EDUC 200 Foundation/Philosophy of Education

UNIT X. MARXISM and Education

Prepared by Arnold G. Onia & Sherilyn P. Dalit ORIGIN OF MARXISM When Friedrich Engel, visited Karl Marx in 1844 in Paris, France, they found out that they had independently arrived at identical views on the nature of revolutionary problems. They began a collaboration to clarify systematically the theoretical principles of communism and to organize an international working-class movement dedicated to those principles, later known as scientific socialism or Marxism. They had accepted the basic form of Hegels dialectic of history, but made crucial modifications. For them history was a matter of the development not of Absolute Spirit but of the material conditions governing humanitys economic existence. In their view, later known as historical materialism, the history of society is a history of class struggle in which the ruling class uses religion and other traditions and institutions, as well as its economic power, to reinforce its domination over the working classes. Human culture, according to Marx, is dependent on economic (material) conditions and serves economic ends. Religion, he concluded, is the opiate of the masses that serves the political end of suppressing mass revolution. Marxism is a theory of revolution, of history, of economics, and of politics, and it served as the ideology for Communism. THE PHILOSOPHY OF KARL MARX Marx developed the theory put forth by British economist David Ricardo that the value of an object is measured by the labor required to produce it. Marx claimed that the owners of the means of production, who he called the capitalists or bourgeoisie, exploited the proletariatthat is, the working classby paying them only a small fraction of the value of their labor and keeping the surplus value for themselves. Marx also claimed the competitive capitalist system forced capitalists to pay workers as little as possible and replace the workers with machinery to reduce production costs and increase profits. Marx insisted that the capitalists inevitably would grow richer and the workers poorer. Eventually the exploited workers would rebel, overthrow the capitalist system, and create a classless society. The means of production, or capital, would then be owned by the community and each person would contribute his or her best efforts and be paid according to need. CONTRIBUTION TO EDUCATION - Polytechnic Education - On-the-job-training

PHILOSOPHY MARXISM

UNIQUE FEATURE - Treats the school as a deliberate instrument of state policy - Labor is the central preoccupation of the school - Atheistic - Realistic - Materialistic - Morals taught originate in class thinking - Uses Indoctrination specially in matters of Party Policy