1. discover the key principles of the marxian approach - namely dialectical materialism
2. decide whether the key concepts generated by those principles fit these recent changes:
A. the dominance of a liberal-capitalist form of political economy, and its increasing control over countries around the globe and
2.2 of corporations growing bigger than national economies ie becoming transnational corporations
2.3 the increasingly alienation(lack of control over the system they have created) of the capitalists leading them to lose control of the financial systems they create (eg low prime loans being reconstructed, or split and shuffled, into securitised bonds sold around the world to buyers who are unsure of what it is they are buying)
Marx in vol III of Capital forwarned readers of these 2007 events.and of these
2.4 the increasing alienation (lackof control)of the poltical forms supporting this economc system
2.5 the increasing exploitation of the work force as the transnational firms move to cheaper and less protected workers in labour markets around the world.
B. On the other hand, this increased power of the Transnational companies to move to cheaper labour forces around the world, has meant that: in the richer Western countries:
a)The physical labour of the working class diminishes to be replaced by a mixture of white collar, clerical, service and professional workers and long term unemployed.
b) the economic culture has increased both the level of consumerism and complicated loans systems that has enabled a higher proportion of people to live the life-style of the middle class ie increasing home ownership levels/constant updating of their cars/kitchens etc
Thus the abrupt conflict in the West between the working class and the capitalist class based on an increasing level of class consciounsess of the working class- has not developed.
C.Gender,non Heterosexual and Racist structures of power intersect with Class inequalities.However, this can be interpreted either as an alternative to, or as an additional aspect, of the conflictual relations of a Liberal Democratic Capitalist society..
D. Similarly the rise and decline of Bureacratic forms of Communist control in Russian, China, etc
