KARL MARX

1818-1883

GROUP 8:
JHANSI N
JOYAL JO
KEERTHANA S
LAKSHMI A
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a philosopher, author, social theorist,
and economist. He is famous for his theories
about capitalism and communism.

HIS EARLY LIFE

Born in Trier, Prussia (now Germany), on May 5, 1818, Marx was
the son of a successful Jewish lawyer who converted to Lutheranism
before Marx’s birth. Marx studied law in Bonn and Berlin, and at
Berlin, was introduced to the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel. He
became involved in radicalism at a young age through the Young
Hegelians, a group of students who criticized the political and
religious establishments of the day. Marx received his doctorate from
the University of Jena in 1841. His radical beliefs prevented him
from securing a teaching position, so instead, he took a job as a
journalist and later became the editor of Rheinische Zeitung, a liberal
newspaper in Cologne.
After living in Prussia, Marx lived in France for some time, and that is where he met his lifelong friend Friedrich
Engels. He was expelled from France and then lived for a brief period in Belgium before moving to London where
he spent the rest of his life with his wife. Marx died of bronchitis and pleurisy in London on March 14, 1883.
FAMOUS WORKS
The Communist Manifesto summarizes Marx and Engels's
theories about the nature of society and politics and is an
attempt to explain the goals of Marxism, and,
later, socialism. When writing The Communist
Manifesto, Marx and Engels explained how they thought
capitalism was unsustainable and how the capitalist
society that existed at the time of the writing would
eventually be replaced by a socialist one.

Das Kapital (full title: Capital: A Critique of Political Economy) was a

critique of capitalism. By far the more academic work, it lays forth Marx's
theories on commodities, labor markets, the division of labor and a basic
understanding of the rate of return to owners of capital. The exact origins of
the term "capitalism" in English are unclear, it appears that Karl Marx was not
the first to use the word "capitalism" in English, although he certainly
contributed to the rise of its use.
MARX'S INSPIRATION
Marx was inspired by classical political economists such as Adam Smith
and David Ricardo, while his own branch of economics, Marxian economics, is
not favored among modern mainstream thought. Nevertheless, Marx's ideas
have had a huge impact on societies, most prominently in communist projects
such as those in the USSR, China, and Cuba. Among modern thinkers, Marx is
still very influential in the fields of sociology, political economy, and strands
of heterodox economics

MARX'S SOCIAL ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

While many equate Karl Marx with socialism, his work on understanding capitalism as a social and economic
system remains a valid critique in the modern era. In Das Kapital (Capital in English), Marx argues that society
is composed of two main classes: Capitalists are the business owners who organize the process of production and
who own the means of production such as factories, tools, and raw material, and who are also entitled to any and
all profits.
The other, much larger class is composed of labor (which Marx termed the "proletariat"). Laborers do not own or
have any claim to the means of production, the finished products they work on, or any of the profits generated
from sales of those products. Rather, labor works only in return for a money wage. Marx argued that because of
this uneven arrangement, capitalists exploit workers.
MARX'S HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
Another important theory developed by Marx is known as historical materialism. This theory posits that
society at any given point in time is ordered by the type of technology used in the process of production.
Under industrial capitalism, society is ordered with capitalists organizing labor in factories or offices where
they work for wages. Prior to capitalism, Marx suggested that feudalism existed as a specific set of social
relations between lord and peasant classes related to the hand-powered or animal-powered means of
production prevalent at the time.

USING MARX AS A FOUNDATION

Marx's work laid the foundations for future communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin.
Operating from the premise that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction, his ideas formed the
basis of Marxism and served as a theoretical base for communism. Nearly everything Marx wrote was
viewed through the lens of the common laborer. From Marx comes the idea that capitalist profits are
possible because the value is "stolen" from the workers and transferred to employers. He was, without
question, one of the most important and revolutionary thinkers of his time.
THE LABOR THEORY OF VALUE
Like the other classical economists, Karl Marx believed in the labor theory of value to explain relative
differences in market prices. This theory stated that the value of a produced economic good can be
measured objectively by the average number of labor hours required to produce it. In other words, if a table
takes twice as long to make as a chair, then the table should be considered twice as valuable.

Marx understood the labor theory better than his predecessors (even Adam Smith) and contemporaries, and
presented a devastating intellectual challenge to laissez-faire economists in Das Kapital: If goods and
services tend to be sold at their true objective labor values as measured in labor hours, how do any
capitalists enjoy profits? It must mean, Marx concluded, that capitalists were underpaying or overworking,
and thereby exploiting, laborers to drive down the cost of production.

While Marx's answer was eventually proved incorrect and later economists adopted the subjective theory
of value, his simple assertion was enough to show the weakness of the labor theory's logic and
assumptions; Marx unintentionally helped fuel a revolution in economic thinking.