Sociology class: Marxist view of the family

[Lanky Wanker]

I'm doing some sociology work right now at school, and we're looking at different views on the family. It generally explains the Marxist views by saying "Marxists argue that...", however, I just stumbled across a section that actually surprised me in its wording:



A unit of consumption

Capitalism exploits the labour of its workers, making a profit by selling the products of their labour for more than it pays them to produce these commodities.

...


It obviously has criticisms of the Marxist view(s) on the family, but it just surprises me how we are (for once) actually supposed to read this as an accepted fact, yet the people studying it do not even take into consideration the idea that our current system is exploitative. They go back to their dreams of being rich off a big business they will one day own. Ignoring a view is one thing, but when it's presented to people -- who generally accept whatever they are told regarding such topics -- as a fact, it makes me question how indoctrinated we really are as a society.

[Strannik]

Capitalist exploits the labour of workers by selling them the product of their labour for more than it took the workers to produce it.

Let me see if I can get this right:

So first capitalist says that in order to produce what you want, people, you should spend some of your time in my servitude. You have to produce the TV and then another TV so I allow you to use my tools.

Then it tells the people - look, since you have to work so much to produce TV's it is only fair that you work for two TV's worth in order to buy one TV.

Somehow, if you translate the productive relations into capitalist, working class and lifetime, capitalism starts to appear really absurd, but I'm afraid my english and mental capacity are not enough to do this with a neat little sentence.

[runequester]

I'm doing some sociology work right now at school, and we're looking at different views on the family. It generally explains the Marxist views by saying "Marxists argue that...", however, I just stumbled across a section that actually surprised me in its wording:



It obviously has criticisms of the Marxist view(s) on the family, but it just surprises me how we are (for once) actually supposed to read this as an accepted fact, yet the people studying it do not even take into consideration the idea that our current system is exploitative. They go back to their dreams of being rich off a big business they will one day own. Ignoring a view is one thing, but when it's presented to people -- who generally accept whatever they are told regarding such topics -- as a fact, it makes me question how indoctrinated we really are as a society.

The system has been set up for many years to teach people to accept two simple facts:

1: That it is good for 1 man to to succeed, while 15 others fail.

2: That when the 15 fail, it was because they didn't work hard enough.

Almost every neo-liberal line of thought will come back to these two points, in virtually every instance.

[¿Que?]

Plus not to mention the liberal reformists, who accept said statements as fact, but seek only to ameliorate deplorable conditions that will always exist or some such rubbish.

[runequester]

Plus not to mention the liberal reformists, who accept said statements as fact, but seek only to ameliorate deplorable conditions that will always exist or some such rubbish.

Right. Fundamentally if people starve in the streets, at some point they'll come kill the rich and take their stuff.
Being murdered and robbed isn't big on most corporate agendas, so enter welfare.

Of course, we come back to the "lazy and dumb" part again here, as part of a persistent campaign of demonizing those who aren't succeeding, rather than address the faults of the system itself.