Karl Marx

1818 - 1883

Life

Context

• Industrial revolution
  • Large factory worker population
  • More apparent wealth inequality
  • Undesirable working conditions for many
• French revolution
  • Inspired social reforms, belief in the peasant revolution
  • German revolution wanted a single state, with a liberal democracy (1848)

• Romanticized

  • Feeling of social estrangement from one another
  • Industrialization was a large change

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• Family

  • Born in Trier
  • Eldest surviving son of nine children
  • Jewish parents from a line of rabbis, mother from Holland
  • Father was a successful lawyer and man of the Enlightenment
  • He was baptized in the Evangelical Established church to pursue his career
  • Interested in poetry and theatre

• Education

  • Educated from 1830 to 1835 in Trier, under police surveillance for suspicion of harboring liberal teachers and pupils
  • 1835-1836: Studied at the University of Bonn, exclusively the humanities: Greek and Roman mythology and the history of art
  • Political rebellion was part of the culture
  • Became president of a drinking club, arrested for public drunkenness
  • Father consequently removes him for that institution
  • 1826: Enrolled at the University of Berlin to study law and philosophy
  • Introduced to Hegel
  • Prussian government tried to drive Hegelians from universities
  • Submitted his doctoral dissertation to the university at Jena (more relaxed academic requirements) and received his degree in 1841

• Career

  • Works for newspaper Rheinische Zeitung, pressured by censorship
  • Moved to Paris, center for socialist thought
  • Became a revolutionary and communist
  • Collaboration with Engels
  • Kicked out of Paris for participation of the 1848 rev and Brussels
  • Moved to London

Philosophy

History

• Historical materialism

  • History is the result of material conditions, not ideas
  • Religion, morality, social structures and other things are all rooted in economics
  • Human history is economically determined

• Historical materialism

  • Hegel: history of mankind is a constant movement of ideas
  • Historical materialism: history of mankind is a struggle over control for the means of production
  • Marx believed religion was the opium of the people, used to keep people submissive
  • Society is moving through different phases:
  • Tribal: pre-historical, primitive communism, work divided more equally, property shared
  • Ancient: Transfer to agriculture, land is means of production, there are slaves, Rome falls
  • Feudal: Serfdom, there is a hierarchy, leads to French rev
  • Industrial: Proletariat is exploited by the bourgeois, ended in worker’s revolution
  • Socialist: Gets rid of bourgeois system, transfer of ownership (dictatorship) of the proletariat
  • Final phase, classless, propertyless, stateless society
  • There are revolutions that usher in this different ages
  • Writes his book in the time of the industrial phase

Capitalism

• Accumulation
  • Accumulation: Owners reap the benefits of labor
  • Smaller group becomes richer and richer
  • Industries go bankrupt, the labor market is flooded and lowers demand of labor and wages
  • Will collapse under its own weight
  • Growth will stagnate, everything becomes unaffordable
• Verelendung
  • Poor working conditions
  • Alienated from their work
  • Only do small part, less connection
  • However:
  • Not in capitalist’s interests to maintain poor conditions
  • Led to increase in wages
  • Increased their living conditions
  • Undesirable labor has, though, been outsourced

Economics

• Price theory
  • There are laws governing the value of commodities as represented by the social relationship of wages and price
  • Employers cannot raise or lower wages merely at their whim, nor raise their price at will to make up for lost profits resulting from wage increase
  • Value-added theory is equal to the sum of gross wage income and gross profit income
  • Surplus value is equal to the new value created by workers in excess of their own labor, which is appropriated by the employer
• Products
  • Values appear to result from the nature of the products, but it is labor that gives a product its value
• Workers
  • Increasingly removed from their work
  • Proletariat are those that have the working power
  • Sees an alienation in society
  • Deaminized by capitalism
  • Owners of production exploit their labor for their own profit
  • Conditions will get worse until workers unite and overthrow the upper class
• Alienation
  • Heavily influenced by romanticist sentiment
  • Marx believed that industry and capitalism both cause alienation
  • Workers do not see themselves in their product, work should be enriching and fulfilling
• Communist critique
  • Did not like the theoretical work of his contemporizes
  • Favored revolution rather than utopia
• Phases of communism
  • Rising of the workers
  • No more competition
  • Abolition of private property, since it gives power to men over one another

Impact

Communism and socialism

• Considered the father of these systems
  • Criticized contemporary socialists
  • Modern socialists see themselves as the descendants of Marx
  • Became enemies for a time, had the same goal but different methods to achieve it
• Communism
  • Changes through violent action and revolution
  • Used by those that desired violence and rapid change
  • Used as a means for authoritarianism
  • Saw socialists as traders to the cause for cooperation with the bourgeoise
  • Presented as a true alternative or successor to capitalism and democracy
• Socialism
  • Uses institutions in place: evolution rather than revolution
  • Became known as social democrats because they used government
  • Wanted to achieve universal suffrage
  • Cooperation with liberals
  • Parties had strength in the second half of the 20th century
  • Creation of the welfare state

Legacy

• Totalitarianism
  • Several regimes built on this system
  • Massive loss of life and starvation
  • Irreversible tyrannical structures

• Positives

  • Draws attention to the poor working conditions
  • Attention towards equality and distribution of wealth to the needy

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Why communism lost its appeal

• Practical
  • Unable to compete with capitalism
  • Central planning was not as effective as capitalist individualist management
  • Consumer goods were inferior in communism
  • Meritocracy ensures higher quality of product at a competitive price
  • Especially could not compete with the technological revolution
• Moral
  • Always a tyrannical police state
  • Massive loss of life

• Ideological

  • Communists states had become capitalist
  • They never achieved stateless, classless society

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