Karl Marx
If Buddha has openned my eyes to see the world as-it-is
beyond maya, Marx has openned my eyes into how socioeconomic really
works beyond the value illusion. Although I disagreed strongly with
his historicist position, his humanistic part of historic materialism
concept truely become the center of my thought on the historical development
of the society and its system in general.
In my own interpretation, all value is derived from
labor in a sense that it is our works, internally originated in our
own being, that has put into the object of value. Although we allow
the society to judge the value externally, but without the realization
of our own internal value, we will never become self-sufficient i.e.
content with oneself. Without that, human become the slave of their
own alienated value projected outside into physical objects or external
systems of value created by external authority. The examples are plenty,
from people who never satisfy with themselves due to endless desire
of money or endless need of social acceptance.
The idea that the superstructure (culture, power
structure, etc.) is dermined by economic mode of production. As the
consciousness is determined by his social being and his social being
is determined by the existing capitalist mode of production. Therefore,
all the ideology of modern men (i.e. of profit accumulation as highest
acheivement of one's life) and all the socio-economic systems existed
in modern day are simply for one purpose. That purpose is the same
of capitalist system, to accumulate more and more capital.
The ideology manifested itself into everybody in
the society through the values of accumulating more money and endless
demand of physical objects. It also give a great insight on how the
world economy and its international political economic structure are
actually under the powerstructure of few powerful capitalists, from
the multinational corporation to IMF and the Federal Reserves.
Marx gave me a fundamental understanding of how
the economics of capitalism works and how other economics system has
worked from the past. He also reminded me that capitalism is one of
the mode of production, it's not the ultimate fact with respect to
thousand years of economic history. However, he is rather apocalyptic
by claiming that capitalism would only live for couple of century
while other mode last for thousand of years. I don't agree that the
capitalism will destroyed itself in the near future, I took a rather
different point of view. I used Marx's analysis to understand the
nature of capitalism and its problem.
Yet, I truely believe that capitalism is the best
thing ever happened to the world economically. Hence, we should try
to improve it rather then wait for its destruction and rebuild the
whole new utopia like in radical socialist position. For me, Marx
provides one of the best approach to look at the world and its political
economic structure in a much more insightful and realist way than
the neoclassical view.
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