“The history of all previous
societies has been the history of class struggles.” If you were to ask any
philosophers or philosophical thinkers they will most likely tell you that Karl
Marx is better known as a revolutionary as opposed to a philosopher. However,
even though Marx moved away from philosophy to pursue a life of politics and
economics, his later works make reference to numerous contemporary
philosophical debates in addition to his early philosophical works. He touched
on ideas in political and moral philosophy and the philosophy of social
sciences and history, and focused on the idea that forms of society rise and
fall as they further and then impede the development of human productive power.
Born in Trier, Prussia in 1818, Marx
was born to a family of nine children. His mother and father, Heinrich and
Henrietta Marx, were both Jewish descending from a long line of rabbis until
his father converted to Lutheranism in 1816 so he might pursue a career in law
in light of the anti-Jewish laws in Prussia. At the age of six, Marx was baptized
but would go on to become an atheist. As a young man, he studied law at the
University of Bonn where he was arrested for drunkenness and dueling another
student. His parents then enrolled him into the University of Berlin, where he
also studied law along in addition to philosophy. It was there Marx discovered
the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel and joined the Young Hegelians; a group known
for challenging ideas and existing institutions in all manners, including
ethics, philosophy, politics, and religion.
After completing his doctorate in
1841, Marx turned to journalism where he began writing for Rheinische Zeitung,
the liberal democratic newspaper, and would become the paper’s editor in 1842.
Marx faced harsh criticism and the paper was banned the following year by the
Prussian government who deemed it too radical. With that, Marx and his newly
wed wife, Jenny von Westphalen, moved to Paris where he met émigré Friedrich
Engels, who would become his lifelong friend and collaborator. The two
published “The Holy Father” in 1845,
which criticized Bauer’s Young Hegelian philosophy.
Not long after, Marx and Engels
moved to Brussels Belgium after the Prussian government got involved to see
Marx deported from France. It was there Marx renounced his Prussian
citizenship, and in 1847, he and Engels were chosen by the newly founded
Communist League in London to write “The
Communist Manifesto,” which was published the following year. In this book,
Marx and Engels depicted all of history as a series of class struggles, and
foreshadowed that the proletarian revolution would see an end to the capitalist
system, leaving workingmen as the new ruling class.
In 1848, Marx fled Belgium to avoid expulsion
from the country’s government because of the revolutionary uprisings in Europe.
Marx settled down in London, where he would spend the rest of his days,
regardless of being denied British citizenship. He worked as a journalist
however, was financially supported by Engels, and soon became more focused on his
economic theories. In 1867, Marx published his works in economic theory in the
first volume of “Capital” (Das
Kapital) where he describes “the economic law of motion of modern society” and
his theory of capitalism as having a self-destructive nature. Marx spent the
the rest of his life trying to compile manuscripts for multiple volumes, yet
they remained unfinished when he died on March 1, 1883.
The next installment will focus more
on the works of Marx.
Sources:
"workingmen as the new ruling class" - but the state is supposed eventually to "wither away," without any need for a ruling class, right?
ReplyDeleteAn acclaimed recent bio of Marx: "Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life" by Jonathan Sperber.