A person does not have to positively impact the world to be influential. Karl Marx certainly left a mark on the world, but whether his impact was revolutionary or simply detrimental is up to debate. Marx was largely influenced by the ideas of Enlightenment figures like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Hegel. Most know him in regard to his writing the Communist Manifesto and its influence on revolutions that led to the formation of notoriously oppressive communist states. His ideas form the base of modern international communism, and for that Michael Hart gives Karl Marx a ranking of twenty-seven in his book The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. This ranking seems accurate given the factors that influenced him, his accomplishments, and their effects on the world. Karl Marx drew from the philosophies of the great thinkers of his time to perfect his ideal communist system. He was born into a time when ideas of the Enlightenment were widespread. He read the works of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and the Comte de Saint-Simon (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia). However, he was especially influenced by G.W.F. Hegel, the most prominent philosopher in Germany in the early 1800s (Microsoft Encarta). Hegel believed that ideas evolve through a continual process of contradiction and resolution and that human history is driven by this evolution. Consequently, Marx developed the belief that history evolves through a series of conflicts in a predictable, unavoidable
Karl Marx was born in Prussia in 1818. Later in his life he became a newspaper editor and his writings ended up getting him expelled by the Prussian authorities for its radicalism and atheism (Perry 195). He then met Fredrich Engels and together they produced The Communist Manifesto in 1848, for the Communist League. This piece of writing basically laid out Marx’s theory of history in short form (Coffin 623). The Communist Manifesto is mainly revolved around how society was split up into two sides, the Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. I do believe that the ideas of the Communist Manifesto did indeed look educated on paper but due to the lessons of history communism is doomed to fail in the past, present, and future. Communism did not prevail in many different countries, two of them being Berlin and the Soviet Union.
The historical events that led to Marx’s ideas and their shaping and implementations are just as important as the ideas themselves. These ideas are “the seizure of power by the working class and the destruction of capitalism” (M. Perry, M. Chase and J. R. Jacob). The most important events that shaped Marx’s ideas would be the failure of the revolution of 1848 and what came afterwards.
Karl Marx was born in Prussia on May of 1818 to a middle class Jewish family. As an adult, Marx attended school in Berlin where he discovered the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel. Hegel’s main concept was the idea of dialect, which can be explained as the process of logical argumentation and refutation. Marx was greatly influenced by Hegel, which is shown in Marx’s belief that history evolves through a series of predictable conflicts (A+E Television Networks, LLC. 2013). Marx also believed social divisions and civil unrest were due to the increase in industrialization and the widening gap between rich and poor.
Above all, however, he was the chief founder of Democratic Socialism and Revolutionary Communism. He was also famous for writing the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. He wrote with Engles. Marx's communism government structure was practiced in the civilized world'. Caste systems were present, everyone worked for the nation's sake, and an elite controlled the whole civilization.
Karl Marx is one of the most influential and revolutionary philosopher, economist and sociologist of the 19th century. His thoughts not only shaped our understandings of the capitalistic world but also created a new system of social organization, communism. His ideology also defined the key political figures of the cold war period such as Stalin, Mao and Castro. Without Marx, the modern history would have been completely different. Despite his rather bourgeoisie family background, he was able to closely observe the struggle of proletariat and identified the injustices in the capitalist system.
In “Marx: Anthropologist,” Thomas C. Patterson provides archival research and contemporary analysis to defend the assertion that Karl Marx was one of the first urban anthropologists and a progenitor of emic ethnography in western culture. Patterson also aims to correct prior misinterpretations of Marx’s work in a polemic manner, addressing deficiencies in early analyses through careful argumentation and relevant evidence to contrary inferences. Patterson’s stated purpose is to answer the question “What would Marx’s anthropology look like today?” and does so by explaining the correlation between critical-dialectical methodology and the manner in which Marx went about social analysis. Chapters are organized according to each subject’s relevance to the construction of Marx’s anthropology. Chapter one focuses on the greater political state of Europe and university culture in which Marx received his education, providing historical and pedagogical explanations for the manifestation of his ideas. Chapter two explains the facets of Marx’s “philosophical” anthropology, explaining how Marx viewed the moral and social characteristics of humans. Chapter three highlights Marx’s ideas and works that explain his “empirical” anthropology, or the how he viewed the natural and biological determinants of human existence. Chapter four aims to explain the importance of modes of production and social relations to Marx’s theory of cultural change. In chapters five and six, Patterson incorporates
Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, and political revolutionary. When Karl Marx moved to Paris in 1843, he met Engels and together they both worked on several essays. However, Marx and Engels are best known for their revolutionary writings around the concept of Communism. Marx attained his primary intellectual influences from the work of G.W.F Hegel. Hegel’s main theory describes history as a process in which the world becomes conscious of itself as spirit. Marx furthered this theory and argues that man becomes conscious of himself as a spirit; the material world causes him to feel increasingly alienated from himself. The
Karl Marx was an economist whose ideas and work influenced historians, sociologist, philosophers, and politicians; his ideas were viewed as a threat to the leaders of state and government, however, revolutionist saw him as an inspiration.
For Karl Marx (1818-1883), the transformation had to be understood primarily as a change in the economic structure of societies; a change in the means by which economic production was organised from a system called feudalism to one called capitalism (Willis 1999). Marx was a man looking to understand society, he followed many different paths and was alienated many times for his ideas. His theories on value and surplus value, accumulation, exploitation,
Karl Marx, also a philosopher was popularly known for his theories that best explained society, its social structure, as well as the social relationships. Karl Marx placed so much emphasis on the economic structure and how it influenced the rest of the social structure from a materialistic point of view. Human societies progress through a dialectic of class struggle, this means that the three aspects that make up the dialectic come into play, which are the thesis, antithesis and the synthesis (Avineri, 1980: 66-69). As a result of these, Marx suggests that in order for change to come about, a class struggle has to first take place. That is, the struggle between the proletariat and the capitalist class, the class that controls
Karl Marx is often called the father of communism, but his life entailed so much more. He was a political economist, philosopher, and idea revolutionist. He was a scholar that believed that capitalism was going to undercut itself as he stated in the Communist Manifesto. While he was relatively ambiguous in his lifetime, his works had tremendous influence after his death. Some of the world’s most powerful and most populace countries follow his ideas to this day. Many of history’s most eventful times were persuaded by his thoughts. Karl Marx was one of the most influential persons in the history of the world, and a brief history of his life will show how he was able to attain many of his attitudes.
What is a revolutionary?A revolutionary is an extreme supporter of a change that requires the carrying out of protest, meetings, and demonstrations of peaceful and or violent uprisings that force oppressors to alter the current problem. Karl Marx’s ideas and claims caused constant innovation in the theory of communism. However, he was extremely underappreciated during his lifetime and was later recognized during the Russian revolution years after his death. Therefore, Karl Marx became a revolutionary after his death in 1883.
Karl Marx’s ideology was established to show what would happen if the social classes struggled with each other. Vladimir Lenin however, was more practical in that his ideology carried the changes needed to fit into the country itself. Marx anticipated that his concept would come to carry out a more advanced capitalist state because is where he thought the revolution he talked about would take place. Still, Leninism took place in a country that was not as advanced as Mr. Marx would have imagined. During this time Russia was not economically advanced and had many farmers. Lenin felt he had to change the aspects of Marxism to fit Russia
Though Marx’s theories were first conceived over 150 years ago, his work continues to be tremendously influential and is perhaps the most well known scholarship within the sociological canon. Despite their prominence, some of Marx’s most famous ideas have yet to be proven by the course of history. Neo-Marxists may insist that the revolution is coming, but the fact remains that the overthrow of capitalism has yet to materialize. I argue that the communist revolution has not yet occurred because the proletariat has been unable to develop the universal class consciousness that Marx asserts is a necessary condition for his predicted mass uprising. Additionally, I postulate that the theories of Weber and Simmel reveal the factors impeding
The definition of utopia is an ideally perfect place especially in its social, political, and moral aspects (dictionary.com). This paper will discuss the changes in capitalism since Marx’s critique in 1848. Marx’s fundamental critique remains correct today. Marx is still correct about his critique of capitalism because even though there have been changes made to capitalism to prevent some abuses, capitalism still produces inequality, reduces the family relationship, destroys small business, and enslaves.