Political Economy Part 1

In this three part series, Taylor talks about political economy and Marxist theory. In this first video, Taylor goes over Marxist context and some basic terminology to help you understand the Capitalism K.

First, Taylor details who Marx is and how he was influenced by societal transition during the the industrial revolution. Societal transition was caused by both the replacing human labor with machines and from moving away from an agrarian society towards one focused on urban centers. Urban centers caused workers to labor in factories which sparked Marx’s interest in writing critically about Capitalism. Industrial society as a whole changed as well because a worker engages in just one part of the process in a factory instead of every part of the economic process as they would as an artisan. Workers are alienated from their labor because they no longer have the skills necessary to make the entire product they produce and because the money goes to the factory owned by the capitalist boss, not directly to the worker.