Marxism is a revolutionary theory and a guide to action for the working-class struggle against capitalism.
There are three parts to Marxism: materialism and dialectics; Marxist economics; and socialist revolution.
Karl Marx was a revolutionary, socialist, theorist of society and political economist. He drew on ideas developed across many societies and historical periods in philosophy, history, economics and natural science, critically studying earlier thinkers as well as the major currents of his own time. His early work included a close study of the materialist philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus. Marx critically developed what he learned from earlier thinkers into a new materialist understanding of society and history. Just as Darwin’s theory of evolution transformed the understanding of organic nature, Marx’s materialist conception of history transformed the understanding of human society.
Marx showed that people make history under material conditions they inherit from the past. Every society must produce and reproduce the means of life, and the social relations that develop through production form the material basis on which society develops. Political institutions, laws, culture and ideas are shaped by these conditions and by class struggle, Political institutions, laws, culture and ideas are shaped by these conditions and by class struggle, and they in turn influence the course of historical development. Marx devoted his greatest attention to studying the capitalist economic system. His principal work, “Capital,” examines how that system works.
Marx was not an academic observer. He was a revolutionary organizer and, with Frederick Engels, co-author of the “Communist Manifesto.” He took part directly in the class struggle, helping to organize the Communist League and later the International Working Men’s Association. The “Communist Manifesto” concludes “Proletarians of all countries, unite!” — which the Communist International at the Congress of the Peoples of the East in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1920 expanded to “Workers of the world and oppressed peoples, unite!” to reflect the development of monopoly capitalism and imperialism and the growing importance of the anti-colonial struggles of oppressed peoples.
Materialism and dialectics
Education and culture under capitalism teach us that greed and selfishness are simply human nature. Human beings have lived under many different forms of society, and their behavior has changed with the way they produced and shared the means of life. Capitalism rewards competition, private gain and exploitation, then calls the results natural and eternal. Marxism shows otherwise.
Dialectical materialism gives us a scientific way to understand change and development in nature and society. Historical materialism applies this materialist outlook to human history, showing that social relations arise under definite material conditions — and that people can change them. [read more]
Freedom and necessity
Freedom does not mean escaping the real conditions of life. Marxism begins from the opposite idea: the more people understand the natural and social conditions shaping their lives, the more consciously they can act together to improve them. Human freedom grows through knowledge, collective struggle and the ability to organize society around human needs. [read more]
Marxist economics
Capitalism surrounds us with wages, prices, profits, money and markets. Marx looked beneath these everyday forms to uncover the social relations that make them possible. Marxist economics explains how workers create value, how capitalists appropriate the surplus value produced by workers, why capital must continually expand and why the system repeatedly produces exploitation, inequality, crisis and war. [read more]
Capitalism and the environment
Marxism does not treat nature as an unlimited storehouse for human use. Human beings are part of nature and depend on it for life. But capitalism organizes production for profit and endless accumulation, turning land, water, forests, minerals and fossil fuels into sources of private wealth while leaving society to bear the damage — from poisoned communities to climate change. [read more]
The working class
The working class is much larger than the old stereotype of factory workers in hard hats. It includes the millions of people who must sell their labor power to live — from warehouse and hospital workers to teachers, drivers, restaurant workers and programmers. Marxism defines the working class by its position in capitalist society, not by occupation, income or lifestyle. [read more]
Class struggle
“The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.” “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” “Workers of the world, unite!” [read more]
Racism and oppressed nations
U.S. capitalism was built on the enslavement of Africans and the theft of Indigenous and Mexican land. Out of that history came a system of racism and national oppression that keeps whole peoples — Black, Latine, Asian, Native and Arab — as internal colonies of the ruling class. [read more]
Colonialism, land and Indigenous peoples
The United States was built on land taken from Indigenous peoples through conquest, forced removal and genocide. Marxism connects this history to the rise and expansion of capitalism: land was seized, turned into private property and opened to settlement, corporations and profit. Indigenous resistance continues today in struggles for land, sovereignty, treaty rights and self-determination. [read more]
Class solidarity
One of the greatest weapons that workers and oppressed people possess against the bosses and capitalists is our unity. [read more]
Women’s oppression
The oppression of women in the 21st century takes many forms and reaches into every part of social life. Women belong to every class, but working-class and oppressed women bear the heaviest burdens. [read more]
LGBTQ+ oppression
For much of modern history, lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer people were brutalized and forced into invisibility. Marxism traces this oppression to the development of class society, private property and the patriarchal family, which imposed rigid roles on gender, sexuality and family life. [read more]
Self-determination
All workers share the same class interests. The fight to end capitalist exploitation demands the closest unity and trust among them. But when a section of the working class belongs to an oppressed nation and faces racist oppression over and above class exploitation, the brutal policies of national oppression and divide-and-conquer weaken the working class as a whole and make unity far harder to achieve. [read more]
Culture
Culture reaches into every part of social life. It is part of the superstructure. Our thoughts, ideas, language, arts and forms of human expression are shaped by and connected to society’s culture. [read more]
How the state arose
When Marxists speak of the state, they do not mean New York, Ohio or California. They mean the machinery through which one class rules another, including the government, courts, police, prisons and armed forces. [read more]
The state today
As U.S. imperialism loses the overwhelming economic and industrial dominance it held after World War II, the ruling class relies increasingly on one of the most expensive state machines in human history. The federal military budget alone has passed $1 trillion, not counting the classified budgets of intelligence and paramilitary agencies like the CIA. [read more]
Reform and revolution
Workers fight for reforms because higher wages, civil rights, housing, healthcare and protection from racist oppression matter now. But reforms do not end capitalist class rule. Marxists fight for every gain while organizing for the transfer of political power from the capitalist class to the working class. [read more]
Socialism and socialist revolution
Socialism is not capitalism with better benefits or a few industries run by the government. It begins when the working class takes political power from the capitalists, brings the great means of production into social ownership and reorganizes society planned for human need instead of private profit. [read more]
Soviet socialism
The capitalists say the destruction of the Soviet Union proved that socialism cannot work. But the Soviet Union was a workers’ state born in a backward, war-ravaged country and surrounded by imperialism from the start. How did the Soviet people build socialism under those conditions — and why was it overturned? [read more]