Karl Marx
Humanities Seminar IIIntellectual Heritage ProgramTemple UniversityFall 2015Instructor: Matthew J. Smetona, Ph.D
Write an analytic essay of four to six pages answering the questions listed below. Use relevant textual citations to support your argument. The essay is due on Friday, November 13th. It should be submitted to the instructor via the blackboard website for the course (https://blackboard.temple.edu/).Why does
Marx believe that the social production relation in capitalist society appears to be based on freedom and equality when viewed as a relation between individuals, but is in fact a relation based on exploitation and domination when viewed as a relation between the members of distinct social classes? In answering this question, be sure to explain the concepts of labor-power and surplus-value.
Explain Marx’s concept of a general law of capitalist accumulation (N.B. this law is not to be confused with the general formula for capital) and his argument about the historical tendency of capitalist accumulation.
Finally, explain how Marx’s demonstration of the social and historical character of the relation between capitalists and workers in capitalist society parallels Mary Wollstonecraft’s argument about the relation between men and women in modern society.