KARL MARX

GERMAN PHILOSOPHER
 Biography
 Karl Marx, in full Karl Heinrich Marx, (born May 5,
1818, Trier, Rhine province, Prussia [Germany]—died
March 14, 1883, London, England), was revolutionary,
philosopher, sociologist, historian, and economist. He
published (with Friedrich Engels) Manifest der
Kommunistischen Partei (1848), commonly known as
The Communist Manifesto, the most celebrated pamphlet
in the history of the socialist movement. He also was the
author of the movement’s most important book, Das
Kapital. These writings and others by Marx and Engels
form the basis of the body of thought and belief known as
Marxism.
Karl Marx
January 01, 1875
 Early Years

Marx was educated from 1830 to 1835 at the high school in Trier. Suspected of
harbouring liberal teachers and pupils, the school was under police surveillance.
Marx’s writings during this period exhibited a spirit of Christian devotion and a
longing for self-sacrifice on behalf of humanity. In October 1835 he matriculated at
the University of Bonn. The courses he attended were exclusively in the humanities,
in such subjects as Greek and Roman mythology and the history of art. He
participated in customary student activities, fought a duel, and spent a day in jail for
being drunk and disorderly. He presided at the Tavern Club, which was at odds with
the more aristocratic student associations, and joined a poets’ club that included some
political activists. A politically rebellious student culture was, indeed, part of life at
Bonn. Many students had been arrested; some were still being expelled in Marx’s
time, particularly as a result of an effort by students to disrupt a session of the Federal
Diet at Frankfurt. Marx, however, left Bonn after a year and in October 1836 enrolled
at the University of Berlin to study law and philosophy.
 Philosophy and social thought

 „The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class

struggles.”
— Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

 Marx had a special concern with how people relate to their own labour power. He wrote extensively
about this in terms of the problem of alienation. As with the dialectic, Marx began with a Hegelian
notion of alienation but developed a more materialist conception. Capitalism mediates social
relationships of production (such as among workers or between workers and capitalists) through
commodities, including labour, that are bought and sold on the market. For Marx, the possibility that
one may give up ownership of one's own labour—one's capacity to transform the world—is tantamount
to being alienated from one's own nature and it is a spiritual loss. Marx described this loss as
commodity fetishism, in which the things that people produce, commodities, appear to have a life and
movement of their own to which humans and their behaviour merely adapt.
• Ideology
 Commodity fetishism provides an example of what Engels called
"false consciousness", which relates closely to the understanding of
ideology. By "ideology", Marx and Engels meant ideas that reflect
the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but
which contemporaries see as universal and eternal. Marx and Engels's
point was not only that such beliefs are at best half-truths, as they
serve an important political function. Put another way, the control
that one class exercises over the means of production includes not
only the production of food or manufactured goods, but also the
production of ideas (this provides one possible explanation for why
members of a subordinate class may hold ideas contrary to their own
interests). An example of this sort of analysis is Marx's understanding
of religion, summed up in a passage from the preface to his 1843
Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right.
• Religion is the opium of the people

-Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression
of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is
the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world,
and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people
is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give
up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give
up a condition that requires illusions.
• The conflict theory

 Accumulation of capital shapes the social system. For Marx,

social change was about conflict between opposing interests,
driven in the background by economic forces. This became
the inspiration for the body of works known as the conflict
theory. In his evolutionary model of history, he argued that
human history began with free, productive and creative work
that was over time coerced and dehumanised, a trend most
apparent under capitalism.
 Legacy
 Marx's ideas have had a profound impact on world politics and intellectual thought. Followers of
Marx have frequently debated amongst themselves over how to interpret Marx's writings and apply
his concepts to the modern world. The legacy of Marx's thought has become contested between
numerous tendencies, each of which sees itself as Marx's most accurate interpreter. In the political
realm, these tendencies include Leninism, Marxism–Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism,
Luxemburgism and libertarian Marxism. Various currents have also developed in academic
Marxism, often under influence of other views, resulting in structuralist Marxism, historical
Marxism, phenomenological Marxism, analytical Marxism and Hegelian Marxism.

 Politically, Marx's legacy is more complex. Throughout the twentieth century, revolutions in dozens
of countries labelled themselves "Marxist", most notably the Russian Revolution, which led to the
founding of the Soviet Union. Major world leaders including Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Fidel
Castro, Salvador Allende, Josip Broz Tito, Kwame Nkrumah and Thomas Sankara all cited Marx
as an influence and his ideas informed political parties worldwide beyond those where Marxist
revolutions took place. The countries associated with some Marxist nations have led political
opponents to blame Marx for millions of deaths, but the fidelity of these varied revolutionaries,
leaders and parties to Marx's work is highly contested and rejected by many Marxists. It is now
common to distinguish between the legacy and influence of Marx specifically and the legacy and
influence of those who shaped his ideas for political purposes.
 Death
 Several of his closest friends spoke at his funeral, including Wilhelm Liebknecht
and Friedrich Engels. Engels' speech included the passage:
-On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living
thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and
when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep—but
forever.

 One hundred and thirty five years ago - on 14th March 1883 to be precise - Karl
Marx, one of the greatest figures in human history, died.