Synopsis:
- What is the value of a product (time/cost of producing it vs price people are willing to pay for it)
- The capitalist class exploits the working class by keeping the "surplus value" produced by the working class
- By reinvesting the "surplus value" the capitalist class increases its control of society
- The working class is "alienated" because producer and product are separated
- Private property is the result of the process of alienation, and viceversa
- The working class is further alienated because the capitalists own the production system
- The interest of capitalists is to maximize profits
- Society is divided into two antagonistic classes: proletariat (workers) and bourgeoisie (owners of production)
- The division of labor alienates workers from the product of their labors
- Workers do not own the product of their work
- Workers give more than they receive
- Socialism: all citizens own the means of production
- Just distribution of wealth and services
- Human needs, not profits
- Communism: full equality, class-less society
- The economic system of a civilization (the way the civilization produces goods) determines the organization of its society
- Society is organized in social classes that struggle for power
- Hegel's dialectics must be applied to classes instead of nations
- Hegel's idealistic dialectics recast as "materialistic" dialectics (historical/dialectic materialism)
- The history of humanity is the history of class struggles
- All nations go through five economic stages: slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism (collective ownership of property), communism (rule of the people)
- The ultimate goal of history is a class-less society of peers (Hegelian synthesis = communism)
- Society with government (as a separate institution) will evolve into communism
- The working-class shall overthrow the capitalist class
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