Karl Marx : An Influential Philosopher

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.

Karl Heinrich Marx was born in Prussia on May 5, 1818. Karl Marx was one of nine children, his parents were Heinrich and Henrietta Marx. The family had Jewish with rabbinical ancestry, but Karl’s father would convert to Christianity in 1816. Marx was an average student at an early age and was home schooled until the age of twelve. In October of 1835, Marx furthered his studies at the University of Bonn. He was very enthusiastic about student life and in his first year at the college he was imprisoned for drunkenness and disturbing the peace. Marx’s father urged him to enroll in a more serious University of Berlin. At Berlin University he would study Law and Philosophy he there was introduced to G.W.L Hegel. Hegel was a professor at the university. Marx became preoccupied with a radical group called “The Young Hegelians”. The group criticized the political and religious establishments of the day. As Marx was becoming more politically involved he became engaged to a woman by the name of Jenny von Westphelen in 1836. Jenny came from a higher class and a respected family, the two would finally marry in June of 1843. Marx would receive his doctorate from the University of Jena in 1841. Marx began to work as a journalist then in 1842 became an editor of Rheinische Zeitung, a liberal newspaper. Marx would move to Paris in 1843, and was known to be the political heart of Europe. In Paris Marx would team with Arnold Ruge. Together would create a political journal titled

Marx’s primarily aims to explain how communism will free men, end the class struggle. The work argues that class struggles, and the exploitation of one class by another is the source of all inequality. Marx’s theories become one the motivating force behind all historical developments. The work strongly advocates the freedom of the proletariats which Marx’s claims can only be achieved when property and other goods cease to be privately owned. He see’s that private property has been a problem through out history, capital that aids the ruling class to maintain control. Marx argues that the lower class come together in a revolution and gain power and eventually take the power away from the upper class.

Over the years, people have interpreted Karl Marx’s work incorrectly and sometimes only partially. Since his explanation of communism, people have changed what they think communism really is. In present day if someone tells someone they are communist, they picture a society oppressed by its government. They picture removal of all their private belongings and burglary of their finances to be distributed amongst society as a whole. Societies and governments have over simplified Karl Marx’s description of communism and altered some of it to fit their situations. In Marx’s piece, he first states his initial views of how society is, then he analyzes the issues and contradictions within capitalism, and then

Karl Marx was a communist researcher and coordinator, a key character in the historical locale of economic and hypothetical idea, and an awesome societal prophet. But it is as a sociological theorist that he commands our interest. Society, according to Marx, involved a moving equalization of contradictory powers that create social change by their strain and battle. Marx's vision depended on a transformative purpose of flight. For him, battle instead of quiet development was the motor of advance; strife was the father of all things, and social conflict the principal of historic process. This reasoning was in opposition with the greater part of the teachings of his eighteenth century antecedents, however tweaked in to much nineteenth century thought. To Marx the propelling power in history was the way in which men classify each other in their consistent battle to seize their work from nature. "The first historical act is . . . the production of material life itself. This is indeed a historical act, a fundamental condition of all history" (Bancroft and Rogers, 2010). A communist state would have the laborers possess the methods for generation and all would share the benefits similarly. The laborers would be working for themselves, not for the advantage of the business people. All types of government would gradually vanish, as the laborers comprehended the advantage of working for the benefit of each other. When this model situation happened, his optimal society that he called

One of the greatest debates of all time has been regarding the issue of the freedom of mankind. The one determining factor, for Marx, it that freedom is linked with class conflict. As a historian, Karl Marx traced the history of mankind by the ways in which the economy operated and the role of classes within the economy. For Marx, the biggest question that needed to be answered was “Who owns freedom?” With this in mind, Marx gives us a solution to both the issues of freedom and class conflict in his critique of capitalism and theory of communism, which is the ideal society for Marx. His theory of communism is based on the “ultimate end of human history” because there will be freedom for all humankind.

Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in order to give a voice to the struggling classes in Europe. In the document he expressed the frustrations of the lower class. As Marx began his document with "the history of all hitherto societies has been the history of class struggles" he gave power to the lower classes and sparked a destruction of their opressors.1 He argued that during the nineteenth century Europe was divided into two main classes: the wealthy upper class, the bourgeoisie, and the lower working class, the proletariat. After years of suffering oppression the proletariats decided to use their autonomy and make a choice to gain power. During the

In any society, there have always been exclusive classes of people who make decisions on behalf of an entire population. However, historically speaking, it has been evident that these choices were only made to protect the economic and moral interests of the wealthy and elite, proving itself disastrous for the common people. Even today, there is a certain awareness that allows us to talk about the massive amounts of inequity and inequality that particular groups face in our country due to the strains of a flawed economic, social and political system. Subsequently, American citizens can agree that our current system needs improvement, however, they usually fail to acknowledge capitalism’s most notorious critic: Karl Marx.

The readings about Karl Marx during these past weeks have been very interesting. Through the reading I have been able to see how Marx sees, analyses, and discusses about society. Marx is able to do this by allowing us to see through his perspective, experiences, and the history that he has learned throughout the years. Many concepts have come up in the reading but the ones that have stood out to me are alienation, exploitation, and class structure.

Ever since the creation of man, society has been trying to achieve harmony between its citizens and establish a utopia in which everyone can live in peace and harmony. During the 1800s many citizens of capitalist countries believed that they were living in this utopia, however the working class begged to differ. It was not until the mid-1800s that someone finally stood up for these proletarians as this man believed that the exploitation of members of the working class was unfair. This person was called Karl Marx. This German philosopher inspired workers to rise up and challenge injustices and exploitations. In addition, his views on life and the social structure of his time revolutionized the way people think. It was not until Karl Marx

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.

There can be no doubt over the wide-ranging influence of Karl Marx’s theories on sociology and political thought. His concept of communism overcoming the socioeconomic pitfalls of capitalism has not been a theory that has seen the light of day in the way that he may have hypothesised. There have been many throughout history that have misrepresented Marx’s writing, which begs the question, if pure communism in the original Marxist sense is at all possible given that humanity appears to have an innate ‘need’ for hierarchy and a thirst for power.

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

Karl Marx, a German philosopher and economist born in 1818, had a profound impact on and revolutionised politics, economics and intellectual thought (Calhoun, 2002, pp. 23-24) when he emerged as a revolutionary thinker who denounced the economic and political elites (the Bourgeoisie) and argued Communism was the inevitable destination for society. His abstract view of human history led many to adopt his ideas and led to the formation of self-declared Communist states across four continents. Stalin was a far more divisive figure. He could be seen as a power hungry, egotistical dictator who was apathetic towards the suffering of his own people, or the pragmatic statesman who effectively translated Marxism into a political system, which adopted the core principles but not the unnecessary elements of Marxism deemed ‘too Utopian’ or in other words, unattainable.