Hey, Alan.

[Still Jack]

I'm writing a paper on why Marx thought Capitalism would self destruct. I've covered the main points like alienation of the workers and a zero sum economic strategy. I need a couple more good points though. Have you got any suggestions?

[vindicatedxjin]

Capitalism is chaotic in nature, therefore uncontrollable.

[Alan]

Capitalism wouldn't self-destruct; it just has an expiration date.
Are you looking for specifically Marx's writings or just overall marxist theory?

[Still Jack]

Just overall Marxist theory in general. By self destruct the title means expiration date. Hallam aren't brilliant at wording their questions clearly.

[HumanePain]

I found that The Worldly Philosophers: the lives, times and ideas of the great economic thinkers by Robert L. Helluvaboner ...er...I mean HeilBroner...to be at just the right level to reach me without the debilitating microscopic detail that Marx wrote.

[Alan]

Man, I have very little time, I'm sorry. I'll try to elaborate more tomorrow, but remember that it's all about alienation.
Look for alienation and reification, and read the communist manifesto.

[Still Jack]

Why did Karl Marx believe that capitalism is destined to self-destruct?
Karl Marx is a Political-Theorist and sociologist from Trier , Germany. He is best known for being a revolutionary Communist. Much of his work remains resonant and relevant in many current issues as it inspired many communist regimes of the 20th century. His most famous works are The Communist Manifesto and Capital, both of which were co-authored by his friend Friedrich Engels.
Marx's view of capitalism is very two sided. He criticizes the dehumanizing qualities of the system, making a point that the capitalism as a social structure promotes alienation, exploitation and cyclical depression which in turn bring about mass unemployment. On the other hand capitalism also promotes development, growth and progress through the technological advances.
Capitalism creates two classes. The bourgeoisie and the proletariat. They are in direct competition with each other. Marx does mention a middle class, but ultimately aligns the two together. Marx feels that capitalism exploits the proletariat. The proletariat is defined by Marx as a class of people that are essentially labourers who only live as long as they find work and they only find work as long as their labour increases capital. Marx believes that capitalism exploits the working class as they are not truly regarded as people any more, but make them feel like appendages to machines by the decision making process of the management. The characteristics of the bourgeoisie force capitalism to exploit the working-class . Monetary value of people is valued higher than actual characteristics of individuals . The working-class is only seen as a part of the mechanism as opposed to people. The bourgeoisie have the specific role of exploiting the working-class as part of the capitalistic system as the entire system is geared towards profit.
Marx believed that Capitalism's very nature would ensure that eventually, these classes would struggle against one another to the point where the class of workers would get large enough and oppressed enough that it would overthrow the bourgeoisie, seize the means of production from it and end the economic system known as capitalism. The system of socialism would be ushered in and gradually evolve into pure communism. It is also important to point out that Marx did not view capitalism as an aberration in society's evolution toward true freedom, but as a necessary historical stage in that evolution.
Evolution is a key term in Marxist theory and is cemented in the scientific and social philosphy of the nineteenth century. Some critics observe that, given the nature of the human species, Marx's theory is very Utopian. He believed that human beings should not suffer under one monotonous form of work, that doesn't produce pride or satisfaction , but rather a sense of alienation. Marx believed that a human being could and should be a philosopher in the morning, a gardener in the afternoon, and perhaps a poet in the evenings. Despite his Utopian traits, Marx thought of himself as a social scientist. His work illustrates important aspects in the history of human society. Marx's theories demonstrate how capitalism is not a self sustaining economic state as it is entirely one sided and not balanced . Capitalism promotes anger and jealousy; thus creating a social divide that can only be removed if the proletariat revolt.
Marx also assumed a Zero-Sum game world. It's the fairly simple concept that one participants gain is another participants loss. His main thought was that the economic world cannot function like this long term , essentially putting an expiration date on capitalism as a whole. He assumed that once the Bourgeoisie had “won the game” there would be little to nothing left for the Proletariat to live off.
He believed that this would create a volatile situation that would eventually culminate in the working-class revolting. This would in turn bring about a Socialist society which would be governed by the working-class. He went further to believe that Socialism would also in turn be replaced by a Stateless, classless system known as pure communism.
Some theorists believe that Marx was wrong and didn't fully understand capitalism. They think that the proletariat being happy to work and improve their lifestyle doing so never occurred to him. They believe this is why Marx thought that capitalism would inevitably implode. They go on to argue that Marx has misunderstood the concept of money and that it is merely and abstract representation of value, not unlike a glorified “I owe you”.
Said theorists think that Marx seemed to believe that money was an object in its own right and not just a tool to simplify trade. Marx also seemed to not realise that the “number of currency” can rise without taking anything from anyone else. Marx believes there is a set number of Pounds or whatever currency. And that to raise your “number of currency” You have to take away from someone else. According to the opposed theorists, Marx believed that the rich got richer at the cost of the poor and that this concept was infallible.
In “Capital” , however this concept is thoroughly rejected by Marx. He believes that the amount of labour that goes into an object dictate its value. Marx produced a theory called commodity fetishism. This theory dictates that: a 100€ note is not really worth 100€. It is just viewed as such because people accept it as currency and thus the holder of a 100€ note has the power to claim 100€ worth of goods.
Due to this exchange relationship the buyer is worth 100€ to the seller as all that matters is the fact that the holder of the 100€ note has the power to purchase 100€ worth of goods. The seller claims that the goods that are for sale are worth 100€ and the buyer believes they are not worth more than this. The 100€ note merely provides that holder with the power to consume things that he didn't have the power to create himself. Marx called this concept commodity fetishism, because the word “fetish” used to be used to describe a worshiped object when studying primitive cultures and religions. Marx was suggesting that capitalism is primitive and that socialism and eventually pure communism were inevitably the future.
Marx's main argument in Capital is that, due to independent private producers trading on their own initiative with little to no co-ordination whatsoever, the production volumes can only be adjusted by the floating value of the produce in the marketplace. This is why he comes to the conclusion that social relationships are constantly controlled by commodities as they are being mediated and expressed through trade. Relationships between products are brought into being which can exist regardless of what of what people do , no matter what social relationships are in progress. How these objects are related depends on their production which eventually depends on a human work . In reality, however, the human that makes the products rarely has any control over the destiny of said product.
Marx theorises that the effect of this is that the relationships between things eventually begin to dominate the relationships between individuals. This brings with it that the individuals are constantly adjusting, consciously or unconsciously to the changing value proportions of things over which they have absolutely no control. This is because no-one can control the economy. This is where the saying comes from “The things that you own, eventually end up owning you” (1). The value of objects gain an independent power because of this. The market seems to balance to supply and demand , but people no longer see the human element behind this , which makes it all possible. In modern economics, humans play little to no role anymore. This is because people only see self interested traders who are trading things and associating as individuals as they see necessary. They are brought together by the marketplace. This is the reason that cooperation is only focused on people insofar as they can be organized to produce the merchandise which is then put on the market. This is where the Marx's suggestion of bourgeoisie power over the working-class comes in once more.
This is where Marx tries to prove that markets can function perfectly well with people buying and selling without fully understanding the nature of the market, capitalism and the social set up they partake in ,day in – day out. If the economy is working then they consider it a good thing, if it isn't, it's considered a bad thing . Most, however have not got the faintest idea of what they are participants in and why they are participating in it. True knowledge about capitalism and the marketplace is not required to partake. Marx thought capitalism would eventually expire because he expected the proletariat to eventually understand the marketplace and capitalism as an oppressive economic system and then rebel.
In conclusion. Marx believed that capitalism was unbalanced and thus unsustainable. He believed that the bourgeoisie would oppress the workers so much in trying to get maximum profit out of their ventures, that they would eventually rise up and there would be a revolution. Following this revolution, Marx believed the capitalist state would be replaced by a state run by the working-class, or proletariat, essentially socialism. This in turn, would be replaced by Communism, a classless state where everyone would have equal rights. In essence Marx believed that the implosion of capitalism was destined as it had the flaws within itself that could trigger self destruction.
l.

[Still Jack]

This is initially what I wrote if anyone is bothered.

[Alan]

Sorry, I should have responded to this earlier. I guess you already delivered the paper but if it helps you in the future here are some things:

In my harshest criticism, you didn't accomplish what you wanted to do. You explained Marx's basic ideas, and how capitalism is only historically contingent, but you didn't explain why.
Capitalism is undesirable for the majority of the people, so they will want its end, and then it will be replaced with socialism according to Marx, but why would this happen? We see it's desirable but how would it be possible? And if it's possible, why hasn't it happened yet?
That would be the real essence of a paper on the self-destruction of capitalism.


But if it didn't have to be specifically about that, it's a good paper. It reads like a wikipedia entry, which to me, unless you're making a dissertation, is a good quality, not a bad one.
If you want to put more depth in it but still keep it well within the grasp of any reader, you could expand on Marx's philosophy as a materialist extension of Hegel. Your paper sounds very American. "Why must this happen? Because it's good that it does." Karl Marx would say something more within the likes of "Why must this happen? Because it's the only logical direction capitalism can follow."
The former is pragmatist, the latter is Hegelian. Don't think of them as dichotomous, but amending the former with the latter would take away the vague idealism of it ("We want liberty and equality") and anchor it to humankind's real historical development ("THIS is what liberty means. THIS is what equality means. And we want it now.")
That difference would also be a good way of brushing off the claims that Marx was utopian, when in fact there was a whole branch of socialism rightly called utopian socialism, and Marx was one of their biggest critics.

Other things would be to specify what "oppression" really means. It's not as simple as it seems.
You could also further expand on the role of the bourgeoisie in capitalism and socialism. Marx didn't see the bourgeoisie as the enemy, so much as the existence of a bourgeoisie. The people who are born bourgeois have as much to win as the proletariat, but they won't be the ones to go against the structure - not as a class. They have much to win but they also have much to lose. The proletariat has nothing to lose.

Finally, going back to just capitalism, if you want to go further than just Marx, you could also talk about Lenin's idea of imperialism as the highest form of capitalism. Capitalism needs external markets for it to keep growing, because capitalism can't NOT grow. We see examples like the Opium Wars to open a whole new market.
So imperialism is desirable for capitalism, but what happens when the whole world is already one of empires and colonies? What happens when there's no more geographic space for capitalism to expand?
That was the main difference between Marx's times and Lenin's times. The world had already been claimed by the major powers. Capitalism would need a whole new strategy to stay alive, or to delay its impending suicide if you will. In the age of imperialism capitalism must go past primitive accumulation to survive.

[Still Jack]

Yo, cheers lots for the critique. Actually helped me understand Marx a lot more.

[Still Jack]

I'm never posting any of my full academic shit to the internet ever again without referencing it to myself. Because of me posting this on here, I'm now being investigated for plagiarism and have to justify myself to 3 tutors. I'm a twat for not thinking that far, but hey, you live and you learn...

[Corpsey]

Oh boy, Jack. What's the best way to clear your name on something like this? I'm wary about anything I post on the internet myself, for exactly that reason. I think even Alan did so once, but only after he had been marked for it.

Hope your tutors have kind hearts dude.

[Saya]

Sorry to hear Jack Now I feel like a twat because I thought it wasn't a good idea when you first posted it, but didn't say anything since it was long after the edit window time by the time I saw it and I didn't want to make you worry when there's nothing you can do >.<

[Still Jack]

It's not too tragic, My tutors are nice, reasonable people, I'm pretty sure they can see that I've been a bit of a moron and let me off.

[Alan]

I had this happen to me once also. But don't fell you're a moron. You know it's you and it's easy to prove. There's no plagiarism.