MARXISM CRITICISM

FUNDAMENTAL PREMISES OF MARXISM

Marxism gives importance to the economic system of the society. Getting and keeping economic power is the motive behind all social and political activities. Marxist classifies the base structure and super structure. It is by means of economic power, the structure of the society is identified. By means of socioeconomic condition two groups are classified; bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The former group controls the world's natural, economic and human resources whereas the later group is powerless from the point of view of socioeconomic condition. Bourgeoisie are the haves and proletariat are the haves not.

However, the economically strong group uses different weapons to control the proletariat. However the proletariat always fight for their rights. In this way, the history of class struggle develops. The religion, race, ethnicity or genders are the means through which oppression continues.

This is how Marxism values economic relationship as the base to identify social relationship. In the capitalist society, the conflict between the base and super structure always continues till the proletariat get victory over bourgeoisie. Social, political and cultural identity is built around socioeconomic condition.

Base and Superstructure are two concepts in Karl Marx’s view of human society. The base is the basic way a society organizes the production of goods. It includes employer-employee work conditions, the technical division of labor, and property relations, which people enter into to produce the necessities and amenities of life. The superstructure of a society includes its culture, institutions, political power structures, roles, rituals, and norms. The base determines the superstructure; however the superstructure does often influence the base. Marx argued that the superstructure grows out of the base, and reflects the interests of the ruling class that controls the base. As such, it justifies how the base operates, and the power of the ruling class.

From a sociological standpoint, it is important to recognize that neither the base nor the superstructure is naturally occurring, nor are they static (motionless). They are both social creations (created by people in a society), and both are the accumulation (collection) of social processes and interactions (A mutual or reciprocal action; interacting) between people that are constantly playing out, shifting, and evolving (developing).

THE CLASS SYSTEM IN AMERICA

It is important to recognize that Marx viewed the structure of society in relation to its major classes, and the struggle between them as the engine of change in this structure. Class is determined by property, not by income or status. These are determined by distribution and consumption, which itself ultimately reflects the production and power relations of classes. The social conditions of bourgeoisie production are defined by bourgeois property. Class is therefore a theoretical and formal relationship among individuals.

Marxism values the socioeconomic condition for the formation of the class system. Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat are the two groups of people according to Karl Marx. However, in the context of America it is different.

Americans value individualism. In some of the situations, the worker is economically more powerful than the factory owner. For Karl Marx, factory owner is the bourgeoisie and worker is the proletariat. It means the worker falls in the powerless group. So, in America the class system is decided on the basis of socioeconomic lifestyle. When the worker is economically secured, he falls within the bourgeoisie. The homeless, poor and financially weak fall in the proletariat. It means the categorization of class system in America slightly differs from that of other countries. Americans have the dream for individual prosperity. It is so because they have been brought up in the capitalist culture.

This is how class system in America is decided on the basis of the lifestyle of the people as well as their financial security. For them socioeconomic life style is better than the class. The placement of class is comparatively complex in the context of America. 

THE ROLE OF IDEOLOGY

Marxists believe that ideology plays significant role to foster individual in the society. It is a belief, system that controls and guards the individual. Human behavior and nature are the products of an ideology.

Marxism attacks on capitalist ideology. In the context of America people are influenced by the capitalist culture. The American dream is the ideology of Americans. It makes people one sided and all the time they like to uplift socioeconomic condition. Karl Marx believes that ideology is based on the interest of the power holders. Classism values individual as the social being whereas capitalist ideology values rugged (broken/tough) individualism. Patriotism as an ideology leads the poor to see themselves only as the members of own nation. In the same way religion makes the poor feel satisfied with the luck. They feel that their luck is the gift of god. Rugged individualism as an ideology makes everyone think that they should think only about themselves and not about society. Consequently, the person becomes selfish. Consumerism as an ideology makes the people think superior only on the basis of the objects they use. It means people value the object only from the point of view of sign-exchange value.

Classism, Patriotism, religion, individualism and consumerism are the major ideologies that have been implanted in the minds of people. As a result of this, people no longer become the member of the society; rather they give importance only for the self-interest. Consequently, power holders can handle can handle them according to their own desire. In this way, ideology is the means to exploit the people who are economically weak.

HUMAN BEHAVIOR; THE COMMODITY & THE FAMILY:

Even if Karl Marx gives importance to economic system of the society, he values human behavior in the society, the process of commodification and the feeling of the family members to each others.

Factory workers are called alienated labors by Marx. They are alienated labors because they don’t have the identity of their own. Not only the produced objects but also the workers are treated as machine in capitalist system. Human value is decided on the basis of the objects they can buy. It means capitalism damages individual human behavior. An object has three different values: 

• Use Value
• Exchange Value
• Sign-Exchange Value

Capitalists always like to treat an object from the point of view of exchange value or sign-exchange value. It is the process of commodification. An object is valued mostly because it can uplift one's social status. Not only the objects, but also human relationship is commodified in capitalist economy. When a person develops the relation with others only to uplift economic or social position. Either the person uses it as exchange value or sign-exchange value, it is the process of commodification.

Only by means of the extension of market economy, capitalism survives. For this, capitalist give importance to sign-exchange value. They spread imperialism so as to colonize the world through market. In the present world people are directly or indirectly colonized. It has become so by means of economic and cultural domination. America, for example is developing imperialism through economic and cultural domination throughout the world.

Human behavior is analyzed only from the point of view of economic prosperity. In the same way not only the objects, but also the person is commodified in capitalist society. Objects as well as human beings are analyzed either from the point of view of sign-exchange value or from the point of view of exchange value. Consequently, family relationship as well is changed to money relationship. Marxist critics examine the human behavior as a result of ideological forces. Family relationship is converted into money relationship because of different ideological and socioeconomic system.

A MARXIST READING OF 'THE GREAT GATSBY'

The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a short novel written during early 20^th century. This novel was written in the environment in which people developed the desire to be rich as fast as possible. The novel seems to be a manifestation of American Dream. Due to the effect of capitalist ideology even human beings are treated as commodity.

Marxist interpretation of the novel makes it clear that this novel fails to fulfill American Dream. This novel criticizes capitalist ideology and capitalist culture. Most of the objects as well as human beings are commodified in the novel. Either they are treated from the point of view of exchange value or from the point of view of sign-exchange value. Tom Buchanan is the wealthiest person in the novel. He uses money and social rank to buy Mrs. Wilson and many other people. His marriage to Daisy is also related to commodification. Capitalism promotes the belief that human value is decided by the property s/he owns. Tom treats others as the object that he can buy. In the same way Daisy rejects Gatsby at the beginning and accepts Tom for the reason that she gives importance to Tom’s sign-exchange value. Daisy likes tom till up to the point that she doesn’t know the real identity of Gatsby. Her affair with Gatsby is only to promote her position which she fails.

Jay Gatsby is the protagonist of this novel. He embodies the American Dream. Within a short period of time, Gatsby has risen from extreme poverty to extreme wealth. It is through his hard work, he is successful to earn money. However, all the objects like as library, swimming pool and boat are used from the point of view of sign-exchange value. However, his commodity signs are almost all empty. He wishes Daisy through his sign-exchange value but he fails. Gatsby’s failure is the failure of American Dream. The narrator of the novel Nick as well likes to promote his position through Gatsby. He romanticizes Gatsby mostly because he is likely to get the benefit from Gatsby. Gatsby’s fulfillment of dream, he think, is likely to give benefit for him.

Thus, this novel is a critique of capitalism. The victims of the novel are Wilsons. Even the Great Gatsby becomes the victim mostly because he fails to attain American Dream. It is so because even human relationships are commodified in the novel. The Great Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan exploit others thinking that human beings can be bought and sold as Tom does to Wilson. 

Interpretation 1:

The economics of class

A Marxist approach to The Great Gatsby might be concerned with the representations of social class, and the ways in which power and wealth are attained and retained by the characters. Looking at the novel as a whole, it is seen to depict mostly the very wealthy members of society, who do not work and spend much of their time at leisure. There are some minor characters who are less wealthy, and a smaller number of servants and workers who are glimpsed working in the novel. 

Consumers

Tom and Daisy never work, and Tom is said to be extraordinarily rich. He was a footballer, but having retired from this at a very young age, is now ‘restless’ and diverts himself with acquiring commodities, reading racist texts and his many affairs.

Nick is one of the less wealthy characters, and works in the stock exchange, but is still financially secure as his family is economically stable enough to support him in his work. Nick’s occupation as a ‘bond man’ is never described in detail; it involves trading in debt, which was a growing aspect of the economy, enabling the boom in consumer spending which supported the growth in manufacture. This was a new type of stock trading at the time and Nick has to learn about it himself. 

Gatsby is introduced at the height of his power and success, and is associated purely with pleasure and extravagantly expensive pursuits such as throwing parties, driving luxury cars and going out in a hydroplane. However, we see hints of Gatsby’s work, in the secretive phone calls and references to gangster activity, and it becomes clear that his wealth is based on criminality. 

Unfair privilege

The darker aspects of the American economy are embodied in the figures of Gatsby, Wolfsheim and the menacing, shadowy voices of Slagle and other callers. Bootlegging, fixing sporting events and cheating are clear examples of a social and economic system which is unfairly organized to privilege some people over others. Gatsby also seems to use a network of contacts in order to escape justice, as he presents a ‘white card’ to the policeman when caught speeding. 

Changing class

An element of Gatsby’s life which would be interesting to a Marxist critic is the revelation that he began life as the son of ‘shiftless and unsuccessful farm people’ and had been consistently determined to change his economic status. Marxist ideology would not recognize this as an achievement, since this mobility merely reinforces the unfair economic divide between rich and poor as opposed to dismantling the system completely. 

The glass ceiling

Socially aspirational, Gatsby hides his origins, concocting elaborate stories to pretend he has a higher status. This highlights the distinctions made in American society between ‘old money’ (inherited wealth, based on a long family tradition of wealth) and the ‘newly rich’ such as Dan Cody and Gatsby (each becomes a millionaire in a short space of time). Tom and Mr. Sloane, in Chapter 6, clearly recognise the subtle social distinction, while Gatsby does not, leaving him excluded from their supper party.

Nick’s comments would require consideration in a Marxist reading of the text:

The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God – a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that – and he must be about His Father’s Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty.

Such a blasphemous claiming of Jesus’ words from the New Testament in Luke 2:49) establish Gatsby as having great ambition, if not delusions of grandeur. The ‘business’ appears, however, to be very worldly and ‘vulgar’, a reference to the pursuit of money – the total opposite of Christ’s teaching in Luke 6:20-21. 

The proletariat

George Wilson is the antithesis of Gatsby, someone who has worked hard and diligently for a long time, without gaining wealth or status. Wilson comes into contact with the wealthy people of West Egg and East Egg, as he attempts to make money from repairing and trading used cars and selling gas, but his hard work seems to facilitate their easy lives. Even in killing Gatsby, it could be argued that Wilson is exploited by Tom, doing the work that Tom is not willing to undertake. 

A Marxist reading of the text would focus on Wilson as a representative of the proletariat, and the depiction of the valley of ashes, located on the journey between Long Island and New York City. It has been said that Fitzgerald based this location on the Corona Ash Dumps, a place where ashes were dumped from coal furnaces. This waste product of a booming industry is perhaps analogous with the idea of workers being dispensable and worthless. Aside from Michaelis, who has a role as narrator via Nick, almost all the other workers in the text are anonymous, such as Nick’s ‘Finnish woman’, the faceless chauffeurs, butlers and other servants.

Female economic status

The highest status female characters in the text do not work, although Jordan is apparently ‘absolutely in training’ as she is a professional golfer. However, her reputation is tainted by rumors of cheating, we never see her working, and Tom dismisses her claim to be in training with the comment, ‘How you ever get anything done is beyond me.’ Moreover, Daisy and Jordan are often presented as motionless, sitting or reclining, and when they do move it is ‘languidly’. 

Myrtle differs from these women in that her socio-economic status is much lower, but she is more active in seeking to attain the symbols of wealth when she is staying at Tom’s apartment and using his money. She is single-mindedly acquisitive:

I’m going to make a list of all the things I’ve got to get. A massage and a wave and a collar for the dog and one of those cute little ashtrays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother’s grave that’ll last all summer.

It could be argued that, as Tom’s mistress, and in many ways similar to the wives in the rest of the novel, Myrtle has access to his wealth in return for her domestic and sexual contribution to the partnership. Daisy, in this respect, is very similar to Myrtle as she values Tom’s wealth so highly that she prefers Tom despite her apparent love for Gatsby. This occurs twice, underlining the idea that Daisy appraises Tom’s wealth as greater and more secure. Gatsby and Tom are equally degraded in this competition, yet each encourages Daisy to judge them in material terms rather than on any personal aspects. 

Emotion before economics

However, a Marxist reading might closely examine the moment when Gatsby appears to prioritize love over money:

Well, there I was, way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn’t care. What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?

The ambiguity of this passage leaves the reader uncertain whether ambition has really been abandoned or whether Gatsby has found a way to incorporate his relationship with Daisy into his ‘businesses. 

Another comment about Gatsby, explaining:

he knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God

Implies that his relationship limits his ambition. This is expressed in religious terms but may have a worldly meaning. These are matters of great importance for interpreting the novel, since so many readers see Gatsby as tragically devoted to Daisy, whereas it can be argued that he is always primarily devoted to money and that Daisy merely represents money.

Social critique

As with feminist interpretations, Marxist readings of the novel might highlight any forms of challenge to the status quo. There is no overt criticism of the social and economic system but it could be argued that Nick’s narrative implicitly criticizes the hedonism and excess of the characters depicted, and by extension, the period in which the novel is set. 

INTERPRETATION 2:

For some critics, Gatsby himself represents America, his dream the American Dream, and his death the inevitable failure of that ideal; this can lead directly into a Marxist exploration of the text, using the American Dream as a starting point for examining the motivations and outcomes of each character. The problem with this approach is that there is an inescapable seductiveness associated with wealth in this novel. Nick expresses this in his use of words such as ‘gorgeous’, ‘thrilling’ and ‘lovely’. His description of Daisy’s voice is a very good example of this, and it is only revealed towards the end of the novel that her voice is ‘full of money’ and that this is the true source of her attractiveness. The glamour of the novel exerts a powerful force to obscure the reality of this society, and this must be attributed to the use of Nick as a narrator, a character who is morally ambivalent to the extent that he is quite complicit in the cover-up surrounding the deaths of Myrtle and Gatsby.

Written and set during the post-World War I economic boom of the 1920s, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1920) can be seen as a chronicle of the American dream at a point in this nation’s history when capitalism’s promise of economic opportunity for all seemed at its peak of fulfillment. It was a time when stocks could be bought on a 10 percent margin, which means that a dollar’s worth of stocks could be purchased, on credit, for ten cents. So even the “little man” could play the stock market and hope to make his fortune there.

The Great Gatsby does not celebrate the thrilling capitalist culture it portrays but, as a Marxist interpretation of the novel makes especially clear, reveals its dark underbelly instead. Through its unattractive characterization of those at the top of the economic heap and its sharp examination of the ways in which the American not only fails to fulfill its promise but also contributes to the decay of personal values, Fitzgerald’s novel stands as a mocking critique of American capitalist culture and the ideology that promotes it. One of the most effective ways The Great Gatsby criticizes capitalist culture is by showing the devastating effects of capitalist ideology even on those who are its most successful products, and it does so through its representation of commodification. Nowhere The Great Gatsby is commodification so clearly embodied as in the character of Tom Buchanan. The wealthiest man in the novel, Tom relates to the world only through his money: for him, all things and all people are commodities. His marriage to Daisy was certainly an exchange of Daisy’s youth, beauty and social standing for Tom’s money and power and the image of strength and stability they imparted to him. The symbol of this “purchase” was the $350,000 string of pearls Tom gave his bride-to-be. Similarly, Tom uses his money and social rank to “purchase” Myrtle Wilson and the numerous other working-class women with whom he has affairs. Tom’s regular choice of lower-class women can also be understood in terms of his commodified view of human interaction. Tom’s works of commodification are not limited to his relationships with women. Because capitalist promotes the belief that “you are what you own”- that our value as human beings is only as great as the value of our possessions- much of Tom’s pleasure in his expensive possessions is a product of their sign-exchange value, of the social status their ownership confers on him. 

A result of Tom’s commodification of people is his ability to manipulate them very cold-bloodedly to get what he wants, for commodification is the treatment of objects and people as commodities. In order to get Myrtle Wilson’s sexual favors, he lets her think that he may marry her somebody that his hesitation is due to Daisy’s alleged Catholicism rather that to his own lack of desire. While a character such as Tom Buchanan is likely to make us sympathize with anyone who is dependent upon him, Daisy is not merely an innocent victim of her husband’s comodification. In the first place, Daisy’s acceptance of the pearls is an act of commodification. Daisy’s extramarital affair with Gatsby, like her earlier romance with him, is based on a commodiefied view of life. The Buchanan’s’ commodification of their world and the enormous wealth that makes it possible for them to “smash up things and creatures and then retreat back into their money” are rendered especially objectionable by the socioeconomic contrast provided by the “valley of ashes” near which George and Myrtle Wilson live. The “valley of ashes” is a powerfully chilling image of the life led by those who do not have the socioeconomic resources of the Buchanan’s. 

Jay Gatsby reveals the hollowness of the American dream. In true rags-to-riches style, Gatsby has risen from extreme poverty to extreme wealth in a very few years. His boyhood “schedule” resonates strongly with the American dream’s image of the self-made man. If Gatsby is the novel’s representative of the American dream, the dream must be a corrupt one. Gatsby is certainly more charming than Tom and Daisy, and more sympathetically portrayed by Nick, he commodifies his world just as they do. Gatsby’s commodification of his world is linked to the cold-blooded aggression with which he purses what he wants. The lap of luxury in which Gatsby lives does not exist in a vacuum. It is supported by a very dark and threatening world of corruption, crime, and death. The underworld activities from which his wealth derives include stealing and the selling of false bonds. Gatsby is not excused from the novel’s unattractive portrait of the wealthy. Indeed, his characterization suggests that the American dream does not offer a moral alternative to the commodified world of the Buchanans but produces the same commodification of people and things as does Tom and Daisy’s innate wealth. The Great Gatsby’s representation of American culture reveals the debilitating effects of capitalism on socioeconomic “winners” such as Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby, as well as on “losers” such as George and Myrtle. Operating against The Great Gatsby’s powerful critique of capitalism is the novel’s reinforcement of capitalism’s repressive ideology. This counter-movement operates in three ways. First, the unattractive portraits of George and Myrtle Wilson deflect our attention from their victimization by the capitalist system in which they both struggle to survive. Second, because Nick is seduced by the American dream Gatsby represents. Third, the lush language used to describe the world of the wealthy makes it attractive despite the people like the Buchanans who populate it.

The Great Gatsby’s most obvious flaw, from a Marxist perspective, is its unsympathetic rendering of George and Myrtle Wilson, the novel’s representatives of the lower class. George and Myrtle try to improve their lot the only way they know how. They are victim of capitalism because the only way to succeed in a capitalist economy is to succeed in a market. Their characterizations are so negative that it is easy to overlook the socioeconomic realities that control their lives. George and Myrtle are negative stereotypes of a lower class couple. The novel is also flawed, from a Marxist perspective, by Nick’s romanticization of Gatsby. Nick may like to think he disapproves of Jay Gatsby- because he knows he should disapprove of him for the same reason he disapproves of the Buchanans. The appeal to readers to belong to the magical world of the wealthy is also a memorial to the power of the commodity. Gatsby may not make the best use of his mansion, his hydroplane, his swimming pool, and his library, but many of us feel that we certainly would. Thus another flaw in the novel, form Marxist perspective, is the way in which the commodity’s appeal is powerfully reinforced for the reader by the lush language used to describe this world of leisure and luxury.

While The Great Gatsby offers a significant critique of capitalist ideology, it also repackages and markets that ideology anew. This double movement of the text gives the closing line a special irony: if we do “beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”, there is in this novel that which strengthens the back-flow, bearing us ceaselessly back under capitalism’s spell. In the end, Gatsby fails to realize the American dream, but because the novel falls prey to the capitalist ideology it condemns, many readers will continue to invest in it.