Karl Marx

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Karl Marx

• By Michael Hurst, Matt Cortes Chris Sexton

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A Brief History

• Born in Trier, kingdom of prussia (Germanys main
  kingdom)
• D.o.b. may 5, 1818
• He was the third of seven children in a large
  Jewish family. His father soon converted the
  families religion christianity.
• D.o.d. march 14, 1883

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education

• Home schooled till the age of thirteen
• Graduated from the trier gymnasium
• enrolled into the university of bonn at the age
  of 17 to study law
• The following year his father forced him to
  enroll at Friedrich-wilhelms-universitat in
  berlin

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Education continued

• In 1841 marx earned his doctorate with a thesis
  paper titled the difference between the
  democritean and epicurean philosophy of nature
• However he had to turn his thesis into university
  of jena, because of his reputation as a young
  hegilian radical (non-religious bibicol
  scholars, went against the norm)

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Philosophy/ theories

• It is human nature to transform nature
• He called this transformation labour and the
  capity to transform nature labour power
• argued that work is a social activity and that
  the conditions and forms under and through which
  people work are socially determined and change
  over time.

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Philosophy/ theories Continued

• Defined classes as groups with the same
  objectives
• Concerned with how people relate to labour power
• Argued that the main point of religion was to
  promote solidarity (social relations that bind
  people together)
• These theories helped form the communist manifesto

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Influences

• The dialectical method and historical orientation
  of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• The classical political economy of Adam Smith and
  David Ricardo
• French socialist and sociological thought, in
  particular the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Earlier German materialism, particularly Ludwig
  Feuerbach

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Communist manifesto

• A spectre is haunting Europe -- the spectre of
  communism. All the powers of old Europe have
  entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this
  spectre Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot,
  French Radicals and German police-spies.
• Where is the party in opposition that has not
  been decried as communistic by its opponents in
  power? Where is the opposition that has not
  hurled back the branding reproach of communism,
  against the more advanced opposition parties, as
  well as against its reactionary adversaries?
• Two things result from this fact
• I. Communism is already acknowledged by all
  European powers to be itself a power.
• II. It is high time that Communists should
  openly, in the face of the whole world, publish
  their views, their aims, their tendencies, and
  meet this nursery tale of the spectre of
  communism with a manifesto of the party itself.
• To this end, Communists of various nationalities
  have assembled in London and sketched the
  following manifesto, to be published in the
  English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and
  Danish languages.

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Marxism today

• Marx is considered the founder of communism
• Some Communist countries today are China, Cuba,
  Laos, north Korea, and Vietnam
• However in the last century the ideas of
  communism and Marxism have been looked down upon

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