Karl Marx

Karl Marx (May 5, 1818- March 14, 1883)

Biography

            A German philosopher and famous Prussian political economist, journalist, and activist, is considered to be one of the founding thinkers of sociology. Among Marx's most well-known and cited intellectual contributions are the concepts of historical materialism, base and superstructure, and false consciousness.

            He was born in Trier, Prussia (present-day Germany) on May 5, 1818 to Heinrich Marx and Henrietta Pressberg. Marx's parents were Jewish, however, his father converted to Lutheranism to evade anti-Semitism prior to Marx's birth. He was educated at home by his father until high school, and at the age of 17, enrolled at Bonn University (Germany). He studied law at his father's request but he is more interested in philosophy and literature. In 1836, he enrolled at the University of Berlin, , where he soon felt at home when he joined a circle of brilliant and extreme thinkers who were challenging existing institutions and ideas, including religion, philosophy, ethics, and politics. Marx graduated with his doctoral degree in 1841. Then after school, he support himself and in 1842, he became the editor of the liberal Cologne newspaper Rheinische Zeitung, but the Berlin government prohibited the publication of the following year. Then, he went to Paris for 2 years, and he met his collaborator Friedrich Engels. However, he was prohibited also in France because of his works so he moved to Brussels, Belgium in 1845. He founded the German Workers’ Party and was active in the Communist League. There, he wrote his famous work, The Manifesto of the Communist Party. After being exiled again from Belgium, Marx finally settled in London where he lived as a stateless exile for the rest of his life. He spent his working time in British Museum, doing research both for his newspaper articles and his books. In preparation for Das Kapital, he read every available work in economic and financial theory and practice. After that year of university, Marx married Jenny von Westphalen who was also known as the “most beautiful girl in Trier”, on June 19, 1843. But she died of cancer on December 2, 1881, at the age of sixty-seven. For Marx it was a blow from which he never recovered. The Marxes had seven children, four of whom died in infancy or childhood, but the three survive. In London, Marx worked in journalism and wrote for both German and English language publications. From 1852 to 1862, he was a correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune, writing a total of 355 articles. He also continued writing and formulating his theories about the nature of society and how he believed it could be improved, as well as actively campaigning for socialism. He succumbed to cancer on March 14, 1883, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery in London.

Philosophy

            Communism is the strictly theoretical system imagined by Karl Marx in which all of society, all of economics and all politics are combined into one, perfect, classless, automatic, government-less system based on common ownership of all economic means of production, and social sameness. To achieve this utopian dream, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote the "Communist Manifesto" to inspire violent revolution everywhere. The Communist Manifesto (originally Manifesto of the Communist Party) is an 1848 political pamphlet by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Analysis

            According to Marx, it is class struggle (the evolving conflict between classes with opposing interests) that is the means of bringing about changes in a society's mode of production, and that structures each historical period and drives historical change.  As one would expect, the Communist Manifesto is a declaration of the intensions of a communist organization. Yet it has proved to be much more than this. It has also served as a brief and concise explanation of the ideas that form the foundation of communist and socialist ideology. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and then-present) and the problems of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms. We are still in the throes of this process. Eventually the efficiencies brought by the capitalist system, if allowed to operate in a free environment, will provide a high standard of living for most of the world. The Communist Manifesto summarizes Marx and Engels' theories about the nature of society and politics, that in their own words, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism. The Communist Manifesto still finds favor among many political groups and it’s tenets and ideas are worthy of study because there are economic and historical truths embedded within it. It has also proved to be the foundation of one of the most prominent economic and political movements of the 20^th century.

Conclusion

            Marx remained a relatively unknown figure in his own lifetime, his ideas and the ideology of Marxism began to exert a major influence on socialist movements shortly after his death. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and in a 1999 BBC poll was voted the "thinker of the millennium" by people from around the world. The memorial at his grave is always covered by tokens of appreciation from his fans. Even though Marx is banned in London, he tries his best to do and right a lot of articles. After all of that struggles that happened to Marx, he stand on his own and live a simple life but with a strong personality. Marx is a good philosopher because he influenced many people about his articles and by also being a communist.