Karl Marx and Marxism

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Karl Marx and Marxism
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Biography

• Born 1818 in Trier
• Jewish extraction
• Studied philosophy and economics in Berlin
• Married Jenny von Westphalen
• Earned his living (badly) as a journalist
• Died 1883 in London having only written 3 of the
  planned 8 volumes of Das Kapital.

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Jenny von Westphalen

• Marx adored Jenny.
• They were engaged for seven years before her
  family would allow a marriage.
• They lived off her wealth.
• He died soon after her, not wishing to be alone
  without her.

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Politics

• Marx was a communist.
• He wrote The Communist Manifesto with his friend,
  Friedrich Engels in 1848.
• He had three kinds of writing
• Journalism
• Political polemic
• Analysis of society and culture.

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Engels on Marx

• His real mission in life was to contribute, in
  one way or another, to the overthrow of
  capitalist society and of the state institutions
  which it had brought into being, to contribute to
  the liberation of the modern proletariat, which
  he was the first to make conscious of its own
  position and its needs, conscious of the
  conditions of its emancipation. His name will
  endure through the ages, and so also will his
  work.

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Marxism

• Communism is a political philosophy which argues
  that men should have equal rights to wealth.
• Marxism is a way of understanding and analysing
  the organisation and structure of society. It is
  also a way of understanding how societies develop
  and change.

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Marxs role in history

• When Marx died, he was not well known except in
  revolutionary circles.
• After his death, his writing prompted a number of
  politicians to lead revolutions in his name.
• Many of these societies were totalitarian.
• His philosophy underlies the thinking of many
  political parties old Labour for example.

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Conflict theory

• All societies are divided into two groups
• Owners
• Workers
• Our society is capitalist.
• Owners are bourgeoisie
• Workers are proletarians

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Marx on history

• The history of all hitherto existing society is
  the history of class struggle.

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Owners and workers

• Owners exploit workers and live off the money
  which the workers earn
• Workers put up with this inequality because
• They are oppressed wage slaves and cannot fight
  the system
• They are indoctrinated by ideology and religion
  into believing what they are told by the powerful.

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Marx on the workers

• The worker becomes all the poorer the more
  wealth he produces, the more his production
  increases in power and range.

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Cardiff Who paid?
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Marx and The Revolution

• Marx predicted that wealth would belong to fewer
  and fewer people.
• The workers would eventually realise their
  position and overthrow the bourgeoisie
• There would be an armed revolution which would
  begin in Britain.
• It would happen in the very near future.

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What happened?

• The biggest problem with Marxism is that the
  predicted revolution never occurred in the form
  he said it would.
• People are not poorer.
• Wealth is not concentrated in the hands of a few
  rich people.
• Britain hasnt had a Communist revolution yet and
  is not likely to in the near future.

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Marx in his own words - 1

• Men make their own history, but they do not make
  it just as they please they do not make it under
  circumstances chosen by themselves, but under
  circumstances directly found, given and
  transmitted from the past. The tradition of all
  the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on
  the brain of the living.

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Marx in his own words - 2

• History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second
  as farce.

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Marx in his own words - 3

• The writer may very well serve a movement of
  history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of
  course create it.

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Marx in his own words - 4

• In bourgeois society capital is independent and
  has individuality, while the living person is
  dependent and has no individuality.

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Conclusion

• Marxism is a political philosophy your views
  are your own and not required in sociology.
• Marxism is an understanding of the nature of
  social relationships which you are expected to
  evaluate. Recognise that it has strengths and
  weakness as a tool of understanding of our
  culture.

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The end

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