Are Marxist & Capitalist economics founded on the view that all of life's decisions are materialistic ones?

Answer 1

Pretty much. They both attempt to apply abstract principles of economics to human behaviour. That's why both are doomed to failure.

Answer 2

Yes and No. Previous posters are right ot say that they both enforce the ideas of scarcity.
All economics is found under the assumption that all of life's decisions are rational ones.

But they differ in this way.
Marxism focuses heavily on the idea of working towards the greater good. Think Communist=Community. Marxist thinks of human decisions being shaped around the common good. Something people can't necessarily see right away and have a bit less freedom. Communism believes in the inherent goodness in people in working towards one goal and focuses much less on their selfishness

Capitalism puts more of a focus on everyone making decisions that benefit them which lead other peoples interests being met. Capitalism=Capitalizing on oppurtunites. Capitalism focuses a great deal on people's desire to serve themselves, selfish or not.
Capitalism accomodates for people desire to seek their own ends. Capitalism accepts this and is based on the idea that this will move society foward, economically at least, with Adam Smith's "invisible hand". In this people do certain things. Say buy soap from Wal-Mart because its cheap. This then causes Wal-Mart to make sure they have enough soap so that they can make profit. And everyone else benefits because they have cheap soap. Then other businesses come in and say hey, we want soap money too. So they make their own different kinds of soap or sell the same soap even cheaper. So now people have more types of soap and cheaper regular soap. As an example of the invisible hand of people's interests moving things foward.

Answer 3

All of economics is predicated on the basic assumptions that: 1, resources (labor, capitol, and materials) are "scarce", and 2. that the most efficient way of allocating those scarce resources among the competing needs is through a pricing structure.

The principle difference between marxist and capitalist economic approaches lies in who gets the profits from a given transaction.
There are any number of decisions that one makes the lie outside the field of economics.

Answer 4

Marxist thought is founded on the view that all of life's decisions are materialistic ones, but Capitalist economic thought is not.

Under Marxism, the government, as representative of "the people" assumes control of all production of material wealth. The idea is that, if the government can control wealth, they can control every aspect of societal interaction. Behavior is modified under Marxism by a system of carrot and stick. The carrot is that, for example, you get health care or an extra ration of rice if you belong to the correct political party or attend the correct political rally. An example of the stick is that you are jailed if you "hoard" too many cans of beans in your cupboard. (See, e.g., Cuba.)

By contrast, pure capitalist thought stresses the separation of economics and the State. If the government keeps its hands off of the means of production (or most of them), then goods get from producer to consumer in a peaceful transaction, free from government coercion.

Marxism's slogan is "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need." This slogan leaves two very important questions unanswered: who decides what your needs are? Who decides how much you should give (in accordance with your abilities) in order to have those needs met? Under Marxism, the answer is: the government, i.e., some bureaucratic, all powerful, faceless infrastructure interested only in the collective bottom line, individual needs be damned. In fact, individuals are punished for looking out for their own self-interest.

Under capitalism, the answer is: the market decides, which allows individuals a choice in the matter of how hard he wants to work, and how much he can earn. Individuals are free to decide what they need, and they are free to determine how to spend their own time, and they are free to benefit from the fruits of their own labors. In other words, individuals are free to adopt their own value system, which accounts for material values in amounts appropriate for the individual. Thus, under capitalism, material considerations become secondary or at least they are allowed to become secondary, in the individual pursuit of happiness.

Only under capitalism can an individual free himself from purely materialistic thought. Under Marxism, the individual is relegated to being just a cog in a materialistic machine.

Answer 5

Many of the applications of these theories are based on materialism, but for the most part they have to do with who gets what part of the profits, and whether this is justified.