Subject: Philosophy

Submitted by: Ahmad Khan

Submitted to: Khalid Iqbal Yasir

Semester and Section: 5th C

Roll No: 18393

Karl Heinrich Marx:

Karl Heinrich Marx (1818–1883) was born in Trier, Germany to Jewish parents (who
later converted to Christianity in the face of anti-Jewish laws of the time). Attending private
schools in his childhood, Marx later studied law and eventually received a Ph.D. in
philosophy in 1841. As a student, he was heavily influenced by the philosophy of Georg
Hegel and his successors (known in philosophical circles as the “Young Hegelians”), but later
critiqued what he saw as the idealism of Hegel and developed his own theory of historical
materialism (see the “Key Concepts” section below). After receiving his Ph.D., Marx worked
as a journalist and became involved in communist thought and politics, as well as numerous
political and social issues of the time. In 1843 he married Jenny Von Westphalen and, in
1844, he met Friedrich Engels, who would financially support much of Marx’s later writing
and co-author some of his most influential works, such as the Manifesto of the Communist
Party and The German Ideology.

Marx moved to England in 1849, and spent the remainder of his life researching,
writing, and being involved in politics and activism until his death in 1883.

Marx’s theory of Historical Materialism:

Marx's theory, which he called "historical materialism" or the "materialist conception

of history" is based on Hegel's claim that history occurs through a dialectic, or clash, of
opposing forces. Hegel was a philosophical idealist who believed that we live in a world of
appearances, and true reality is an ideal. Marx accepted this notion of the dialectic, but
rejected Hegel's idealism because he did not accept that the material world hides from us the
"real" world of the ideal; on the contrary, he thought that historically and socially specific
ideologies prevented people from seeing the material conditions of their lives clearly.

Marx's analysis of history is based on his distinction between the means of

production, literally those things, like land and natural resources, and technology, that are
necessary for the production of material goods, and the social relations of production, in other
words, the social relationships people enter into as they acquire and use the means of
production. Together these comprise the mode of production; Marx observed that within any
given society the mode of production changes, and that European societies had progressed
from a feudal mode of production to a capitalist mode of production.

The capitalist mode of production is capable of tremendous growth because the

capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies. Marx considered
the capitalist class to be the most revolutionary in history, because it constantly
revolutionized the means of production. In general, Marx believed that the means of
production change more rapidly than the relations of production. For Marx this mismatch
between base and superstructure is a major source of social disruption and conflict. The
history of the means of production, then, is the substructure of history, and everything else,
including ideological arguments about that history, constitutes a superstructure.

Under capitalism people sell their labor-power when they accept compensation in
return for whatever work they do in a given period of time (in other words, they are not
selling the product of their labor, but their capacity to work). In return for selling their labor
power they receive money, which allows them to survive. Those who must sell their labor
power to live are "proletarians." The person who buys the labor power, generally someone
who does own the land and technology to produce, is a "capitalist" or "bourgeois."

Marx believed that this cycle of growth, collapse, and growth would be punctuated by
increasingly severe crises. Moreover, he believed that the long-term consequence of this
process was necessarily the empowerment of the capitalist class and the impoverishment of
the proletariat. He believed that were the proletariat to seize the means of production, they
would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, and a system of
production less vulnerable to periodic crises. In general, Marx thought that peaceful
negotiation of this problem was impracticable, and that a massive, well-organized and violent
revolution was required. Finally, he theorized that to maintain the socialist system, a
proletarian dictatorship must be established and maintained.

Louis Pierre Althusser:

Louis Pierre Althusser (16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist
philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris,
where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy.
 Althusser was a longtime member—although sometimes a strong critic—of the
French Communist Party (Parti communiste francais, PCF). His arguments and theses were
set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism. These
included both the influence of empiricism on Marxist theory, and humanist and reformist
socialist orientations which manifested as divisions in the European communist parties, as
well as the problem of the "cult of personality" and of ideology.

Althusser's life was marked by periods of intense mental illness. In 1980, he killed his
wife, the sociologist Hélène Rytmann, by strangling her. He was declared unfit to stand trial
due to insanity and committed to a psychiatric hospital for three years. He did little further
academic work, dying in 1990.

His Marxist Philosophical Thoughts:

Althusser discusses ideology in his work, looking at the way in which people lose
their individuality and become subjects based on ideological views. Ideology, for Althusser
'represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.' This
means that Althusser believes that ideologies are circulated by agencies (in our case, the
media) and help to construct peoples’ identities. But because this is so subtle and covert,
members of society don’t realize this is happening.

Althusser believed that we are controlled by the ruling classes. Their ideas of what’s
right or wrong, what we should or shouldn’t, what we can or can’t is inflicted upon us,
inevitably brainwashing us until we believe that these ideologies are the way of life. This
explains why there are pre-defined ideas about gender, class, ethnicity and sexuality.

Althusser argued that there are several establishments in society that reinforce
stereotypes and discriminations. They are called ideological agencies. These include religion,
education, the family, the mass media and popular culture.

Bibliography:

1) Russell, Bertrand. (1945). The History of Western Philosophy.

2) https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philosophy/history/marx_historical_materialism.html

3) https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1953/onmarx/on-marxism.htm
4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Gramsci