Karl Marx (1818-1883)

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Karl Marx (1818-1883)
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Early Life

• Born May 5, 1818 in Trier, Rhineland
• Family converted from Judaism to Catholicism in
  1820
• Went to Bonn University in 1835 to study law
• Transferred to the University of Berlin in 1836

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Georg Hegel (1770-1831)

• Main Works The Phenomenology of Spirit The
  Philosophy of History The Philosophy of Right
• Dominant philosophical influence in Germany of
  the early 1800s

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Hegels Influence on Marx

• Emphasized the idea of philosophy as a practice
• Historicity of knowledge reality is a living,
  evolving system
• Emphasized the economic nature of society in The
  Philosophy of Right many of Marxs earliest
  writings are examinations of this work

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The Dialectic

• Historical process of development intellectual,
  moral, political, social, etc.
• Thesis generates its antithesis
• Out of the conflict of these arises a synthesis
  which serves as a new thesis
• In principle this never ends, though Hegel in
  fact ends this process in his philosophy and the
  Prussian state

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Dialectical Materialism

• Fundamental reality is purely physical
• All behavior is law-governed
• Social structures are determined by the mode of
  economic production
• Each mode of production leads to
  contradictionsproblems inherent to the system
  that cant be solved within the systemthus
  economic development is dialectical
• History is the history of class conflict
• Utopian element economic development is
  inevitable, and terminates in communism

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Early Career

• Father dies in 1838
• Transfers to the University of Jena in 1839
• Earns his PhD from the University of Jena in 1841
  with a dissertation on the atomism of Democritus
• 1842 becomes editor of the leftist journal
  Rheinische Zeitung

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Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)

• First met Marx in 1842
• They frequently collaborated, most notably on the
  Communist Manifesto
• Served as Marxs economic support during his
  exile
• After Marxs death, edited and published Capital

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Engels Writings

• The Condition of the Working Class in England
  (1845) first-hand exposé of the living
  conditions of the working poor
• The Origin of the Family, Private Property and
  the State (1884) Marxist analysis of the
  economic origins of some of societys central
  institutions
• Other major works include Anti-Duhring, Outlines
  of a Critique of Political Economy, The Peasant
  War in Germany and Socialism Utopian and
  Scientific

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Exile

• Exiled to Paris in 1843 by the Prussian
  government
• Exiled to Brussels in 1845 by the French
  government
• Returned to Prussia after the 1848 revolution,
  but exiled to London in 1850 after the Prussian
  government was restored

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Paris Manuscripts1844

• Also called Economic and Philosophical
  Manuscripts, written in exile in Paris during
  1844 but not published until 1927
• Developed the concept of alienation that would be
  influential on many later thinkers
• Developed a moral critique of Capitalism as
  fundamentally relying on conflicts whose
  resolution must be unjust

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Constructing a Politics

• 1844-1846 developed his own unique approach to
  Socialism in contrast to both the French and
  Prussian socialists
• The German Ideology (1845, written with Engels)
  contrasted his ideas with other Prussian
  leftists, especially Ludwig Feuerbach
• The Poverty of Philosophy (1846) criticized early
  French socialists, especially Paul Proudhon
• Theses on Feuerbach (1845) proclaimed the
  revolutionary aims of philosophy

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REVOLUTION!!

• In 1848, Marx and Engels were invited by The
  Communist League to produce a platform statement
• The Communist Manifesto that resulted was as much
  a call to revolution as it was a platform
  statement
• Wave of socialist revolutions throughout Europe
  France, Hungary, Italy, Prussia

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The Science of Economics

• After the failures of the 1848 revolutions, Marx
  focused more on developing a scientific economics
• Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy
  (1859) involved a critique of British Capitalism,
  esp. that of John Stuart Mill
• Capital (v.1, 1867) was his masterwork on
  developing a science of economics and an economic
  critique of Capitalism

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A Life of Involvement

• Ran the Neue Rheinische Zeitung from 1848-1850
• Was a prominent supporter and spokesman for labor
  unions, and served as President of the Working
  Mens International Association in 1864
• Worked as a foreign correspondent for the New
  York Times, where he publicly criticized
  colonialism and supported many national
  independence movements in Africa and India

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The Specter of Communism

• 1917 Russian Revolution (led by V. I. Lenin and
  Leon Trotsky)
• 1945 Chinese Revolution (led by Mao Zedong)
• 1959 Cuban Revolution (led by Fidel Castro and
  Ernesto Che Guevara)
• Marxist influence on anti-colonial movements
  (Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba)
• Liberation Theology, developed in the 1960s, was
  heavily influenced by Marxism

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Why Marx Now?

• Fall of the U.S.S.R. allows us to disconnect
  Marxs ideas from Soviet policies
• Influence of Marxs ideas on the political
  consciousness of the third world
• In some places, communism has been somewhat
  successful (China, Cuba, Mondragon)
• Rise of global capitalism
• Growing wealth disparities in industrialized
  nations