capitalist society - and the bourgeoisie - and determines the historical doom of the capitalist system.

The emergence of capitalism

The emergence of capitalism was prepared by the social division of labor and the development of a commodity economy within the depths of feudalism. In the process of the emergence of capitalism, at one pole of society a class of capitalists was formed, concentrating money capital and the means of production in their hands, and at the other - a mass of people deprived of the means of production and therefore forced to sell their labor power to the capitalists.

Stages of development of pre-monopoly capitalism

Initial accumulation of capital

Developed capitalism was preceded by a period of so-called primitive accumulation of capital, the essence of which was the robbery of peasants, small artisans and the seizure of colonies. The transformation of labor power into goods and the means of production into capital meant the transition from simple commodity production to capitalist production. The initial accumulation of capital was simultaneously a process of rapid expansion of the domestic market. Peasants and artisans, who previously subsisted on their own farms, turned into hired workers and were forced to live by selling their labor power and buying necessary consumer goods. The means of production, which were concentrated in the hands of a minority, were converted into capital. An internal market for the means of production necessary for the resumption and expansion of production was created. Great geographical discoveries and the seizure of colonies provided the nascent European bourgeoisie with new sources of capital accumulation and led to the growth of international economic ties. The development of commodity production and exchange, accompanied by the differentiation of commodity producers, served as the basis for the further development of capitalism. Fragmented commodity production could no longer satisfy the growing demand for goods.

Simple capitalist cooperation

The starting point of capitalist production was simple capitalist cooperation, that is, the joint labor of many people performing individual production operations under the control of the capitalist. The source of cheap labor for the first capitalist entrepreneurs was the massive ruin of artisans and peasants as a result of property differentiation, as well as the “fencing” of land, the adoption of poor laws, ruinous taxes and other measures of non-economic coercion. The gradual strengthening of the economic and political positions of the bourgeoisie prepared the conditions for bourgeois revolutions in a number of Western European countries: in the Netherlands at the end of the 16th century, in Great Britain in the mid-17th century, in France at the end of the 18th century, in a number of other European countries in the mid-19th century. Bourgeois revolutions, having carried out a revolution in the political superstructure, accelerated the process of replacing feudal production relations with capitalist ones, cleared the way for the capitalist system that had matured in the depths of feudalism, for the replacement of feudal property with capitalist property.

Manufacturing production. Capitalist factory

A major step in the development of the productive forces of bourgeois society was made with the advent of manufacture in the mid-16th century. However, by the middle of the 18th century, the further development of capitalism in the advanced bourgeois countries of Western Europe encountered the narrowness of its technical base. The need has become ripe for a transition to large-scale factory production using machines. The transition from manufacture to the factory system was carried out during the industrial revolution, which began in Great Britain in the 2nd half of the 18th century and was completed by the mid-19th century. The invention of the steam engine led to the appearance of a number of machines. The growing need for machines and mechanisms led to a change in the technical basis of mechanical engineering and the transition to the production of machines by machines. The emergence of the factory system meant the establishment of capitalism as the dominant mode of production and the creation of a corresponding material and technical base. The transition to the machine stage of production contributed to the development of productive forces, the emergence of new industries and the involvement of new resources in economic circulation, the rapid growth of urban populations and the intensification of foreign economic relations. It was accompanied by a further intensification of the exploitation of wage workers: the wider use of female and child labor, the lengthening of the working day, the intensification of labor, the transformation of the worker into an appendage of the machine, the growth of unemployment, the deepening of the opposition between mental and physical labor and the opposition between city and countryside. The basic patterns of development of capitalism are characteristic of all countries. However, different countries had their own characteristics of its genesis, which were determined by the specific historical conditions of each of these countries.

Development of capitalism in individual countries

Great Britain

The classic path of development of capitalism - initial accumulation of capital, simple cooperation, manufacturing, capitalist factory - is characteristic of a small number of Western European countries, mainly Great Britain and the Netherlands. In Great Britain, earlier than in other countries, the industrial revolution was completed, the factory system of industry arose, and the advantages and contradictions of the new, capitalist mode of production were fully revealed. The extremely rapid growth of industrial production compared to other European countries was accompanied by the proletarianization of a significant part of the population, the deepening of social conflicts, and cyclical crises of overproduction that regularly repeated since 1825. Great Britain has become a classic country of bourgeois parliamentarism and at the same time the birthplace of the modern labor movement. By the mid-19th century, it had achieved world industrial, commercial and financial hegemony and was the country where capitalism reached its greatest development. It is no coincidence that the theoretical analysis of the capitalist mode of production given was based mainly on English material. noted that the most important distinctive features of English capitalism of the 2nd half of the 19th century. there were “huge colonial possessions and a monopoly position on the world market”

France

The formation of capitalist relations in France - the largest Western European power of the era of absolutism - occurred more slowly than in Great Britain and the Netherlands. This was explained mainly by the stability of the absolutist state and the relative strength of the social positions of the nobility and small peasant farming. The dispossession of peasants did not occur through “fencing,” but through the tax system. A major role in the formation of the bourgeois class was played by the system of buying out taxes and public debts, and later by the government’s protectionist policy towards the nascent manufacturing industry. The bourgeois revolution occurred in France almost a century and a half later than in Great Britain, and the process of primitive accumulation lasted for three centuries. The Great French Revolution, having radically eliminated the feudal absolutist system that hindered the growth of capitalism, simultaneously led to the emergence of a stable system of small peasant land ownership, which left its mark on the entire further development of capitalist production relations in the country. The widespread introduction of machines began in France only in the 30s of the 19th century. In the 50-60s it turned into an industrialized state. The main feature of French capitalism in those years was its usurious nature. The growth of loan capital, based on the exploitation of the colonies and profitable credit transactions abroad, turned France into a rentier country.

USA

The USA entered the path of capitalist development later than Great Britain, but by the end of the 19th century it became one of the advanced capitalist countries. Feudalism did not exist in the United States as an all-encompassing economic system. A major role in the development of American capitalism was played by the displacement of the indigenous population onto reservations and the development of vacated lands by farmers in the west of the country. This process determined the so-called American path of development of capitalism in agriculture, the basis of which was the growth of capitalist farming. The rapid development of American capitalism after the Civil War of 1861-65 led to the fact that by 1894 the United States took first place in the world in terms of industrial output.

Germany

In Germany, the abolition of the system of serfdom was carried out “from above.” The redemption of feudal dues, on the one hand, led to the mass proletarianization of the population, and on the other hand, it gave the landowners the capital necessary to transform the cadet estates into large capitalist farms using hired labor. Thus, the preconditions were created for the so-called Prussian path of development of capitalism in agriculture. The unification of the German states into a single customs union and the bourgeois Revolution of 1848-49 accelerated the development of industrial capital. Railways played an exceptional role in the industrial boom in the mid-19th century in Germany, which contributed to the economic and political unification of the country and the rapid growth of heavy industry. The political unification of Germany and the military indemnity it received after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 became a powerful stimulus for the further development of capitalism. In the 70s of the 19th century, there was a process of rapid creation of new industries and re-equipment of old ones based on the latest achievements of science and technology. Taking advantage of the technical achievements of Great Britain and other countries, Germany was able to catch up with France in terms of economic development by 1870, and by the end of the 19th century to approach Great Britain.

In the East

In the East, capitalism received its greatest development in Japan, where, as in Western European countries, it arose on the basis of the decomposition of feudalism. Within three decades after the bourgeois revolution of 1867-68, Japan became one of the industrial capitalist powers.

Pre-monopoly capitalism

A comprehensive analysis of capitalism and the specific forms of its economic structure at the pre-monopoly stage was given by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in a number of works and, above all, in Capital, where the economic law of movement of capitalism was revealed. The doctrine of surplus value - the cornerstone of Marxist political economy - revealed the secret of capitalist exploitation. The appropriation of surplus value by capitalists occurs due to the fact that the means of production and means of subsistence are owned by a small class of capitalists. The worker, in order to live, is forced to sell his labor power. With his labor he creates more value than his labor costs. Surplus value is appropriated by capitalists and serves as a source of their enrichment and further growth of capital. The reproduction of capital is at the same time the reproduction of capitalist production relations based on the exploitation of other people's labor.

The pursuit of profit, which is a modified form of surplus value, determines the entire movement of the capitalist mode of production, including the expansion of production, the development of technology, and the increased exploitation of workers. At the stage of pre-monopoly capitalism, competition between non-cooperative fragmented commodity producers is replaced by capitalist competition, which leads to the formation of an average rate of profit, that is, equal profit on equal capital. The cost of goods produced takes the modified form of production price, which includes production costs and average profit. The process of profit averaging is carried out in the course of intra-industry and inter-industry competition, through the mechanism of market prices and the transfer of capital from one industry to another, through the intensification of competition between capitalists.

By improving technology at individual enterprises, using the achievements of science, developing means of transport and communication, improving the organization of production and commodity exchange, capitalists spontaneously develop social productive forces. The concentration and centralization of capital contribute to the emergence of large enterprises, where thousands of workers are concentrated, and lead to the growing socialization of production. However, enormous, ever-increasing wealth is appropriated by individual capitalists, which leads to a deepening of the main contradiction of capitalism. The deeper the process of capitalist socialization, the wider the gap between direct producers and the means of production owned by private capitalists. The contradiction between the social character of production and capitalist appropriation takes the form of antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. It also manifests itself in the contradiction between production and consumption. The contradictions of the capitalist mode of production are most acutely manifested in periodically recurring economic crises. There are two interpretations of their cause. One is related to the general one. There is also the opposite opinion, that the capitalist's profits are so high that the workers do not have enough purchasing power to buy all the goods. Being an objective form of violent overcoming of the contradictions of capitalism, economic crises do not resolve them, but lead to further deepening and aggravation, which indicates the inevitability of the death of capitalism. Thus, capitalism itself creates the objective prerequisites for a new system based on public ownership of the means of production.

Antagonistic contradictions and the historical doom of capitalism are reflected in the sphere of the superstructure of bourgeois society. The bourgeois state, no matter in what form it exists, always remains an instrument of class rule of the bourgeoisie, an organ of suppression of the working masses. Bourgeois democracy is limited and formal. In addition to the two main classes of bourgeois society (bourgeoisie and), under capitalism, classes inherited from feudalism are preserved: the peasantry and landowners. With the development of industry, science and technology, and culture, the social stratum of the intelligentsia - people of mental labor - is growing in a capitalist society. The main trend in the development of the class structure of capitalist society is the polarization of society into two main classes as a result of the erosion of the peasantry and intermediate strata. The main class contradiction of capitalism is the contradiction between the workers and the bourgeoisie, expressed in an acute class struggle between them. In the course of this struggle, a revolutionary ideology is developed, political parties of the working class are created, and the subjective prerequisites for a socialist revolution are prepared.

Monopoly capitalism. Imperialism

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, capitalism entered the highest and final stage of its development - imperialism, monopoly capitalism. Free competition at a certain stage led to such a high level of concentration and centralization of capital, which naturally led to the emergence of monopolies. They define the essence of imperialism. Denying free competition in certain industries, monopolies do not eliminate competition as such, “... but exist above it and next to it, thereby giving rise to a number of particularly acute and steep contradictions, frictions, and conflicts.” The scientific theory of monopoly capitalism was developed by V.I. Lenin in his work “Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism.” He defined imperialism as “... capitalism at that stage of development when the dominance of monopolies and finance capital has emerged, the export of capital has acquired outstanding importance, the division of the world by international trusts has begun and the division of the entire territory of the earth by the largest capitalist countries has ended.” At the monopoly stage of capitalism, the exploitation of labor by financial capital leads to the redistribution in favor of monopolies of part of the total surplus value attributable to the non-monopoly bourgeoisie and the necessary product of wage workers through the mechanism of monopoly prices. Certain shifts are taking place in the class structure of society. The dominance of financial capital is personified in the financial oligarchy - the large monopoly bourgeoisie, which brings under its control the overwhelming majority of the national wealth of capitalist countries. Under the conditions of state-monopoly capitalism, the top of the big bourgeoisie is significantly strengthened, which has a decisive influence on the economic policy of the bourgeois state. The economic and political weight of the non-monopoly middle and petty bourgeoisie is decreasing. Significant changes are taking place in the composition and size of the working class. In all developed capitalist countries, with the total amateur population growing by 91% over the 70 years of the 20th century, the number of employed people increased almost 3 times, and their share in the total number of employed increased over the same period from 53.3 to 79.5%. In the conditions of modern technical progress, with the expansion of the service sector and the growth of the bureaucratic state apparatus, the number and proportion of employees, whose social status is similar to the industrial proletariat, have increased. Under the leadership of the working class, the most revolutionary forces of capitalist society, all working classes and social strata, are fighting against the oppression of monopolies.

State-monopoly capitalism

In the process of its development, monopoly capitalism develops into state-monopoly capitalism, characterized by the merging of the financial oligarchy with the bureaucratic elite, the strengthening of the role of the state in all areas of public life, the growth of the public sector in the economy and the intensification of policies aimed at mitigating the socio-economic contradictions of capitalism. Imperialism, especially at the state-monopoly stage, means a deep crisis of bourgeois democracy, the strengthening of reactionary tendencies and the role of violence in domestic and foreign policy. It is inseparable from the growth of militarism and military spending, the arms race and the tendency to unleash wars of aggression.

Imperialism extremely aggravates the basic contradiction of capitalism and all the contradictions of the bourgeois system based on it, which can only be resolved by a socialist revolution. V.I. Lenin gave a deep analysis of the law of uneven economic and political development of capitalism in the era of imperialism and came to the conclusion that the victory of the socialist revolution was possible initially in one single capitalist country.

Historical significance of capitalism

As a natural stage in the historical development of society, capitalism played a progressive role in its time. He destroyed patriarchal and feudal relations between people, based on personal dependence, and replaced them with monetary relations. Capitalism created large cities, sharply increased the urban population at the expense of the rural population, destroyed feudal fragmentation, which led to the formation of bourgeois nations and centralized states, and raised the productivity of social labor to a higher level. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote:

“The bourgeoisie, in less than a hundred years of its class rule, has created more numerous and more ambitious productive forces than all previous generations combined. The conquest of the forces of nature, machine production, the use of chemistry in industry and agriculture, shipping, railways, the electric telegraph, the development of entire parts of the world for agriculture, the adaptation of rivers for navigation, entire masses of population, as if summoned from underground - which of the previous centuries could suspect that such productive forces lie dormant in the depths of social labor!

Since then, the development of productive forces, despite unevenness and periodic crises, has continued at an even more accelerated pace. Capitalism of the 20th century was able to put into its service many of the achievements of the modern scientific and technological revolution: atomic energy, electronics, automation, jet technology, chemical synthesis, and so on. But social progress under capitalism is carried out at the cost of a sharp aggravation of social contradictions, waste of productive forces, and suffering of the masses of the entire globe. The era of primitive accumulation and capitalist “development” of the outskirts of the world was accompanied by the destruction of entire tribes and nationalities. Colonialism, which served as a source of enrichment for the imperialist bourgeoisie and the so-called labor aristocracy in the metropolises, led to a long stagnation of productive forces in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and contributed to the preservation of pre-capitalist production relations in them. Capitalism has used the progress of science and technology to create destructive means of mass destruction. He is responsible for enormous human and material losses in the increasingly frequent and destructive wars. In just the two world wars unleashed by imperialism, over 60 million people died and 110 million were wounded or disabled. At the stage of imperialism, economic crises became even more acute.

Capitalism cannot cope with the productive forces it has created, which have outgrown capitalist relations of production, which have become fetters for their further unhindered growth. In the depths of bourgeois society, in the process of development of capitalist production, objective material prerequisites for the transition to socialism have been created. Under capitalism, the working class grows, unites and organizes, which, in alliance with the peasantry, at the head of all working people, constitutes a powerful social force capable of overthrowing the outdated capitalist system and replacing it with socialism.

Bourgeois ideologists, with the help of apologetic theories, try to argue that modern capitalism is a system devoid of class antagonisms, that in highly developed capitalist countries there are supposedly no factors that give rise to social revolution. However, reality shatters such theories, increasingly revealing the irreconcilable contradictions of capitalism.

According to the Marxist concept, each society successively passes through several stages in its development - socio-economic formations: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist, socialist and communist.

The formation of society and progressive transformations are based on the following logic:

labor development production social

Evolution of relationship forces

An objective change in production relations constitutes the content of social progress, and their specificity is an evaluative indicator of the quality of the social system.

The leading social subject, who owns the capital of the productive forces - the means of production and labor (its qualifications and scientific thought), determines production relations, constructing a socio-economic formation and directing all the most important social instruments in the direction of expressing their interests. The development of productive forces leads to the need for a systemic transformation of society, a change in the leading social subject and production relations.

The first formational transition (from the primitive communal system to slavery) took place on the basis of the emergence of several social components: the market, goods, a little later, money and social institutions - primarily economic and political (state and legal legislation), as well as the modern form of the family . It was at the dawn of slavery that the social system took on its stable elemental configuration, which has survived to this day.

But in addition, the new socio-economic formation is characterized by the emergence of private ownership of the means of production and exploitation. It was these qualitative expressions of the objective development of the productive forces that supplemented labor production relations with new content - the struggle for capital and power, that is, for subjective priority in the construction of the personal-social system and its management. This struggle became the basis of social progress and permeated all subsequent history.

The corresponding deep division of social interests was expressed in the fundamental opposition of the most important economic socio-positional groups, the emergence and irreconcilable relations of which were determined by the private form of ownership of the means of production and all capital. “Free and slave, patrician and plebeian, landowner and serf..., in short, the oppressor and the oppressed were in eternal antagonism to each other, waged a continuous, sometimes hidden, sometimes open struggle, always ending in a revolutionary reorganization of the entire social edifice...”.

The highest stage of the period of social development with private ownership is capitalist society. Although Marx does not note a fundamental qualitative difference between slavery, feudalism and capitalism. Private ownership of the means of production and capital is the basis that levels out all the differences between these socio-economic formations. It creates its own special method of reproduction of goods and the principle of income distribution, characterized by exploitation in the form of ex-propriation of part of the profit or all of the profit by the owner of the means of production exclusively by right of ownership. “Slavery is the first form of exploitation inherent in the ancient world; it is followed by serfdom in the Middle Ages and wage labor in modern times. These are the three great forms of enslavement which characterize the great ages of civilization; open, and more recently disguised slavery always accompanies her.” The only difference is in the time, conditions and object of operation. In the slave-owning formation, a slave was subjected to exploitation - an absolutely unfree person, forcibly chained to his master throughout the entire time. Feudalism and capitalism ex-propriate the profit created by the wage labor of a formally free person, who, however, objectively driven by his natural needs, still comes to the means of production, and therefore to their owner, and is forced to accept all his conditions. The main one is agreement, in exchange for labor, the creation of goods and wages, to give profit to the owner of private property and transfer the most precious thing he has - labor power into someone else's capital.

Thus, the evolutionary development of the period of private ownership of the means of production is determined by the replacement of open and forceful coercion of a person with coercion of labor - “hidden, voluntary and therefore hypocritical.” Only capitalism, unlike feudalism, works in conditions of industrial growth and urbanization due to a powerful breakthrough in the development of productive forces.

For the first time in social history, the exploitative stage of human progress creates a mass phenomenon of social alienation, which in these conditions is based on the fundamental rejection of the instruments of creative activity (means of production and labor, as well as the main monetary result of production - profit) from their true owner and creator - labor in form of a slave or hired worker. This is how the social process of turning labor into a servant of capital takes place, with all the ensuing consequences for the entire social system.

It is obvious that the private form of capital forms social-positional groups that fundamentally differ from each other in all economic parameters-features and integration status in the economic hierarchy. First of all, by ownership of the means of production and the method of generating income, as well as by the income itself. The most active and active of these groups, directly related to production, form classes that occupy the two highest positions in the corresponding system of production relations.

Classes are the result of a high level of progressive social development. They concretized the social space, expanded and diversified it, supplemented it with completely new subjects and their communication connections. But the main thing is that from the moment of their appearance, taking different forms in the course of social history, they gave it new content, were the organizational engine of social progress, supplementing the quantitative component of labor with the quality of social group antagonism.

Their confrontation served as a source for the formation of a special type of human consciousness - social and humanitarian knowledge and ideological principles, the decisive scientific formulation of which occurred, of course, much later - in the 19th century.

Capitalism is the most progressive social system with a private (personal) form of ownership of the means of production. It forms two classes - capitalists and the proletariat (who do not own the means of production and sell their labor power, which creates goods and services, is exploited and receives wages).

A capitalist is the owner of all components of capital, including physical (means of production) and human (wage labor). The historical birth and functioning of the capitalist form a fundamental interval of social evolution in terms of the most important properties of capital itself - objective expansion and subjective concentration in the process of capitalist economic competition.

These properties are in the vector of development of productive forces and transform a small part of independent individual craftsmen into owners of all capital. The further historical movement of capitalist relations brings this formation to an even higher quality level, where the role of centralization is greatly enhanced: “The capitalist mode of production, which at first displaced independent workers, is now displacing the capitalists themselves, although not yet into the industrial reserve army, but only into the category surplus population."

Capitalism, already contemporary to K. Marx, was characterized by the unification of banking and industrial property in the hands of a single, most active capitalist subject. An industrialist-capitalist who has gained strength does not trust his profit, freed from commodity reproduction at a certain stage of its increase, to a third-party bank, but creates his own bank to provide credit. In turn, the financier-capitalist, who grew up on usury and stock market speculation, begins to buy shares of industrial enterprises. Naturally, concentrating the main economic instruments and having a part of their colossal personal profit already free from economics, such capitalists cannot help but influence the formation of political power with further access to general social management. First of all, to create the most favorable conditions for preserving and increasing personal capital.

Thus, the objective development of productive forces in the course of the progress of capitalist relations forms the highest qualitative level of the corresponding social formation - oligarchic with its leading social group subject. The absence of oligarchy speaks either of the complete exclusion of private ownership of the means of production from social life, or of the underdevelopment (possibly artificial social-democratic restraint) of capitalism.

Oligarchy is the highest stratum of capitalists, objectively born of a personal form of strategic capital based on its basic properties in the process of economic competition, as well as in terms of the most important systemic characteristic - centralization.

A similar procedural logic took place, by the way, in other private property formations—slavery and feudalism. But hidden and less intense. The fundamental difference between capitalism lies in the final break with the tribal component of social history. Its high stage completely “cleanses” the economy of external elements, in particular of an ethnic nature, filling the concept of class with exclusively economic content of the system of production relations, which determines and governs all sociality.

Oligarchic formation under capitalism is natural in the property and method of existence of any social system - its centralization, which is expressed in the subjective concentration of all necessary social resources, giving the opportunity and right to monopoly socio-political construction and management. Today, this law already constitutes geopolitics, determining the quality of the entire global social space. The modern process of globalization, based on the expansion and concentration of world private capital and the desire of the world oligarchy to concentrate the corresponding political resources, is the highest type of objective process of centralization in the conditions of the capitalist formation.

However, another, no less important property and vital way of existence of systemic sociality - dynamism with its inevitable qualitative changes, moves further social progress without stopping history at the “liberal eternity” of oligarchic power.

The socialist revolution takes place at a critical moment when the content of capitalist relations of production does not correspond to the colossal level of progressive development of productive forces: “The bourgeoisie, in less than a hundred years of its class rule, has created more numerous and enormous productive forces than all previous generations combined... Modern bourgeois society with his... relations of production and exchange... already resembles a wizard who is no longer able to cope with the underground forces caused by his spells.” The formation of a socialist formation can be artificially slowed down for a while, but cannot be stopped forever.

Expressing historical necessity, socialist transformation takes place in conditions of growing class consciousness of the proletariat, thanks to the formation of ideology and scientific knowledge. It is this fundamental feature of modern society that distinguishes the socialist revolution from its earlier predecessors and riots, which mainly took place only with the catastrophic impoverishment of the working people and general pauperization.

Today, knowledge is capable of “not only explaining the world, but also changing it,” creating a “critical mass” of understanding of alienation and the need for systemic social change.

The entire economic-political logic and its framework in the form of a link between capital - profit - power under socialism acquires a different, qualitatively new owner as ownership of the means of production is nationalized and all capital passes into public ownership and disposal.

Nationalization of capital is the neutralization of antagonistic differences in the system of production relations, the elimination of classes and exploitation. If, under the capitalist method of reproduction, the profit of the capitalist and the wages of hired labor are economic factors of inverse relationship, then under socialism and the national form of ownership, wages are an integral part of profit, to the distribution of which all workers are involved; in these economic conditions, profit and wages are related by a direct function. This approach also removes the most important production mechanism of alienation - the antagonistic division of capital and labor, returning social priorities to the latter.

Thus, objective social progress makes the capitalist, a once significant and primary subject of social relations who played a huge positive role in the organization of production and general social centralization, a “superfluous” person, a pitiful anachronism standing in the way of the further course of social history. It is the perception of this fact by the public consciousness that is a consequence of the formation of ideology and scientific character of social and humanitarian knowledge.

Pre-capitalist methods of production were characterized by the division of society into various classes and estates, which created a complex hierarchical structure of society. The bourgeois era simplified class contradictions and replaced various forms of hereditary privilege and personal dependence with the impersonal power of money and the unlimited despotism of capital. Under the capitalist mode of production, society is increasingly split into two large hostile camps, into two opposing classes - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

The bourgeoisie is the class that owns the means of production and uses them to exploit wage labor.

The proletariat is a class of wage workers deprived of the means of production and, as a result, forced to sell their labor power to the capitalists. On the basis of machine production, capital completely subjugated wage labor. For the class of wage workers, the proletarian condition became a lifelong destiny. Due to its economic position, the proletariat is the most revolutionary class.

The bourgeoisie and the proletariat are the main classes of capitalist society. As long as the capitalist mode of production exists, these two classes are inextricably linked: the bourgeoisie cannot exist and get rich without exploiting wage workers; proletarians cannot live without being hired by the capitalists. At the same time, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are antagonistic classes whose interests are opposite and irreconcilably hostile. The ruling class of capitalist society is the bourgeoisie. The development of capitalism leads to a deepening of the gap between the exploiting minority and the exploited masses. The class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is the driving force of capitalist society.

In all bourgeois countries, a significant part of the population is the peasantry.

The peasantry is a class of small producers who run their economy on the basis of private ownership of the means of production with the help of backward technology and manual labor. The bulk of the peasantry is mercilessly exploited by landowners, kulaks, merchants and moneylenders and is ruined. In the process of stratification, the peasantry continuously distinguishes from itself, on the one hand, the masses of proletarians and, on the other, kulaks, capitalists.

The capitalist state, which replaced the state of the feudal-serf era as a result of the bourgeois revolution, by its class essence is in the hands of the capitalists an instrument of subjugation and oppression of the working class and peasantry.

The bourgeois state protects capitalist private ownership of the means of production, ensures the exploitation of the working people and suppresses their struggle against the capitalist system.

Since the interests of the capitalist class are sharply opposed to the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population, the bourgeoisie is forced to hide the class character of its state in every possible way. The bourgeoisie is trying to present this state as supposedly supra-class, nationwide, as a state of “pure democracy.” But in reality, bourgeois “freedom” is the freedom of capital to exploit the labor of others; bourgeois “equality” is a deception that covers up the actual inequality between the exploiter and the exploited, between the well-fed and the hungry, between the owners of the means of production and the mass of proletarians who own only their labor power.

The bourgeois state suppresses the popular masses with the help of its administrative apparatus, police, army, courts, prisons, concentration camps and other means of violence. A necessary addition to these means of violence are the means of ideological influence, with the help of which the bourgeoisie maintains its dominance. This includes the bourgeois press, radio, cinema, bourgeois science and art, and the church.

The bourgeois state is the executive committee of the capitalist class. Bourgeois constitutions aim to consolidate social orders that are pleasing and beneficial to the propertied classes. The basis of the capitalist system - private ownership of the means of production - is declared sacred and inviolable by the bourgeois state.

The forms of bourgeois states are very diverse, but their essence is the same: all of these states are the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, striving by all means to preserve and strengthen the system of exploitation of wage labor by capital.

As large-scale capitalist production grows, the number of the proletariat increases, which becomes increasingly aware of its class interests, develops politically and organizes itself to fight against the bourgeoisie.

The proletariat is a working class that is associated with an advanced form of economy - with large-scale production. “Only the Proletariat, due to its economic role in large-scale production, is capable of being the leader of all the working and exploited masses”1. The industrial proletariat, which is the most revolutionary, most advanced class of capitalist society, is capable of gathering around itself the working masses of the peasantry, all the exploited sections of the population and leading them to storm capitalism.

Capitalist system- social and state system that replaced feudalism. The capitalist system is based on private capitalist ownership of the means of production, on the exploitation of wage workers, deprived of the means of production and means of subsistence and, as a result, forced to constantly sell their labor power to the capitalists. The driving force of capitalist production, its main incentive is to make profit by appropriating the surplus value produced by workers.

The main contradiction of developed capitalism is the contradiction between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation. The capitalist economy is based on the anarchy of production and is subject to spontaneous laws of development. Hence the inevitability of the emergence of periodic economic crises under capitalism, crises of overproduction, when more goods are produced than the market can absorb, limited by the effective demand of workers, whose standard of living is continuously declining under the capitalist system. The economy of capitalist countries develops cyclically, that is, growth of production due to the antagonistic contradictions of capitalism is replaced by decline, a sharp drop in production, and crisis.

During a crisis, which is the main phase of the capitalist cycle, there is a massive destruction of the productive forces of society, unemployment increases sharply, the impoverishment of the working class and all workers intensifies, and all the contradictions of the capitalist system intensify. With the development of capitalism, the oppression of capital increases, the absolute and relative impoverishment of the working class and working people increases. The more social wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small handful of capitalists, the more the proletarian portion of the masses grows, the more unemployment increases and the working class becomes impoverished. “This is the absolute, universal law of capitalist accumulation.” The most acute class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is the main feature characterizing capitalist society.

At the end of the 19th century. capitalism has entered the highest, final stage - the stage of imperialism, which is characterized by the dominance of a handful of monopolists and monopolistic associations in the economy and politics of capitalist states. Due to the uneven political and economic development of capitalist countries in the era of imperialism, the foundations of the capitalist system are increasingly shaken, inevitable conflicts and wars arise between capitalist countries; The struggle of the working class and all working people under its leadership against the capitalist class is reaching its extreme severity. The imperialist stage of capitalism is the eve of the socialist revolution. Since the First World War, the capitalist system has entered a state of general crisis, which is based on the ever-increasing disintegration of the world economic system of capitalism. The Great October Socialist Revolution, which marked the beginning of the collapse of the capitalist system, opened a new era in the development of human society. Capitalism has ceased to be the only and all-encompassing system of the world economy.

The world economy has split into two diametrically opposed economic systems: socialist and capitalist. A characteristic feature of the general crisis of capitalism is the extreme aggravation of all the contradictions of capitalist society. The contradictions between the imperialist powers and the colonies and dependent countries, which have taken the path of a national liberation movement that is undermining the foundations of imperialism, have intensified. The decay of capitalism has intensified. Capitalism in the era of its general crisis is characterized by chronic underutilization of the production apparatus of enterprises, the presence of a million-strong army of unemployed people, who have turned from reserve to permanent army of unemployed. Economic crises have become even deeper and more destructive, affecting all sectors of the capitalist economy in bourgeois countries.

The phases of crises in the capitalist cycle are becoming longer and longer, and the periods of temporary recovery are becoming shorter and do not lead to a general rise and prosperity of the economy.

During the Second World War, the second stage of the general crisis of capitalism unfolded. The most important economic result of the Second World War was the disintegration of a single all-encompassing world market and the formation of two divisions of domination by the largest monopolies throughout the world.
The socialist revolution does not replace the capitalist system with a higher social system - socialism, which is established in a fierce class struggle against capitalism. The dictatorship of parallel markets - capitalist and socialist - opposing each other, which determined the further deepening of the general crisis of the world capitalist system.

As a result of the Second World War and the victory of the Soviet Union in the struggle against Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan, a number of countries in Europe and Asia broke away from the capitalist world and established a system of people's democracy. The world-historical victory of the Chinese people dealt a new crushing blow to imperialism. People's democracies have embarked on the path of socialist construction. The world is divided into two camps: the camp of capitalism and imperialist reaction, led by the United States, seeking to start a new world war and establish its world domination, and the camp of growing and strengthening socialism and democracy, led by the USSR, leading the struggle for peace, against the warmongers. In order to preserve the thoroughly rotten capitalist system, the reactionary bourgeoisie resorts to the last, extreme means - the fascisation of states, the establishment of a fascist dictatorship in bourgeois countries.

Monopoly associations use the bourgeois state apparatus subordinate to them to further enslave the working people, destroy political freedoms and democracy, strangle the revolutionary and national liberation movement of the broad masses of the working people, and unleash wars of conquest. The bourgeois state is an obedient instrument of monopoly capital in its struggle to obtain maximum profits and the established Philosophical Dictionary of the proletariat organizes a new, socialist mode of production and forever puts an end to the exploitation of man by man, destroys the system of slavery and oppression.

Preface

Today in our country there is a lot of debate, especially on the left, about what the proletarian class represents in our modern era. Having lost their dialectical-materialist guidelines, some leftists (we are not even talking about bourgeois “scientists”; their duties are not supposed to engage in knowledge of truth) go to the point where they do not see the proletariat in modern capitalist society at all, although they do not deny the existence of a bourgeois class .

A considerable number of such citizens, who often call themselves experts and actually have certain scientific credentials, work in communist organizations, or rather, organizations considered communist in our bourgeois society.

Yes, alas, Russia, whose working people have more than 70 years of experience of living under socialism, has reached such a shame that anyone, not even a petty-bourgeois democrat, but almost a liberal, can call himself a communist without a twinge of conscience. And all this is calmly “eaten up” by our leftist environment, which everywhere and everywhere declares its supposed adherence to socialist ideals.

The reason for these sad phenomena is known. These are all the consequences of late Soviet revisionism - a terrible cancer that not only destroyed the Communist Party of the Soviet working class and became the most important reason for the death of Soviet socialism, but also almost completely destroyed the international communist movement, as a result of which the long-rotten capitalist system still has the opportunity to exist on our planet.

But there is no use in sighing and groaning here; we must work and restore what was lost. First of all, this is, of course, returning knowledge to the working class, without which it will be impossible to move forward a single step.

The question of classes in capitalist society in general, and first of all, of the proletariat, is the most important here. For if there is no revolutionary class, then what kind of socialist revolution can we even talk about? And the conclusion will be exactly this if we accept as true the statement of bourgeois demagogues from science about the absence of a proletarian class in modern capitalist society. True, for those who are distrustful, bourgeois ideologists have another option ready - they have discovered in our modern society a new progressive social class - the “cognitariat” - a layer of the most educated employees and intelligentsia, since, they say, science has now become, as Marx predicted, the most important productive the force of society that determines its entire development.

To understand all the bourgeois myths, a huge number of them spread in our society by propagandists of bourgeois ideology, it is necessary to first understand what social classes are in general, what the class structure of capitalist society is, to trace how capitalism has changed over time and how social classes and inter-class strata of capitalist society, find out what in social classes has been preserved from the old capitalism and what new its last stage - imperialism - brought with it. Without this kind of research, statements about the disappearance of one class or the emergence of another class will be nothing more than the fantasy of an idle layman, which does not represent any serious interest.

All these studies were carried out at one time in the USSR, and they clearly showed that the proletariat has not disappeared anywhere, no matter how much the world bourgeoisie might want it to. The working class of modern capitalist society has only slightly changed its content, having absorbed those layers and classes of capitalist society that earlier, in the era of the formation of capitalism, were relatively independent.

Therefore, when preparing this article, we considered it possible not to “discover America,” but to largely take advantage of what had already been done by Soviet scientists before us. Moreover, the phenomena that we observe today in the capitalist world originated in the middle of the 20th century (we are talking, first of all, about the influence of the scientific and technological revolution - STR) on the class structure of capitalist society) and already by the end of the 80s gg. showed themselves quite clearly, which was noticed and analyzed by Soviet researchers.

What we see today in our society is, in fact, the completion of those processes that began more than half a century ago. It is from the 20th century, from the time of the transition of capitalism to its final stage - the stage of imperialism, that we should begin, because without understanding the deep roots of the phenomena observed today, without considering the class structure of capitalist society in dynamics, we will not be able to fully understand those phenomena and events that are taking place now.

But first, a little theory to understand what classes are, how they are characterized under capitalism, and what layers and strata exist in them.

The main element of the class structure of capitalism

The class structure in capitalist countries expresses the system of social groups of capitalist society, the basis of whose existence is capitalist relations of production, the capitalist mode of production. It is a social image of capitalist existence.

But identifying the class structure of a particular capitalist society is not easy. The fact is that in actually existing capitalist countries, the capitalist mode of production and capitalist production relations are not, as a rule, the only existing types and forms of production relations, the only mode of production. In real capitalist countries, along with the dominant capitalist ones, there are also other, “non-capitalist” forms of production relations.

"Here,- wrote K. Marx, - We are confronted with one feature characteristic of a society in which a certain mode of production is predominant, although not all production relations of a given society are yet subordinated to this mode of production.”

Hence, the class structure of the society under study appears not as a “pure” structure of one capitalist mode of production, but as a system in which, along with elements of a “pure capitalist” class structure, there are also elements of a class structure that grew up on “non-capitalist” production relations (for example, feudal).

The fact that in a particular society, along with the prevailing mode of production, there are other production relations is quite understandable, because this real society grew out of the social organism that preceded it, in which a different mode of production dominated.

But the question of the relationship between “pure” and “impure” (“systemic” and “non-systemic”) elements in the class structure of capitalism is not so simple and is not resolved formally, according to the principle: the system of a particular formation consists of elements of two levels - systemic (obligatory ) and non-systemic (optional). It is known, for example, that in the USA capitalism arose on soil free of feudalism, and therefore, there the class structure of capitalist society is least “contaminated” by non-systemic elements. And the dialectic of development of capitalist countries that grew out of feudalism is such that as capitalism develops and strengthens, the social structure in them changes, approaching “purely capitalist”.

It is often very difficult to clearly distinguish between “pure” and “impure”, systemic and non-systemic elements in the class structure of capitalist society, because the dominant mode of production in it imposes its capitalist image on all other production relations, transforms, modifies them in its own image and likeness.

"So, in a feudal society, - wrote K. Marx, - Even such relations, which are very far from the essence of feudalism, acquired a feudal appearance... For example, purely monetary relations acquired a feudal appearance, where it is not at all about mutual personal services of the overlord and the vassal...”

The situation is exactly the same under the capitalist mode of production. “That definite social character which the means of production, expressing a definite production relation, acquire in capitalist production, has become so intertwined with the material existence of these means of production as such, and in the minds of bourgeois society is inseparable from this material existence to such an extent that the said social character character (expressed as a specific category) is ascribed even to those relations that directly contradict it.”.

Only a deep understanding of the nature of the prevailing relations of production, the essence of the social character of the means of production, makes it possible to distinguish purely capitalist relations and the corresponding class structure and to distinguish from them other relations of production and non-systemic elements of the class structure. Bourgeois sociologists are completely incapable of this, for whom all material existence existing under capitalism and its social embodiment are represented as a set of equivalent parts - without distinguishing decisive, original, basic and secondary, residual and “alien” elements.

Marxism identifies the fundamental feature of the capitalist mode of production, capitalist production relations, the main driving contradiction inherent in them, and on the basis of this points to the most essential and most important, constant and enduring in the class structure of capitalism.

In the “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844,” K. Marx described the “developed to the point of contradiction” opposition in relation to the means of production, which determines the entire essence of the social structure of capitalist society: “...The opposition between the absence of property and property is still an indifferent opposition; it is not yet taken in its active correlation, in its internal relationship and is not yet thought of as a contradiction until it is understood as the opposition between labor and capital... But labor, the subjective essence of private property, as something that excludes property, and capital, objectified labor, as something that excludes labor - such is private property as a form of said opposition developed to the point of contradiction, and therefore as an energetic, intense form that encourages the resolution of this contradiction.” .

So, on the one hand - capital, ownership of the means of production created by the labor of others, and excluding the capitalists' own labor. On the other hand, the labor of workers on the means of production, which completely excludes the ownership of workers in these means of production. “Disconnection appears in today’s society as a normal relationship... Here the fact is absolutely strikingly revealed that the capitalist as such is only a function of capital, and the worker is a function of labor power”.

These are two radically opposed attitudes towards the means of production, the first of which leads to the formation of a capitalist class, or bourgeoisie, in a capitalist society, and the second, to the separation of a working class, or proletariat, in it.

This is the most essential feature of the class structure of capitalist society, growing precisely from the capitalist mode of production, and therefore it is the main purely capitalist, systemic element of the class structure of capitalism. Without it, the class structure of capitalist society cannot be understood. That is why all bourgeois sociological thought, with enviable consistency, “unanimously” rejects this most essential, fundamental element of the social structure of capitalist society.

Bourgeoisie, proletariat, landowners

The essence, the core of the class structure of capitalist society, K. Marx and F. Engels expressed in the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” in just two words: "Bourgeois and Proletarians": “Our era, the era of the bourgeoisie, is distinguished, however, in that it has simplified class contradictions: society is more and more split into two large hostile camps, into two large classes facing each other - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.” .

Emphasizing the enduring, paramount importance of this position, V. I. Lenin wrote that “Marx’s entire “Capital” is devoted to clarifying the truth that the main forces of capitalist society are and can only be the bourgeoisie and the proletariat:

- the bourgeoisie as the builder of this capitalist society, as its leader, as its engine,

- the proletariat as its gravedigger, as the only force capable of replacing it" .

So, one pole of the model of the class structure of capitalist society (which is the result of the very essence of the capitalist mode of production) is capital, the bourgeoisie; the other pole is labor, the proletariat, the hired worker.

What is each of these two poles, each of the two main, central classes of capitalist society?

As F. Engels wrote, “The bourgeoisie is understood as the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production, using wage labor”. The use of hired labor, through the exploitation of which the owners of the means of production live, - The main thing in understanding the essence of the bourgeoisie.

V.I. Lenin wrote about this: “What is the main feature of capitalism? - Use of hired labor".

Regarding the working class, F. Engels wrote: “By the proletariat is meant the class of modern wage-workers who, being deprived of their own means of production, are forced, in order to live, to sell their labor power.”.

K. Marx further specified this essential feature of the working class. Capital is directly opposed to the kind of labor that, on the one hand, excludes ownership of the means of production, of capital, and on the other hand, directly creates this capital, surplus value, this “objectified labor.” The proletarian, the worker, is the direct producer of capitalist surplus value. According to K. Marx, “by “proletarian” in the economic sense should be understood exclusively a wage worker who produces and increases “capital” and is thrown out onto the street as soon as he becomes unnecessary for the needs of increasing the value of “Mr. Capital” ...”.

Hence, working class under capitalism there is a class of modern wage workers, deprived of their own means of production, selling their labor power to capitalists and directly producing surplus value, capital, for them.

It is worth dwelling on the statements of K. Marx in Capital that capitalist society is divided not into two, as we said above, but into three large main classes. This point requires clarification.

At the very beginning of the chapter “Classes” K. Marx wrote: “Owners of labor power alone, owners of capital and landowners, whose respective sources of income are wages, profits and land rent, therefore wage workers, capitalists and landowners form the three large classes of modern society based on the capitalist mode of production.”. Even earlier, K. Marx noted: “...We have here before us all three classes, which together and in relation to each other constitute the skeleton of modern society: the wage worker, the industrial capitalist, the landowner”. And in another place on the same topic: “Capital - profit (business income plus interest), land - ground rent, labor - wages: this is the triune formula that covers all the secrets of the social process of production."

So which two-pronged or triune formula of the class structure of capitalism reveals all the secrets of the capitalist mode of production?

K. Marx himself clearly outlines the answer to this question: this is a two-pronged formula for developed class structure of capitalism, and the triune one for the one that has actually grown in most countries from a previous feudal society.

We must not forget that usually 18 the economic structure of capitalist society grew out of the economic structure of feudal society. (Although capitalism sometimes develops on soil free of feudalism, as was the case in the USA.) Therefore, the form of land ownership corresponding to capitalism is created by it itself through the subordination of feudal agriculture capital. That is why K. Marx says everywhere that this is “there is a specifically historical form of it, transformed by the influence of capital and the capitalist mode of production into the form of either feudal land ownership or small-peasant agriculture...”

But the fact of the matter is that at the first stages of its transformation, former landed property does not immediately become (at least in its entirety) completely and purely capitalist property, that is, one in which its owner hires labor and through its application creates surplus value, capital. At first, this transformed capitalist land ownership is such that it actually serves as a source of capitalist exploitation, but exploitation carried out not directly by the landowner himself (who for the most part is not yet capable of this, has not accumulated the appropriate experience), but by the capitalist tenant of the land, the capitalist farmer paying rent to the owner of the land.

For all these reasons, although the class of landowners is a class subordinate to the capitalist mode of production, transformed and modified by it, at the same time it differs significantly from the class of capitalists proper. According to K. Marx, rent represents "merely a portion of the profits, allocated from profits and accruing to a class other than the capitalist class".

Consequently, there is nothing inconsistent in the fact that, characterizing capitalism, K. Marx names in some cases two main classes, and in others three large classes, based on the capitalist mode of production. This is dialectics. K. Marx clearly explains that, along with the class of capitalists and the class of wage workers, the class of landowners is a large class of capitalist society, but, unlike the first two, - historically transient, a transitional class for capitalism itself.

Subject to the existence of land ownership “capital is forced to leave to the landowner an excess of value over the price of costs... This difference is historical; it may therefore disappear". This historical fact “is characteristic of a certain stage of development of agriculture, but at a higher stage it may disappear.”

The class of land owners exists only on a known, definite, i.e. primary, a less developed stage of capitalist society (and sometimes this stage may be completely absent in the historical practice of development of a particular country, as was the case in the USA). Over time, at a more developed stage, this class under capitalism becomes bourgeois and disappears.

Therefore, the class of landowners is not included in that “pure” model of the class structure of capitalism, which follows and is generated by the capitalist mode of production itself. But it enters - and only at the initial and middle stages of development - into that real class structure of capitalist society, which grows historically out of the feudal society that preceded it.

The distinction between “pure” and really existing ones, between systemic and non-systemic elements of the class structure allows us to see the main thing - the trend, the pattern of its development and changes in the conditions of capitalist society.

In their internal composition, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat also contain systemic (obligatory) and non-systemic (optional) elements, which is also important to take into account when studying the class structure of capitalism.

Intraclass composition of the bourgeoisie and proletariat

Within the bourgeoisie, the existing main social strata and groups are distinguished by the most significant features of the bourgeoisie as a whole. We are talking about characterizing parts of the bourgeoisie from the point of view, firstly, of ownership of capital, the means of social production, and secondly, the volume of employed, exploited wage labor.

K. Marx, F. Engels and V. I. Lenin approached class analysis precisely from these methodological positions, as a result of which they identified three main layers within the bourgeoisie: small capitalists, medium capitalists (middle bourgeoisie) and large capitalists (big bourgeoisie) . At the highest stage of development of capitalism, there is a layer of super-large (or, as K. Marx said, magnates of capital) - monopoly, state-monopoly bourgeoisie. The last layer is also a systemic element of the capitalist class, but, unlike the first three, it is an element not at all stages of the development of capitalism, but only at its highest stage of development - imperialism.

Like all social groups of capitalist society, the bourgeois class acts and functions under the conditions of the socio-economic division of city and countryside, and therefore all the main layers of the bourgeoisie act in the form of layers of small, medium, large and monopoly capitalists of city and countryside.

Depending on the sphere of application of capital, the social division of labor, the bourgeoisie is divided into the financial bourgeoisie, engaged in production (industry, construction, transport, communications, agriculture, etc.) and the commercial bourgeoisie, capitalists in the field of real estate, services and services (cinema, radio , television, print, system of hotels, restaurants, etc.). All of them operate in the city and countryside, concentrated mainly in the city.

In modern developed capitalist countries it shows small urban capitalists- these are usually the owners of small industrial or commercial enterprises, enterprises in the service sector, living mainly through the exploitation of the labor of hired workers (approximately 4 to 50 people), and often working in these enterprises themselves or together with members of their families.

Middle bourgeoisie covers owners of enterprises with large amounts of capital, means of production and greater exploitation of wage labor (approximately 50 to 500 workers).

Big bourgeoisie- these are the owners of huge enterprises in which many hundreds and thousands of workers are exploited. A small layer of monopoly and state-monopoly bourgeoisie controls key positions in the economy of capitalist countries.

In capitalist countries that differ in economic development and power, the various layers of the bourgeoisie are not the same, therefore the given figures of hired workers used as criteria for dividing the bourgeoisie into small, medium and large are approximate. For a more accurate description, it is also necessary to take into account the size of assets, volume of products, market share, etc.

The layers of the bourgeoisie in agriculture are more numerous. First of all, agriculture itself, in which small, medium, large and monopoly capitalists operate, appears in two forms: village or farm type.

In almost all countries that transitioned to capitalism from feudalism, a rustic type agriculture, when the rural population is grouped into settlements such as villages. This is a comparatively backward form of agriculture under capitalism. In some capitalist countries, farm-type agriculture is emerging, which is superior to the rural type inherited from feudalism. In some countries (the USA) farming arose on a soil free from feudalism, in others (for example, Sweden) it replaces the village type of farming as a result of the high development of capitalism. V.I. Lenin noted that from “a class of farmers is being developed from a prosperous peasantry...” .

In rural-type agriculture, small capitalists are usually represented by the main part of the rural bourgeoisie (or rural, peasant bourgeoisie, wealthy, large peasantry), which is formed from the peasantry in the process of development of capitalism. Economic peasants and kulaks make up the “cadres of the emerging rural bourgeoisie.” Small and partly medium capitalists within the rural bourgeoisie possess such an amount of land, instruments of production and hired labor that they do not yet allow them to physically participate in production work. The main feature of these representatives of the rural bourgeoisie is their personal physical work on their farm.

“The large peasantry... are capitalist entrepreneurs in agriculture, managing as a general rule with several hired workers, connected with the “peasantry” only by a low cultural level, everyday life, personal physical work on their farm. This is the largest of the bourgeois layers...” .

Despite their own labor, such rural bourgeois (like all capitalists in the countryside) live primarily through exploitation of other people's labor.

The majority of medium-sized capitalists and large capitalist entrepreneurs in rural-type agriculture, unlike small capitalists, do not engage in constant physical labor in agriculture. This is due to the fact that they have much more land, instruments of production and hired labor than the small-capitalist part of the rural bourgeoisie. Medium and large capitalists in agriculture are formed from wealthy representatives of the small-capitalist rural bourgeoisie, former feudal lords, and in other ways.

A modification of the rural bourgeoisie, and therefore a non-systemic, non-obligatory element in the composition of the bourgeoisie in the countryside is kulaks- one of the lowest and worst forms of small and partly medium capitalism in village-type agriculture. It arises among the rural bourgeoisie where there are the deepest vestiges of feudalism. Being a form of the rural bourgeoisie, the kulaks do not embrace it entirely, although they often make up the overwhelming majority of the rural bourgeoisie. Even in Russia, which set an example of the strongest development of the kulaks, it did not completely embrace the entire rural bourgeoisie. Therefore, V.I. Lenin does not replace one with the other, he speaks about them separately, as about the kulaks and the rural bourgeoisie.

Consequently, the concepts of the kulaks and the rural bourgeoisie are not equivalent. Main difference kulaks from the rural bourgeoisie in that the strength of the kulaks is based on the robbery of other producers- small and medium-sized peasants in their own villages and hamlets. “The few wealthy peasants, being among the mass of “low-power” peasants leading a half-starved existence on their insignificant plots, inevitably turn into exploiters of the worst kind, enslaving the poor by distributing money on credit, winter hiring, etc., etc.”. The constant robbery of the local population turns the kulaks into the most hated predators and exploiters in the village.

The strength of the rural bourgeoisie is based, wrote V.I. Lenin, on the independent organization of production, “also robbed, but not of independent producers, but of workers” .

In agriculture farm type small capitalists are mainly large farmers (just as in the countryside small capitalists are large, wealthy peasants). They live not through their own labor, but through the exploitation of hired labor. Small and medium-sized farmers, living off their own labor, occupy an intermediate position between capitalist farmers and agricultural workers, representing the petty bourgeoisie. The largest farmers, who own even more land, instruments of production, and hired labor, represent the middle layer of capitalists in farm-type agriculture, and the owners of groups of farms represent the layer of large capitalists. Key positions in capitalist agriculture are occupied by agricultural corporations and monopolies.

The internal composition of the bourgeoisie with its main modifications is shown in the table:

The gradation of the working class into main social strata and groups is determined on the basis of the fundamental characteristics of the proletariat: firstly, that they are modern wage workers, secondly, that they sell their labor power, since they are deprived of their own means of production, thirdly, that they directly produce surplus value, capital. The degree to which these essential characteristics manifest themselves in different layers and groups of the working class serves as a criterion for distinguishing them from each other. The proletariat is divided according to its composition "to more and less developed layers" .

Intra-class composition of the proletariat

What does this different degree of development of social strata and groups within the working class depend on and how is it expressed?

F. Engels pointed out the importance of such a criterion:

“...The level of development of various workers is directly dependent on their connection with industry... therefore, industrial workers are best aware of their interests, miners are already worse, and agricultural workers are still almost completely unaware of them. We will find this dependence also in the ranks of the industrial proletariat itself: we will see that the factory workers - these firstborn of the industrial revolution - from the very beginning to the present time were the core of the labor movement and that the remaining workers joined the movement to the extent that their trade was captured by the industrial revolution" .

Thus, the connection with industry, with industrial development in this case is considered not simply as a factor in the social division of labor, but as an economic moment that determines a certain degree of social development of different sections of the working class under capitalism.

In the middle of the 19th century, F. Engels identified three groups within the working class of England: the industrial proletariat (the core of which was factory workers), the mining proletariat and the agricultural proletariat.

Speaking about the most developed part of the working class, V.I. Lenin pointed to urban and especially factory workers, industrial workers, emphasizing that in relation to the proletariat as a whole, factory workers play the role of the advanced ranks, the vanguard.

Taking all this into account, we can argue that the proletariat is divided into two main social strata:

The industrial proletariat (which in turn is divided into a core - the factory proletariat, i.e. workers in the manufacturing industry, and into the "mining proletariat", i.e. workers in the mining industry)

And the agricultural proletariat.

Since all units of the working class (the above, as well as transport, communications, construction, public services and others) are located in the city or village, the entire proletariat in this horizontal section is divided into urban and rural proletariat.

Industrial proletariat, its factory core, and agricultural proletariat- the main systemic elements within the structure of the working class under capitalism.

From the point of view of the main characteristics of the proletariat, two extreme social groups are distinguished in it (at all or at the highest stage of capitalism - under imperialism): on the one hand, the labor bureaucracy and the labor aristocracy, on the other hand, the unemployed proletarians.

“Imperialism tends to single out privileged classes among the workers and separate them from the broad mass of the proletariat.”. A kind of layer of K. Marx and F. Engels is formed. Works, vol. 26, part II, pp. 263, 264.
V. I. Lenin. Complete Works, vol. 3, p. 169.
V. I. Lenin. Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 431.
V. I. Lenin. Complete Works, vol. 41, pp. 174-175.
See V.I. Lenin. Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 431; vol. 37, p. 315.
V. I. Lenin. Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 56.
V. I. Lenin. Complete Works, vol. 1, p. 110, note.
V. I. Lenin. Complete Works, vol. 41, pp. 58-59.
K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, vol. 2, p. 260.
See ibid., pp. 246-247, 260.
V. I. Lenin. Complete Works, vol. 27, p. 404.
Ibid., p. 308.

The concept of capitalism is built by M. Weber on the basis of an analysis of certain features of large-scale industry. As a result, an “ideal type” of capitalist economy and a utopia of capitalist culture are constructed, i.e. a culture where only the interests of realizing private capital dominate” 2.

Capitalism, according to Weber, existed in one form or another in all periods of human history, but the capitalist way of satisfying everyday needs is inherent only in Western Europe and, moreover, only from the second half of the 19th century. The beginnings of capitalism in previous eras are only its harbingers, and few capitalist enterprises of the 17th century. could have been erased from the economic life of that time without causing destructive changes in its course.

The forms of management created in antiquity, the Middle Ages and early modern times, according to Weber, show different forms irrational capitalism. TO irrational types of capitalism Weber classifies capitalist enterprises as

1 Weber M. Selected works. P. 365.

2 Ibid. P. 390.

SOCIOLOGY OF GERMANY 389

I pour out ransom, in order to finance wars, opportunistic, commercial, usurious, speculative capitalism. All these forms of capitalism are based on war booty, taxes, income from office, abuses of office, levy and human need.

Historical development, Weber points out, up to the 18th century. went in the direction of an ever-increasing reduction of freedoms for the market: the lease of state-owned estates was replaced everywhere by hereditary ownership, tax farmers were replaced everywhere by financial officials, instead of the free delivery of government contracts to the entrepreneur, forced labor obligations of subjects were created, classes were divided into professional groups with a hereditarily assigned occupation, upon whom the burdens of the state were entrusted with mutual responsibility. In general, the entire population was hereditarily attached either to an occupation and craft, or to a piece of land, and the number of state duties and works increased. The principle of community and mutual responsibility, the growth of state duties and investigation, hereditary attachment to occupation - all this hindered the development of capitalism. Rational capitalism, i.e. There was no place for free market development.

Rational capitalism is formed only when and where conditions arise for the existence of a free market, free exchange, purchase and sale of activities, goods and services. It is the more rational the more it relies on mass production and mass marketing.

Weber conducts his study of rational capitalism in four directions. It reveals, firstly, the laws governing the development of the capitalist economy. Secondly, the formation of the social sphere of capitalism - civil society and the corresponding system of social stratification. Thirdly, the formation of a national state and rational law. Fourthly, the process of rationalization of spiritual life and the formation of a new rational capitalist ethics.

All of these areas are not united by a cause-and-effect system of relationships; they are in a relationship of correlation with each other. In fact, the main ideas and theoretical schemes for the formation and functioning of capitalist society are set out by Weber, respectively, in four of his Works: “History of Economics”, “The City”, “Politics as a Vocation and Profession”, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”. In all

History of sociology

Four works demonstrate the process of formation of capitalism as a process of rationalization of all aspects of economic, social, political and cultural activity.

Economics of capitalism. Weber gives the following definition of the economy of capitalism: “Capitalism exists where the production and economic satisfaction of the needs of a certain group of people, regardless of the type of these needs, is carried out through entrepreneurship; Specially rational capitalist production is production on the basis of capitalist calculation... that is, it maintains accounting control over its profitability through new accounting and balance sheet preparation” 1 . An era can be called typically capitalist only in the case when the satisfaction of needs through capitalist means is accomplished to such an extent that with the destruction of this system the very possibility of their satisfaction in general is crossed out. Speaking about the reasons for the emergence of rational European capitalism, Weber points out that it was not brought to life either by an increase in population or by the influx of precious metals. Geographical reasons, such as proximity to the Mediterranean or other seas, did not matter for its occurrence. Capitalism, according to Weber, arose in the inland industrial cities, not in the seaside trading centers of Europe.

Colonial policy of the 16th-15th centuries also had little impact on the development of capitalism as an economic sphere. Weber notes that the acquisition of colonies by European states led to the accumulation of colossal wealth in the metropolises. The possibility of such accumulation of wealth in all countries without exception relied on power, primarily on the state. However, while it had such a strong influence on the accumulation of fortunes within Europe and produced a significant number of wealthy people living on rent, it contributed only to a small extent to the development of the capitalist organization of industry. Weber, unlike K. Marx and W. Sombart, does not highly assess the role and influence of colonial policy on the development of capitalism.

The needs of the army and the desire for luxury also did not play a special role in the development of capitalism. The position of, for example, Sombart, which attributes the main role to the army in creating demand in the capitalist market, represents

1 Weber M. History of the economy. Pg., 1923. P. 176.

SOCIOLOGY OF GERMANY

Xia Weber is illegal. Already in his work “The City” he refuses, for example, to consider the Greek polis and medieval urban economies, oriented towards war, as prototypes of capitalist economies. The needs of the army, and this is observed in both European and non-European countries, were increasingly satisfied by the forces of the state itself, by the establishment of state workshops for the production of ammunition and weapons. Capitalism arises outside the framework of the army and the state, although not without their help.

For Weber, the main factor contributing to the formation and expansion of demand for products of the capitalist economy was rather democratization luxury goods, which represented a decisive turn towards capitalism, since it meant the emergence of a need for industrial production, oriented not towards war or irrational speculation, but towards a mass commodity market. Factory production of mass-marketed products and the democratization of consumption gave, in turn, a decisive impetus to the implementation of a purely capitalist idea - to make a profit by reducing the cost of production and lowering prices. Weber writes: “It was not the development of capitalism that preceded the fall in prices, but, on the contrary, prices first fell relatively, and then capitalism appeared” 1 .

The desire for entrepreneurship, the desire for profit, for monetary gain in itself, Weber also notes, has nothing in common with capitalism. This desire was and is observed in equal measure among waiters, doctors, artists, bribe-taking officials, soldiers, robbers, visitors to gambling houses and beggars. Unbridled greed in matters of profit is not identical with capitalism, and even less with its spirit. "Capitalism can be identical curb this irrational aspiration, in any case, its rational regulation” 2. Capitalism is identical to the desire for profit within the framework of a continuously operating rational capitalist enterprise in the form of continuously renewed profit, in the form of profitability. Where there is a rational desire for capitalist profit, the corresponding activity is oriented towards capital accounting, i.e. is aimed at the systematic use of material resources and personal efforts to make a profit in such a way that the final income of the enterprise

1 Weber M. History of the economy. P. 176.

2 Weber M. Selected works. P. 48.

History of sociology

exceeded capital, i.e. cost of materials used. It is this process that forms the basis of rational capitalist entrepreneurship.

Weber considers the prerequisites, foundations and characteristic features of a capitalist economy to be: 1) private ownership of the material means of production, 2) freedom of the market, 3) rational technology, 4) rational law, 5) freedom of labor, 6) commercial organization of the economy. In the future, one more point is introduced - 7) exchange operations. They acquire special significance when capital is poured into the form of freely functioning securities. To this it should be added that the inevitable companions of the capitalist economic order already in the 19th century. became economic and social crises: chronic unemployment, hunger, overproduction, political instability and, as a result, 8) the emergence of rational socialism. A necessary condition for the development of capitalism was 9) the formation of an organization of information and transport. In the 19th century Newspapers became a means of disseminating economic information. Railways caused not only in the field of communication between people, but also in economic life, the greatest of the revolutions that took place in history.

Modern capitalism is organically connected with such a form of organization of the industrial process as the factory. Weber emphasizes that the modern rational organization of a capitalist enterprise is unthinkable without the separation of the enterprise from the household that is prevalent in modern economics, the legally formalized separation of the capital of the enterprise and the personal property of the entrepreneur, on the one hand, and rational accounting reporting, which is closely related to this, on the other. A distinctive feature of the factory is also the technology used - the steam engine and the general mechanization of the labor process. The specific quality of this technology lies in the fact that, unlike previous eras, when the tools of labor served man, in the factory of the capitalist era man is subordinate to technology.

The formation of the technical part of the “factory project” was associated with three main directions of development. Firstly, coal and iron freed technology, and at the same time the possibility of production, from the framework associated with the use of organic materials, primarily wood (XV-XVIII centuries). Secondly, mechanization of the production process through the use of steam

SOCIOLOGY OF GERMANY

machines freed him from subordination to the organic framework of human labor. Thirdly, with the assistance of science, production was freed from outdated traditional methods.

In addition, for the establishment of such a new form of production organization as a factory, it was necessary to use a labor force deprived of any other means of subsistence other than free hiring. The factory is, as Weber emphasizes, the rational organization of free labor in the form of an enterprise. Initially, the new form of production recruited labor through coercive measures. Examples include the laws of Queen Elizabeth in England. Another source of labor was the impoverished small craftsmen. However, the state took coercive legislative measures not only against workers, but also against entrepreneurs. If throughout the Middle Ages the worker often had to sell his product to the market himself, now legislation had to protect the worker from the imposition of sales functions on him and provide him with monetary compensation. This radically changed the situation and sharply spurred the development of the market for goods and money, creating the basis for the democratization of consumption and the formation of capitalism as a whole.

WITH the formation of civil society as a social system of capitalism. Weber associates the formation of civil society, social stratification, main social groups and communities with the development of urban life. The role of cities in social history and cultural history is enormous. The development of art, science, religion, the formation of theological thinking - all this becomes and develops, according to Weber, precisely within the city.

The question of whether a given settlement should be called a city is decided not by its spatial dimensions, but by economic considerations. The city is a trade and craft center. The city arises as a result of the intention to “use land rent in trade”; trade is crucial for the emergence of the city. People settled in the city to trade, engage in crafts, and receive land and cash rent. The city is also a fortress. The city is the seat of power, including spiritual power. But the main thing is that city- this is a community union and this is exactly how he appears in the West. The European city arose primarily as a union for defense, as an association of citizens economically capable of organizing

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3. Park R.E.

short biography
J. G. Meade (February 27, 1863) was born in South Hadley, Massachusetts. He was the second child and only son of Hiram Meade, pastor of the town's Congregational Church, and Elizabeth Storrs.

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Writing about George Herbert Mead as a sociologist is no easy task. It's like writing about the sociologist Sigmund Freud or Karl Marx. Time “made” all three sociologists, and S.

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unable to see what is there. ...But he doesn't lose consciousness in any other sense. ...Loss of consciousness does not mean the loss of some real essence, but only the severance of one's relationship with the experienced perceiver

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History of sociology
social or group behavior in which he, along with others, participates."

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Both those, or I-subject and I-object

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Action is a pervasive and ever-present concept in Mead's social theory. “...Everything happens in the body of action. This action may be deferred, but there is nothing that would be with

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History of sociology
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Sociology of Pitirim Sorokin

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diction. P. Sorokin’s mother was from the Komi people, and the boy was fluent in two languages ​​since childhood.

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P. Sorokin received his primary and secondary education in provincial schools

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From Marx's point of view, this mode of production, like all others in history, is undergoing change. Since he was able to trace the actual path of development of capitalism, the result of his work was not just a description of this system, but also a scientific prediction of its development.

The feudal mode of production gradually gave way to production for profit, which is an integral feature of capitalism. Production for the sake of profit presupposes two necessary conditions: firstly, that someone has the opportunity to buy the means of production (looms, spinning machines, etc.), and, secondly, that there are people deprived of the means of production, not having a means of subsistence. In other words, there must be “capitalists” who owned the means of production, and workers whose only way to support their existence was to work on the machines owned by the capitalists.

The workers produced things not directly for themselves or for the personal use of their new “master,” the capitalist, but so that the latter could sell them and receive money. Things produced in this way are called "commodities", that is, items produced for sale in the market. The worker received a wage, the entrepreneur received a profit - something that remained after the consumer paid for the goods, and after the capitalist paid wages, paid the cost of raw materials and other costs of production.

What is the source of this profit? Marx emphasizes that it cannot be a capitalist selling products at a price higher than their value - this would mean that all capitalists are constantly deceiving each other and where one receives a “profit” of this kind, the other inevitably suffers a loss, that profits and losses are mutual balance each other without giving a common profit. It follows that the market price of an item must already include profit, that profit must arise in the process of producing the product, and not in its sale.

Therefore, the study of this issue should lead to an analysis of the production process to check whether there is any factor in production that makes the price higher than the value.

But first we need to find out what we mean by “price”. In colloquial language, the word "price" can have two completely different meanings. It can mean that the use of something is valuable from the point of view of some person: for example, a thirsty person “values” drinking; a certain phenomenon may be of “spiritual value” to someone. But we also use this word every day in another sense: the price of a thing bought in the market by any buyer from any seller is what is known as the “exchange value” of the thing.

It is true that even under a capitalist system certain things can be produced for certain buyers at a specially set price; but Marx considered normally functioning capitalist production - a system in which millions of tons of the most diverse products are produced for the market in general, for any buyer. What determines the normal “exchange value” of a product? Why, for example, does a meter of cloth have a greater exchange value than a pin?

Exchange value is measured in money; a thing is “worth” a certain amount of money. But what makes it possible to compare things with each other in value, either through money or through direct exchange? Marx emphasized that things can be compared in this way only if they have some common factor, which is greater in some things and less in others; this is what makes the comparison possible. This common factor is obviously not weight, color, or any other physical property; Nor is it “use value” (necessary food products have a much lower exchange value than cars) or any other abstraction. There is only one factor common to all things - that they are created by human labor. A thing has a greater exchange value the more human labor was expended on its production; exchange value is determined by the “labor time” expended in the production of each item.

But this does not mean, of course, individual working time. When things are bought and sold on the general market, their exchange value as individual products is equalized and the exchange value of each particular meter of cloth of a certain weight and quality is determined by the average "socially necessary labor time" spent on its production.

If this is the general basis of the exchange value of things produced under capitalism, then what determines the amount of wages paid to the actual producer, the worker? Marx poses the question exactly this way: what is common between things produced under capitalism and labor power under capitalism, which, as we know, also has exchange value? There is only one such factor; as we have seen, it determines the exchange value of ordinary goods - this is the labor time spent on their production. What is meant by labor time spent on the production of labor power? This is the time (average "socially necessary" time) spent producing food, housing, fuel and other things necessary to support the life of a worker. In a normal capitalist society, things necessary to support a worker's family are also taken into account. The labor time required to produce all these things determines the exchange value of labor power, which the worker sells to the capitalist for wages.

But in a modern capitalist society, the time required to reproduce a producer's labor power may be four hours a day, and his working day may be eight, ten or more hours long. Thus, each day, during the first four hours, he produces with his labor the equivalent of what is paid to him as wages, and for all the remaining hours of his working day he produces “surplus value”, which is appropriated by the entrepreneur. This is the source of capitalist profit - the value produced by the worker in excess of the value necessary for his maintenance, in other words, in excess of the wages he receives.

This summary of Marx's analysis of value and surplus value needs a number of clarifications, and this can be done in many ways, but, unfortunately, we do not have the opportunity here to cover the issue in more detail. We can only point out some general provisions.

We have used the term exchange value because it is the basis of the entire analysis. But in reality, it is unlikely that things were ever sold exactly at their exchange value. Both material products and human labor power are bought and sold in the market at a price that is either higher or lower than their actual exchange value. There may be a surplus of particular commodities in the market, and on that day their price may fall far below their actual exchange value; if there are not enough of these goods, the price may rise above the cost. These price fluctuations are actually influenced by "supply and demand" and this leads many bourgeois economists to think that supply and demand are the only factors influencing pricing. But it is clear that supply and demand cause price fluctuations only within certain limits. What the given limits are, whether it be one penny or a hundred pounds sterling, is, of course, determined not by supply and demand, but by the labor time expended in the production of such articles.

Supply and demand also influence the real price of labor power, that is, the wages actually paid; but along with them, other factors also influence the price, in particular the strength of the trade union organization. However, the price of labor power in a capitalist society always fluctuates only within certain limits - it must provide the means of subsistence necessary for the life of the worker, taking into account the fact that the needs of different groups and sections of the working class are different, which in turn is largely the result of previous struggles of trade unions for improving living standards.

The labor power of different groups of workers is, of course, not equal in value; a skilled mechanic produces much more value per hour of work than an unskilled worker produces per hour of work. Marx showed that when goods are sold on the market, these differences are actually taken into account and thereby a certain ratio is fixed between what a skilled worker produces in an hour and what an unskilled worker produces (during the same time).

How does this difference in cost arise? Marx's answer is that it has nothing to do with the "principle" that having a qualification is ethically better than not having one, or with any other abstract concept. The fact that the labor power of a skilled worker has a greater exchange value than the labor power of a laborer is due to the same factor that makes a steamship worth more than a rowing boat—more human labor is expended in its production. The entire process of training a skilled worker and, in addition, a higher standard of living, which is important for maintaining his qualifications, require a large investment of working time.

Another point I want to draw attention to is that an increase in labor intensity compared to the previous average level is equivalent to a lengthening of the working day; in eight hours of intensive labor a value can be produced equivalent to that previously produced in ten or twelve hours of normal labor.

What is the significance of Marx's analysis to reveal the source of profit? Its significance is that it explains the class struggle in the era of capitalism. The wages paid to workers in factories and other establishments are not equivalent to the value they produce; it is approximately half this cost or even less. The remaining value produced by the worker during the working day (that is, after he has produced value equivalent to his wage) is appropriated by the employer. Therefore, the entrepreneur constantly strives to increase this part. He can achieve this in several ways: for example, by cutting the worker's wages; this means that the worker will work for himself for a smaller part of the working day, and for the entrepreneur for the majority of the working day. The same result is achieved by the "acceleration" or "intensification" of labor: the worker produces the value of his labor power in a smaller part of his working day, and works for the employer most of the day. This result can be achieved by lengthening the working day, in which case the part of the working day during which the worker works for the entrepreneur also increases. On the other hand, by demanding an increase in wages and a reduction in working hours and opposing the intensification of work, the worker fights to improve his situation.

Hence the constant struggle between capitalists and workers, which cannot end as long as the capitalist system of production exists. This struggle, which began with the struggle of an individual worker or group of workers against an individual entrepreneur, is gradually expanding. The trade union organization, on the one hand, and the organization of entrepreneurs, on the other, involve broad sections of each class in the struggle against each other. Ultimately, political organizations of workers are created, which, as they expand, can attract all industrial workers and other sections of the people to action against the capitalist class. In its highest form, this struggle develops into revolution - the overthrow of the capitalist class and the establishment of a new system of production in which workers do not spend part of their working day for the benefit of another class. This issue is covered more fully in subsequent chapters; but here it is important to note that the class struggle under capitalism is caused by the nature of capitalist production itself - the antagonism of the interests of these two classes, which constantly collide in the production process.

Having analyzed the questions of wages and profits, we now come to the study of capital. First, it should be noted that the entrepreneur does not fully appropriate the surplus value created by the worker in the production process. It is, so to speak, a fund from which the various groups of capitalists receive their share: the landowner receives rent, the banker receives bank interest, the middleman receives the “profit of trade,” and the industrial entrepreneur receives as his profit what remains. This in no way contradicts the previous analysis; this only means that these capitalist groups, in turn, are fighting among themselves for the division of the spoils. But they are all united by the desire to squeeze the maximum possible out of the working class.

What is capital?

Capital appears in various physical forms: machinery, buildings, raw materials, fuel and other things necessary for production; it also comes in the form of money paid to producers in the form of wages.

But not all machinery, not all buildings, etc., and not even every amount of money is capital. For example, a peasant on the west coast of Ireland has a dwelling of some kind and a few yards of land around it; he may have some livestock and a boat; he may even have a small amount of money. But if he is not a master in relation to someone else, then all his property is not capital.

Property (in whatever physical form it appears) only becomes capital in the economic sense when it is used to obtain surplus value; in other words, when it is used to hire workers who, in the process of producing things, also create surplus value. What is the origin of this capital?

Looking back at history, we see that the primitive accumulation of capital was, in the vast majority of cases, open robbery. Adventurers obtained countless riches in the form of gold and other valuables in America, India and Africa through robbery. But this was not the only way to create capital through robbery. In England itself, as a result of enclosures, capitalized farmers seized common lands. Thus, they deprived the peasants of their means of subsistence and turned them into proletarians - workers who had no other opportunity to exist except by cultivating the land taken from them for the benefit of a new owner or by working for another capitalist entrepreneur. Marx shows that this is the actual origin of capital (“primitive accumulation”); he ridiculed the legend that capitalists were originally thrifty men who "saved" from their meager means of subsistence.

“This primitive accumulation plays approximately the same role in political economy as the Fall in theology... In time immemorial, there were, on the one hand, hardworking and, above all, thrifty, intelligent chosen ones and, on the other hand, lazy ragamuffins who squandered everything, what they had, and even more... It so happened that the former accumulated wealth, and the latter, in the end, had nothing left to sell except their own skins. From the time of this fall comes the poverty of the broad masses, who, despite all their labor, still have nothing to sell but themselves, and the wealth of the few, which is constantly growing, although they stopped working a long time ago” [K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 23, pp. 725-726].

But capital did not remain at the level of primitive accumulation; it has increased enormously. Even if capital was originally the result of direct robbery, the question arises as to what is the source of the increase in capital that has occurred since then.

Hidden robbery, answers Marx. The capitalist forces the worker to work more hours than necessary to maintain the value of his labor power, and appropriates the value that he creates in the remaining hours of work - “surplus value”. The capitalist uses part of this surplus value for his existence; the remainder is used as new capital - the capitalist, so to speak, adds it to the previously existing capital and is thus able to hire more workers and obtain more surplus value in the next cycle of production, which in turn means an increase in capital, and so on ad infinitum.

True, this will continue indefinitely only until other economic and social laws come into effect. Ultimately, the most serious obstacle is the class struggle, which from time to time retards the entire process of reproduction of capital, and in the end destroys it completely, eliminating capitalist production. But there are many other obstacles to the smooth development of capitalism, which are also determined by the nature of capitalism.

Economic crises occur, delaying the process of increasing capital and even leading to the destruction of part of the capital accumulated in previous years. “During crises,” Marx wrote, “a social epidemic breaks out, which would have seemed absurd to all previous eras - an epidemic of overproduction” [K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 4, pp. 429-430]. In feudal society, a bountiful wheat harvest meant more food for everyone; in a capitalist society, this means starvation for workers who have lost their jobs, since wheat cannot be sold, and therefore less is sown the next year.

The features of capitalist crises were all too well known in the period between the two world wars; these include overproduction, as a result of which there is a decline in production and workers find themselves without work; unemployment means a further drop in market demand, which leads to many factories reducing production; no new enterprises are created, and some are even destroyed (for example, shipyards on the north-east coast of England or cotton spinning and weaving mills in Lancashire); wheat and other foodstuffs are destroyed, although the unemployed and their families suffer from hunger and disease. It's a crazy world; but at last the supplies are exhausted or destroyed, production begins to expand, trade develops, employment increases - and for a year or two there is a steady prosperity leading to a seemingly limitless expansion of production; and this continues until suddenly overproduction and crisis set in again, and then the whole process begins all over again.

What is the cause of crises? Marx answers: their reason is in the law of capitalist production, in the fact that capital strives to increase - to increase profits, and therefore to produce and sell more and more goods. As capital grows, production expands. But at the same time, the more capital, the less employment: machines replace people (what we now know as “rationalization” in industry). In other words, with the growth of capital, production expands and wages decrease, and therefore the demand for manufactured products decreases. (It should probably be made clear that this should not be absolute reduction in the total amount of wages; Usually a crisis occurs as a result comparative reductions, that is, the total amount of wages may actually increase rapidly, but it increases in at least than production; thus, demand lags behind output.)

This disproportion between the increase of capital and the relative stagnation of demand on the part of workers is the ultimate cause of crises. But, of course, the manifestation of the crisis and the specific path of its development may depend on other factors. For example, in the United States, since 1950, the arms race (that is, “demand” on the part of the government, which goes beyond the normal capitalist process) for a time partially hid the fact of the increase in crisis phenomena. Other factors play a similar role, such as government purchases of agricultural surpluses or the widespread use of consumer credit - installment sales. But none of these factors are closing the widening gap between production and consumption; they only delay the crisis. Then, in the development of capitalism there is another important factor - competition. Like all other factors of capitalist production, it has two contradictory results. On the one hand, in an effort to sell as many goods as possible, every capitalist enterprise constantly tries to reduce production costs, especially by saving on wages, either by directly cutting wages or by accelerating the introduction of mechanical devices, the newest form of which is known as automation. On the other hand, enterprises that have sufficient capital to improve their technology and produce products with less labor thereby contribute to the fall in demand, which occurs due to the fact that the total amount of wages paid to workers is reduced.

However, a business that improves its technology earns a higher rate of profit for a time until its competitors follow suit and also produce with less labor. But not everyone can do this. As the average enterprise expands more and more, more and more capital is needed to modernize it, and the number of companies that can sustain this pace decreases. Other enterprises disappear from the scene - they fail and are either absorbed by stronger competitors or destroyed completely. "One capitalist kills many." Thus, in each branch of industry, the number of independent enterprises is steadily decreasing: large trusts arise, which to a greater or lesser extent dominate the given branch of industry. Thus, from capitalist competition, its opposite is born - capitalist monopoly. It has new features, which are described in the next chapter.

From the book Change Immediately author Jiddu Krishnamurti

Chapter XXX. THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY Visitor: I'm not entirely sure that I'm asking the right question; but I have a strong feeling that the relationship between the individual and society, these two opposing entities, is a long history of misfortune.