Modernity: Marx and Foucault on Revolution in Modern Society

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In conclusion, Foucault’s concept of historical materialism is defined by the character of society, found in discourse and its interrelation to power. This is how temporary truth in society is constituted and therefore might explain, how this truth changes in the future (Olssen, 2004, p. 457-458).

Modern society

It should be acknowledged that Foucault and Marx lived in different time frames. Nevertheless, this essay sees these periods to be more alike than distinct, since both time frames can be characterized as ‘modern times’.

Marx: modern society and capitalism

Marx perceives the economic base as located at the heart of all other developments in society. In modern society, the economic system has become a capitalist framework. This capitalist framework can be seen everywhere. Marx describes society as he perceives his direct environment: the landscape contains railways and canals, people use electric telegraphs, whole continents are cultivated because of their raw materials, the population has grown exponentially and the forces of nature have become subject to the man. Workers are forced to move from the rural towns to the cities and as a result, the cities have grown exponentially. These cities themselves have come dominated by factories. Inside the factories, workers are concentrated. Marx compares the workers to soldiers and slaves of the Bourgeoisie. They are prisoners of the capitalist system (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 17-18).

As mentioned in Marx’ historical materialism, history evolves through the economic base, and therefore, he would define the world from his view as one defined by constant class struggle. It is therefore, that modern society is no different. In this world, the Bourgeoisie is the upper-class and the Proletariat is the class that works for the Bourgeoisie (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 14-16). Nonetheless, he suggests that modern society and its class-struggle are different. The Bourgeoisie has transformed private worth into exchange value and the labour of the working class has become a commodity, in order to sustain the capitalist system (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 16).

It is therefore, that the exploitation of the Proletariat is the most brutal of all in history (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 16). The only thing the Proletariat can do to survive is work. Through the division of labour, the worker has become an appendage of the machine, and only exercises monotonous work. He has therefore lost all sense of individuality and has become alienated (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 16-18). And since all members of his family need to work in order to survive as well, family relations have changed completely. The worker does not own any property himself, he and his family are all appropriated by the capitalist (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 16).

Marx remarks that the understanding or mental conceptions of members of society have completely changed, coevolving with the way they act in society. This can be perceived by investigating the struggle of the length of the working-day. It is only capitalist society that is defined by the tendency towards this struggle. This is not just because of the domination of the capitalist form of system, but also because of people’s relation to technology, nature, their social relations and their reproduction of daily life (Harvey & Marx, 2010, p. 199-200).

The capitalist system is a peril for members of society, but it is also a danger to itself (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 17-18). This is because of the the contradictions the system creates: crises appear in times of overproduction. Too many products are manufactured, a phenomenon the capitalists cannot handle. As a solution, the capitalists need to find new markets or look for ways to colonize other parts of the world. Hence, capitalism has a cosmopolitan character and eventually, the capitalist ideology will nestle everywhere (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 17-18). Overproduction will continue to occur and as a result, crises will become worse and worse. Eventually, these crises can only be prevented thorough exploiting the labourer more and more (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 17-19).

Communist revolution

Marx claims that the capitalist system is digging its own grave through its creation of the Proletariat (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 19-21). At first, the Proletariat will apply its frustration to the machines, since the workers are caught in the capitalist ideology, they do not know who their true enemies are. Eventually, they will know, which will lead to riots and Trade Unions to come into being (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 19-20). Nevertheless, the living condition of the workers will become worse, the Proletariat will ever grow, and a revolution will naturally develop (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 19-21).

Marx intends to a communistic society, in which private property has become public, in the hands of the Proletariat (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 22-21). Since the dominating economic base has changed, the superstructure of society will change as well. Communist society does not know any classes or class-struggles and as a consequence, equality will be found everywhere (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 22-23).

All that is necessary for this revolution to come into being is the origin of a developed capitalist society. Only from the starting point of capitalism, communism will develop from within the Proletariat (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 42).

Foucault: modern society and discipline

When it comes to modern society, Foucault advocates to not only take into consideration the economic base or class-struggle. Foucault does not prioritize any practices over others, but focuses on the constitution of power at all places in society.

As the starting point of his analysis of power, Foucault takes the body. He advocates that in order to investigate power, one must look at how power has become reality in the form of control, and in order to perceive this, one must take the body as focus. The aim of attention on the body has always been there, for example in the domination in the form of control over masses (Foucault, 1977, 135-137). But according to Foucault, the ways of gaining control over the body have changed since the 18th century. It has come to focus its view on the individual rather than the mass, it has come to produce efficiency out of the body rather than the significance of the movements and lastly, there is the focus on the supervising process of activity, in the form of partitioning time, space and movement. These processes together are called discipline. A necessary condition for