The Rana Plaza Building Collapse

The collapsing of the Rana Plaza building in the Dhaka suburb of Savar, is a tragic incident that occurred on April 24, 2013 (Prashad 2013). The Rana Plaza building was the establishment that had workers who were the commodity of the production of garments that are sold to the Western market. A couple days post-collapse, it was reported that the death toll was well into the triple-digits. This paper will draw on the details of pre- and post- Rana Plaza's collapsing while connecting it to Marx and Engels' ideologies in response to the four questions and/or issues.

Marx's dialectical method and thinking can be used to tackle the issue about the structural propensity of capitalism to be global because he rejects the either-or dichotomy. Rather everything is in a constant state of change, hence the quote revealed by the instructor "the permanence of change." This adds to the idea that change is inevitable, and that explains the structural propensity of capitalism to be global.

Change is so bound to happen that it is an ongoing process contributing to the natural tendency of global capitalism. For example, another quote raised by the instructor is "you cannot step into the same river twice," that implies this very message. One can interpret this as the river, although it is the 'same' as, say, 15-minutes before, is technically not the same because it is simply not the same river that it was 15-minutes prior. Hence this constant, albeit natural change is the main reason capitalism is naturally global.

More specifically, social change is a factor of the structural propensity of capitalism to be global and Marx's dialectical method can be used to analyze this as well. For instance, Marx expands on how there is an inevitable social ch...

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...n will continue and along with its consequences. It is up to the mass population to make an alternative decision in terms of their agency as a possible way to tackle the issue of globalisation.

Works Cited

Marx, Karl and Engels, F. 1848. "The Communist Manifesto" Pp. 156-171 in Classical

Sociological Theory, edited by Craig Calhoun et. al. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

Marx, Karl and Engels, F. 1847. "Wage-Labour and Capital" Pp. 182-189 in Classical Sociological Theory, edited by Craig Calhoun et. al. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

Germanos, Andrea. 2013. "Workers Set Factories Ablaze in Call for Decent Wage for Producing Globe's 'Cheap' Clothing." Common Dreams. September 23.

North, Andrew. 2013. "The dark underworld of Bangladesh's clothes industry." BBC. April 26.

Prashad, Vijay. 2013. "Made in Bangladesh - The Terror of Capitalism." CounterPunch. April 26-28.