Karl Marx

Karl Marx (1818–1883) is often treated as a revolutionary, an activist rather than a philosopher, whose
works inspired the foundation of many communist regimes in the twentieth century. It is certainly hard
to find many thinkers who can be said to have had comparable influence in the creation of the modern
world. However, Marx was trained as a philosopher, and although often portrayed as moving away from
philosophy in his mid-twenties—perhaps towards history and the social sciences—there are many
points of contact with modern philosophical debates throughout his writings.

The themes picked out here include Marx’s philosophical anthropology, his theory of history, his
economic analysis, his critical engagement with contemporary capitalist society (raising issues about
morality, ideology, and politics), and his prediction of a communist future.

Marx’s early writings are dominated by an understanding of alienation, a distinct type of social ill whose
diagnosis looks to rest on a controversial account of human nature and its flourishing. He subsequently
developed an influential theory of history—often called historical materialism—centred around the idea
that forms of society rise and fall as they further and then impede the development of human
productive power. Marx increasingly became preoccupied with an attempt to understand the
contemporary capitalist mode of production, as driven by a remorseless pursuit of profit, whose origins
are found in the extraction of surplus value from the exploited proletariat. The precise role of morality
and moral criticism in Marx’s critique of contemporary capitalist society is much discussed, and there is
no settled scholarly consensus on these issues. His understanding of morality may be related to his
account of ideology, and his reflection on the extent to which certain widely-shared misunderstandings
might help explain the stability of class-divided societies. In the context of his radical journalism, Marx
also developed his controversial account of the character and role of the modern state, and more
generally of the relation between political and economic life. Marx sees the historical process as
proceeding through a series of modes of production, characterised by (more or less explicit) class
struggle, and driving humankind towards communism. However, Marx is famously reluctant to say much
about the detailed arrangements of the communist alternative that he sought to bring into being,
arguing that it would arise through historical processes, and was not the realisation of a pre-determined
plan or blueprint.