SOCCIO ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM
283
Last printed 3/14/2023 11:35:00 AM
CHAPTER 13
THE MATERIALIST: KARL MARX
INSTRUCTIONS: Select the best answer according to the text.
TRUE/FALSE
1. Karl Marx derived the concept of alienation from Hegel.
2. After reading Feuerbach, Marx concluded that reality is
material, not spiritual.
3. Comte de Saint-Simon argued that history is the result
of class conflict.
4. While in Paris, the young Marx was an intense
anti-communist.
5. Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto by himself.
6. Friedrich Engels came from a wealthy bourgeois
background.
7. Marx accepted Hegel s dialectic without major
modification.
8. Hegel saw the dialectical process of history as a
mechanism for avoiding struggle and conflict.
9. The proletariat consists of those who do not produce
anything.
10. The bourgeoisie consists of those who own and control
the means of production.
11. Marx praised Hegel for avoiding the problems of
mystification.
12. Marxism is a social determinist doctrine.
13. The means of production include natural resources.
SOCCIO ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM
284
Last printed 3/14/2023 11:35:00 AM
14. Marx and Engels were among the first modern
philosophers to recognize the plight of women in modern
society.
15. To be co-opted is to identify with those aspects of the
system that further your actual self-interest.
16. The struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie
begins with the growth of the bourgeoisie.
17. According to Marx, all history is class struggle.
18. Marx thought enlightened capitalism was the only hope
for avoiding class struggle.
19. According to Marx, alienation results in a sense of
separateness.
20. Extreme alienation results in species-life, a reduction
of human beings to mere animals.
MULTIPLE CHOICE
21. The dominant German thinker during Marx s university
days was _____ .
a. Hegel
b. Feuerbach
c. Saint-Simon
d. Hess
22. _____ concluded that economic conditions determine history.
a. Hegel
b. Feuerbach
c. Saint-Simon
d. Hess
23. _____ was a grand systematizer who saw all of history
as the unfolding of the Absolute Spirit.
a. Hegel
b. Feuerbach
c. Saint-Simon
d. Engels
SOCCIO ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM
285
Last printed 3/14/2023 11:35:00 AM
24. Zeitgeist means _____ .
a. class conflict
b. Absolute Spirit
c. working class
d. spirit of the age
25. After reading _____ , Marx concluded that reality is material.
a. Hegel
b. Feuerbach
c. Saint-Simon
d. Engels
26. According to Marx and Hegel, _____ is an internally
governed evolutionary cycle in which progress occurs as
a result of a struggle between two opposing conditions.
a. God
b. communism
c. history
d. economics
27. According to Hegel, dialectic is _____ .
a. a five-stage pattern that culminates in the
Kingdom of God
b. a three-step pattern that results in a synthesis
c. a three-step pattern that results in an antithesis
d. a three-step pattern that results in a thesis
28. Hegel argued that Kant s categories of thought are
actually _____ .
a. categories of being
b. dialectical beings
c. economic forces
d. forms of the zeitgeist
29. According to Hegel, Kant s categories _____ .
a. exist only as mental constructs
b. are identical to Plato s Forms
c. exist independently of any specific individual s mind
d. refer only to moral maxims, not to facts
SOCCIO ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM
286
Last printed 3/14/2023 11:35:00 AM
30. Hegel s philosophy is sometimes called _____ .
a. idealistic empiricism
b. noumenal idealism
c. idealistic economism
d. absolute idealism
31. According to the Hegelian dialectic, _____ .
a. the tension between the synthesis and ideal
produces the antithesis
b. the interaction between the thesis and antithesis
produces the synthesis
c. history is the perpetual embodiment of the Idea
d. ultimate reality is the antithesis of illusion
32. The _____ is/are the middle class.
a. proletariat
b. bourgeoisie
c. zeitgeist
d. dialecticians
33. The _____ is/are the working class.
a. proletariat
b. bourgeoisie
c. zeitgeist
d. dialecticians
34. The _____ consists of those who own the means of
production yet produce nothing themselves.
a. proletariat
b. bourgeoisie
c. zeitgeist
d. dialecticians
35. The _____ consists of those whose labor produces goods
and services yet who do not own the means of
production.
a. proletariat
b. bourgeoisie
c. zeitgeist
d. dialecticians
SOCCIO ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM
287
Last printed 3/14/2023 11:35:00 AM
36. Marx identified _____ epochs of history.
a. three
b. four
c. five
d. countless
37. The epochs of history are characterized by _____ .
a. the dominant religious expression of the era
b. the relationships between the sexes
c. the major wars and conflicts that affect boundaries
d. their dominant economic structures
38. According to Marx, the final epoch of history will be
the _____ epoch.
a. primitive/communal
b. capitalist
c. free market
d. socialist/communist
39. According to Marx, capitalism emerged from _____ .
a. socialism
b. communalism
c. feudalism
d. democracy
40. Marx used the term _____ to refer to the use of cloudy
abstractions to create elaborate metaphysical systems.
a. alienating
b. thinking religiously
c. philosophizing
d. mystification
41. According to Marx, most other philosophers _____ .
a. understand the major issues yet fail to address all of
them
b. lose sight of the actual, concrete existing conditions
under which the poor barely survive
c. prefer money to truth
d. made good-faith efforts to improve life but lacked
support from business interests
SOCCIO ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM
288
Last printed 3/14/2023 11:35:00 AM
42. According to Marx, any theory or activity that distracts
us from seeing the actual brutal conditions of the lower
classes is a(n) _____ .
a. delusion
b. red herring
c. mystification
d. addiction
43. Marxian materialism is _____ .
a. a form of hard determinism
b. a form of social determinism
c. not deterministic
d. interdeterministic
44. Marxian materialism sees _____ relationship between
individuals and their environment.
a. a completely hostile
b. no
c. a reciprocal
d. a one-way
45. _____ determinists deny the possibility of free will or
free action.
a. Hard
b. Social
c. Inter
d. Marxian
46. Marx argued that ideas _____ .
a. create social structures
b. create historical epochs
c. are products of economic structure
d. are more powerful than material conditions
47. According to Marx, the _____ consists of the means,
forces, and relationships of production.
a. material superstructure
b. economic superstructure
c. material substructure
d. ideological base
SOCCIO ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM
289
Last printed 3/14/2023 11:35:00 AM
48. According to Marx, water, coal, land, and so forth are part
of the _____ of society.
a. means of production
b. forces of production
c. relationships of production
d. environmental superstructure
49. According to Marx, factories, equipment, knowledge, and
skill are part of the _____ of society.
a. means of production
b. forces of production
c. relationships of production
d. superstructure
50. According to Marx, the ideas and institutions compatible
to a society constitute its _____ .
a. ideological base
b. substructure
c. superstructure
d. economy
51. The prevailing nineteenth-century relationship of
production was _____ .
a. communism
b. business
c. capitalism
d. antagonism
52. According to Marx, a crucial factor in the relationships of
production is _____ .
a. philosophical principles
b. property ownership rights
c. gender
d. religion
53. According to Marx, _____ is the capital that owners
accumulate as a result of artificially high prices and
low wages.
a. wealth
b. bourgeois property
c. surplus value
d. interest
SOCCIO ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM
290
Last printed 3/14/2023 11:35:00 AM
54. According to Marx, two classes emerged under capitalism:
the _____ and the _____ .
a. bourgeoisie/middle class
b. bourgeoisie/proletariat
c. working class/proletariat
d. rich/poor
55. Marxists use the expression _____ to refer to the
condition of being convinced to further interests that are
to the individual s ultimate disadvantage.
a. walking against the wind
b. being conned
c. being co-opted
d. buying a pig in a Porsche
56. According to Marx, capitalism develops as the _____
expands.
a. proletariat
b. bourgeoisie
c. middle class
d. church
57. Marx and Engels argued that capitalism will continue
until _____ .
a. the wealthy run out of things to buy
b. the middle of the twenty-first century
c. the proletariat becomes fully aware of itself
d. the bourgeoisie apologizes for its excesses
58. Marx and Engels predicted that the contradictions
inherent in capitalism would ultimately _____.
a. resolve themselves through improved technologies
b. result in the disappearance of poverty
c. result in violent revolution
d. produce a peaceful economic revolution
59. According to Marx, _____ is the condition of workers
separated from the products of their labor.
a. mystification
b. abstraction
c. delineation
d. alienation
SOCCIO ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM
291
Last printed 3/14/2023 11:35:00 AM
60. According to Marx, _____ results from the transformation
of a human being into a commodity.
a. technology
b. alienation
c. capitalism
d. communism
61. Marx characterizes alienation as the _____ of labor.
a. internalization
b. natural consequence
c. externalization
d. beginning
62. According to Marx, _____ is fully human life lived
productively and consciously.
a. species-life
b. alienated life
c. passional life
d. artistic life
63. Marxism is both an economic theory and a _____ .
a. religious doctrine
b. metaphysical philosophy
c. philosophy of self-actualization
d. materialistic theology
64. Marx thought that if capitalism is destroyed, we will
revert to _____ .
a. feudalism
b. agrarian economies
c. species-life
d. craft guilds
65. Erich Fromm attempted to show _____ .
a. that Marx was fundamentally wrong
b. how the structure of capitalistic society shapes our
personal relationships
c. that psychological conditions are independent of a
culture s economic structure
d. that Marx was really a capitalist
SOCCIO ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM
357
Last printed 3/14/2023 11:35:00 AM
Chapter 13
THE MATERIALIST: KARL MARX
1. Carefully explain why Marx s philosophy is sometimes called
historical materialism.
2. What is the dialectical process of history? Describe it in terms of
the five epochs of history.
3. Explain the notion of economic determinism and identify the
three components of the material base of society. Which is the most
important according to Marx? Why?
4. What is the bourgeoisie? The proletariat? How do they figure
into Marx s emphasis on class consciousness and class struggle?
Why are class consciousness and class struggle vital to Marxism? *
5. What did Marx see as the inherent contradiction in capitalism?
How is the contradiction related to his prophesy of violent
revolution? Do you think his prediction has been refuted by post-
Marx history? Explain. *
6. Thoroughly explain Marx s concept of alienation. What is
alienated labor? What is unalienated labor? What is species-life?
What roles do consciousness and alienation play in it? *
7. In your own words, analyze Erich Fromm s case that
contemporary capitalism alienates us from love of others and God.
Do you agree? Why? *
8. Do persistent economic uncertainties in many semi-socialist
countries indicate that Marx was wrong about communism being the
end of history? Or do they support his assertion that communism is
the ultimate result of the contradictions inherent in capitalistic and
semi-socialistic countries? Could America be farther along the road
to communism/socialism than communistic and semi-socialistic
countries that have tried to skip the full development of
capitalism? Cite specific examples and argue for your position. *
SOCCIO ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM
382
Last printed 3/14/2023 11:35:00 AM
CHAPTER 13 ANSWERS