Karl Marx

Introduction
Karl Marx was a…
 Philosopher
 Historian
 Sociologist
 Journalist
 Economist (which is most famous for)

Marx’s beliefs
 He believed that all human history is governed by economic laws and a series of
struggles between people of different social classes.
 He believed that people’s need to eat, drink, and have shelter (the material means of
existence) comes before other pursuits in life, such as politics, science, art, and religion.
o Like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
 Most of us remember him for his communist ideas.
o “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletariat have
nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of all
countries unite!” - Karl Marx

Fredrich Engels
 Friedrich Engels was a wealthy man who helped Marx create an international workers’
movement intended to overthrow the “corrupt ruling class of industrial capitalists and
landlords”.
o Engels also helped Marx write “The Communist Manifesto”.

Biography
 Karl Marx was born on May 5th,1818 in Trier, Germany
 He studied philosophy at the Bonn University
 Graduated in 1836 at 18 years old
 He became an editor after graduating for a middle-class liberal newspaper
 He became more outspoken, so his newspaper got banned
 The Times
What was the economy like during his lifetime?
 In the second half of his life, Marx witnessed the ill effects of the industrial revolution on
the working class.
o In that time, workers lived in slums and worked 18-hour days in unsafe factories.
o Often children had to endure this because there were no laws protecting children
from child labor
o Because of this, a lot of children were unable to go to school and were not able to
advance in their career.
 Capitalism was rampant, and as Marx saw these effects, he believed that the capitalist
system was immoral and the people who exploited it were unbelievably evil.
o This is when he tried to overthrow the capitalist government and start
revolutions across Europe.

Contribution to the Discipline

Marx’s Contributions

 He wrote Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto, which both analyzed class conflict,
which stated that capitalist societies are being divided into the bourgeoisie (who owned
the means of production and exploit workers) and the proletariat (the workers)
 It was argued that capitalists extracted surplus value from workers by paying them less
than the value of their labor power. (i.e., workers are not paid the equivalent value of
what they produce)
o He believed it created inequality and led to crises and instability.
o He emphasized collective action, arguing that the proletariat must organize and
overthrow the bourgeoisie in order to establish a socialist society. ("Workers of all
countries unite")

Surplus value- Additional value created by the worker's labor that is not paid to the worker, but
instead goes to the capitalist as profit. (Material cost- wage= surplus value)

Labor theory of value- When the value of a good or service is determined by the amount of
labor required to produce it.