Karl Marx (2211 words) Essay Example For Students

Karl Marx (2211 words) Essay Karl MarxKarl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, 1818,in the city of Trier in Prussia, now, Germany. He was one of seven childrenof Jewish Parents. His father was fairly liberal, taking part in demonstrationsfor a constitution for Prussia and reading such authors as Voltaire andKant, known for their social commentary. His mother, Henrietta, was originallyfrom Holland and never became a German at heart, not even learning to speakthe language properly. Shortly before Karl Marx was born, his father convertedthe family to the Evangelical Established Church, Karl being baptized atthe age of six. Marx attended high school in his home town(1830-1835) where several teachers and pupils were under suspicion of harboringliberal ideals. Marx himself seemed to be a devoted Christian with a longingfor self-sacrifice on behalf of humanity. In October of 1835, he startedattendance at the University of Bonn, enrolling in non-socialistic-relatedclasses like Greek and Roman mythology and the history of art. During thistime, he spent a day in jail for being drunk and disorderly-the only imprisonmenthe suffered in the course of his life. The student culture at Bonn included,as a major part, being politically rebellious and Marx was involved, presidingover the Tavern Club and joining a club for poets that included some politicallyactive students. However, he left Bonn after a year and enrolled at theUniversity of Berlin to study law and philosophy. Marxs experience in Berlin was crucialto his introduction to Hegels philosophy and to his adherence to theYoung Hegelians. Hegels philosophy was crucial to the development ofhis own ideas and theories. Upon his first introduction to Hegels beliefs,Marx felt a repugnance and wrote his father that when he felt sick, itwas partially from intense vexation at having to make an idol of a view detested. The Hegelian doctrines exerted considerable pressure inthe revolutionary student culture that Marx was immersed in, however,and Marx eventually joined a society called the Doctor Club, involved mainlyin the new literary and philosophical movement whos chief figure wasBruno Bauer, a lecturer in theology who thought that the Gospels were nota record of History but that they came from human fantasies arising frommans emotional needs and he also hypothesized that Jesus had not existedas a person. Bauer was later dismissed from his position by the Prussiangovernment. By 1841, Marxs studies were l acking and, at the suggestionof a friend, he submitted a doctoral dissertation to the university atJena, known for having lax acceptance requirements. Unsurprisingly, hegot in, and finally received his degree in 1841. His thesis analyzed ina Hegelian fashion the difference between the natural philosophies of Democritusand Epicurus using his knowledge of mythology and the myth of Prometheusin his chains. In October of 1842, Marx became the editorof the paper Rheinische Zeitung, and, as the editor, wrote editorials onsocio-economic issues such as poverty, etc. During this time, he foundthat his Hegelian philosophy was of little use and he separated himselffrom his young Hegelian friends who only shocked the bourgeois to makeup their social activity. Marx helped the paper to succeed and it almostbecame the leading journal in Prussia. However, the Prussian governmentsuspended it because of pressures from the government of Russia. So,Marx went to Paris to study French Communism.In June of 1843, he was married to JennyVon Westphalen, an attractive girl, four years older than Marx, who camefrom a prestigious family of both military and administrative distinction. Although many of the members of the Von Westphalen family were opposedto the marriage, Jennys father favored Marx. In Paris, Marx became acquaintedwith the Communistic views of French workmen. Although he thought thatthe ideas of the workmen were utterly crude and unintelligent, he admiredtheir camaraderie. He later wrote an article entitled Toward the Critiqueof the Hegelian Philosophy of Right from which comes the famous quotethat religion is the opium of the people. Once again, the Prussian governmentinterfered with Marx and he was expelled from France. He left for Brussels,Belgium, and , in 1845, renounced his Prussian nationality. During the next two years in Brussels,the lifelong collaboration with Engels deepened further. He and Marx, sharingthe same views, pooled their intellectual resources and published TheHoly Family, a criticism of the Hegelian idealism of Bruno Bauer. In theirnext work, they demonstrated their materialistic conception of historybut the book found no publisher and remained unknown during its authorslifetimes.It is during his years in Brussels thatMarx really developed his views and established his intellectual standing.From December of 1847 to January of 1848, Engels and Marx wrote The CommunistManifesto, a document outlining 10 immediate measures towards Communism,ranging from a progressive income tax and the abolition of inheritancesto free education for all children.When the Revolution erupted in Europe in1848, Marx was invited to Paris just in time to escape expulsion by theBelgian government. He became unpopular to German exiles when, while inParis, he opposed Georg Heweghs project to organize a German legion toinvade and liberate the Fatherland. After traveling back to Cologne,Marx called for democracy and agreed with Engels that the Communist Leagueshould be disbanded. During this time, Marx got into trouble with the government;he was indicted on charges that he advocated that people not pay taxes. The French and Indian War EssayMarx also says that the more man worksas a laborer, the less he has to consume for himself because his productand labor are estranged from him. Marx says that because the work of thelaborer is taken away and does not belong to the laborer, the laborer loseshis rightful existence and is made alien to himself. Private propertybecomes a product and cause of alienated labor and through that, causesdisharmony. Alienated labor is seen as the consequence of market product,the division of labor, and the division of society into antagonistic classes.So, capitalism, which encourages the possessionof private property, encourages alienation of man. Capitalism, which encouragesthe amassment of money, encourages mass production, to optimize productivity. Mass production also intensifies the alienation of labor because it encouragesspecialization and it makes people view the workers not as individualsbut as machines to do work. It is this attitude that incites the uprisingsof the lower classes against the higher classes, namely, the nobility. Regarding Marxs attitude toward religion,he thought that religion was simply a product of mans consciousnessand that it is a reflection of the situation of a man who either has notconquered himself or has already lost himself again. Marx sums it allup in a famous quote, stating that religion is an opium for the people.Marxs hypothesis of historical materialismcontains this maxim; that It is not the consciousness of men which determinestheir existence; it is on the contrary their social existence which determinestheir consciousness. Marx has applied his theory of historical materialismto capitalist society in both The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital,among others. Marx never really explained his entire theory through buttaking the text literally, social reality is arranged in this way:That underlying our society is economicstructure; and That above the foundation of economy rises legal and politicalformsof social consciousness that relate back to the economic foundation ofsociety. An interesting mark of Marxs analysisof economy is evidenced in Das Kapital, where he studies the economy asa whole and not in one or another of its parts and sections. His analysisis based on the precept of man being a productive entity and that alleconomic value comes from human labor.Marx speaks of capitalism as an unstableenvironment. He says that its development is accompanied by increasingcontradictions and that the equilibrium of the system is precarious asit is to the internal pressures resulting from its development. Capitalismis too easy to tend to a downward spiral resulting in economic and socialruin. An example of the downward spiral in a capitalist society is inflation. Inflation involves too much currency in circulation. Because of inflationand the increase in prices of goods resulting from it, the people of thesociety hoard their money which, because that money is out of circulation,causes more money to be printed. The one increases the effect of the otherand thus, the downward spiral. Marx views revolution with two perspectives. One takes the attitude that revolution should be a great uprising likethat of the French revolution. The other conception is that of the permanentrevolution involving a provisional coalition between the low and higherclasses. However, an analysis of the Communist Manifesto shows inconsistenciesbetween the relationship of permanent and violent revolution; that Marxdid not exactly determine the exact relationship between these two yet. Aside from the small inconsistencies inMarxs philosophy, he exhibits sound ideas that do seem to work on paperbut fail in the real world where millions of uncertainties contribute tothe error in every social experiment on Earth. Communism never gets fartherthan socialism in its practice in the real world and that is where thefault lies, in the governments that try to cheat the system while stillmaintaining their ideal communist society.