Free Essays on Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5th 1818 in Tier. He was one of four siblings and as the only son; he was his father’s favorite. His father, Heinrich, was married to a Dutch Jewess named Henrietta Pressburg. Heinrich was a Jewish Lawyer that had a firm belief in Judaism (historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html). It wasn’t until 1838 he converted his whole family to Christianity due to the fear of the loss of his practice in the Prussian state. It wasn’t an easy change for him. It took the loss of his mother in order for him to sever all ties with their native beliefs. Despite his parent’s dispute with their recent conversion Karl had an untroubled childhood and a very strong background. His father always knew that one day his son would help aid all humanity in its effort to survive, â€Å"His ‘Splendid natural gifts’ awakened in his father the hope that one day they would one day be used in the service of humanity, whilst his mother declared him to be a child of fortune in whose hands everything would go well.† (The Story of His Life, Mehring, page 2) This theory of his father started to shine when Karl was in high school. It all started when Marx was asked to write a paper on a chosen profession. Marx felt that this was unfair, and that he should take a different approach. In his paper he said that there is no way that a person could choose a single profession. A person has an occupation or profession due to certain circumstances. For instance a person would have more of a chance taking an aristocratic job coming from a rich environment than a person from a much poorer background would. He graduated high school in 1835 to enroll at the University of Bonn to study law. While at Bonn, Jenny Von Westphalen won his heart and he asked her to marry him (Karl Marx, Compton’s Encyclopedia). This was not a traditional engagement, because Karl didn’t ask for her father’s permission. Jenny was the daughter of an upp... Free Essays on Karl Marx Free Essays on Karl Marx "To sell a man a fish, he can eat for a day, to teach a man to fish, is to ruin a great business opportunity, says Karl Marx."Marx and Engels did a great thing when they wrote the â€Å"Communist Manifesto†. They tried to liberate the proletariat by educating him. This was and still is an enormous task that they took on. I will try to take a closer look at the â€Å"Communist Manifesto† and its main ideas. Here are some of the things that Karl Marx wrote in the â€Å"Communist Manifesto†. That he believed should be looked at for the communist revolution to take place. To begin, the abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes, a heavy progressive or graduated income tax, abolition of all rights of inheritance, fourth confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels, centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan, eight equal obligation of all to work, and last was free education for all children in public schools, also there are a few more he belived in.(Communist Manifesto). To start, during the time the Communist Manifesto was written by Marx, these were very important issues to deal with. The capitalist countries such as England and America, where private property was the basis of the entire economy, and they rejected these notion of throwing out the class structures. Marx looked at England as a model and leader of capitalism and industry and if he were alive today he would consider America to be a huge model of this. One of the main reasons for these countries rejecting Marx’s view is that they regarded him as a German philosopher who was educated in the field of German metaphysics. This was unappealing to the minds of capitalists (Capital vii). Marx’s the... Free Essays on Karl Marx Karl Marx Karl Marx was the mastermind behind the developments of the some of the most renowned theories in sociological history. Marx’s ideas helped many people understand the origin behind a capitalist/bourgeoisie society. He also examined humans in the sense of how they experienced living in a capitalist society. By focusing on these ideas, Marx discovered how capitalism could eventually lead to the feelings of isolation from the society in which they lived in. First, I believe that it is important to understand how capitalism originated. For a capitalist society to function properly, some sort of class struggle must exist between the individuals who belong to different socioeconomic groups. Class struggle is the key to an economic system. It has existed since ancient times. During this era, Rome, Greece, and Babylon were the strongest nations of civilization. The ruling class, also known as the Patricians, ran these civilizations. They were extremely wealthy, well educated, and had control over most of the land. The middle class of citizens comprised of few individuals during this time, and the working class during that period consisted of people who were treated like slaves. These people had very few, if any, rights. Around 476 A.D., civilization dawned upon the Middle Ages, and the practice of feudalism prevailed. During this period, the ruling class was now known as the nobles; the middle class was still consistent as it was like before the Middle Ages. Now, the working class began to see more rights than they did during Ancient times, because the peasant were finally allowed to keep a portion of whatever they grew to sell for their own personal profit. Feudalism was seen until the late eighteenth century. During this era, the peasants and middle class could not take anymore of the Noble’s controlling authority over their personal life and property. Eventually, they ended up overthrowing the ruling class, and st... Free Essays on Karl Marx In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations. The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with clash antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms: Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes, directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed. The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development. The feudal system of industry, under which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop. Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand eve... Free Essays on Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5th 1818 in Tier. He was one of four siblings and as the only son; he was his father’s favorite. His father, Heinrich, was married to a Dutch Jewess named Henrietta Pressburg. Heinrich was a Jewish Lawyer that had a firm belief in Judaism (historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html). It wasn’t until 1838 he converted his whole family to Christianity due to the fear of the loss of his practice in the Prussian state. It wasn’t an easy change for him. It took the loss of his mother in order for him to sever all ties with their native beliefs. Despite his parent’s dispute with their recent conversion Karl had an untroubled childhood and a very strong background. His father always knew that one day his son would help aid all humanity in its effort to survive, â€Å"His ‘Splendid natural gifts’ awakened in his father the hope that one day they would one day be used in the service of humanity, whilst his mother declared him to be a child of fortune in whose hands everything would go well.† (The Story of His Life, Mehring, page 2) This theory of his father started to shine when Karl was in high school. It all started when Marx was asked to write a paper on a chosen profession. Marx felt that this was unfair, and that he should take a different approach. In his paper he said that there is no way that a person could choose a single profession. A person has an occupation or profession due to certain circumstances. For instance a person would have more of a chance taking an aristocratic job coming from a rich environment than a person from a much poorer background would. He graduated high school in 1835 to enroll at the University of Bonn to study law. While at Bonn, Jenny Von Westphalen won his heart and he asked her to marry him (Karl Marx, Compton’s Encyclopedia). This was not a traditional engagement, because Karl didn’t ask for her father’s permission. Jenny was the daughter of an upp... Free Essays on Karl Marx Karl Marx views on social inequality have been working for today’s society for may years. The class struggle between the people who have known as the bourgeoisie and those that don’t have called the proletariat is still a very important aspect in describing social inequality. Looking at Karl Marx’s own life you have a sense and our able to see that he in his time did face and observe social inequality. Karl Marx was born to a prosperous lawyer in western Germany. Even before he was born, his small hometown of Trier , was now under the control by Prussia. As Marx came into adulthood, he knew that his strong opinions and his will to express them would most likely offend the Prussian authorities. In college, he became apart of a group called the young ‘Hegelians†, they followed the teaching of French philosopher Georg Friedrich Hegel. His thinking on the monarchy, the Prussian Government and Christianity appealed to a young Marx. He soon became a popular radical and made a name for himself. He began to see first had that his actions would have lifelong consequences. Marx due to his involvement with Hegel and the involvement with fellow radical Bruno Bauer, Marx was soon blacklisted by the Ministry of Education. He would now never be able to teach. Marx found out other ways to make his voice heard. He began to publish much of his articles and works he wrote. Most strongly critized was government censorship and poverty of the people. By the government always trying to find was to stop Marx, this only added fuel to the fire. His personal life was no better; he had married the love of his life named Jenny, but faced very harsh backlash from her parents and his own mother. He was also not given any of his fathers money after he died, just another reason that help make his thinking so very radical. He and Jenny eventually left Germany, the beginning of a long and permanent exile from his country. Marx had left Germany hoping ... Free Essays on Karl Marx Essay on Karl Marx â€Å"Man was born free and is everywhere in chains.† This, the view of famous philosopher Rousseau, parallels to the writings and views of Karl Marx. Karl Marx, born in Germany in 1818, throughout his 65 years of life wrote many powerful papers. Of the most notoriety; The Communist Manifesto, will be discussed thoroughly due to its importance in reference to Marx life and ideals as related to Rousseau’s quote. Marx was a liberal reformist who analyzed the relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeois, and believed, like Rousseau, that society was not in fact free, especially when concerning the proletarians. This is shown through his positions on; alienation, social change, and religion. As well as his ideologies of false consciousness, his belief of capitalisms need for reform, inequality and exploitation of the working classes could be addressed and abolished, that society is not defined by that of natural rights, but defined by the nature of our class status. In 1844 Karl Marx wrote and published The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, better known as â€Å"The Paris Manuscripts.† (http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/marx/Archive/1844-EPM/ ) This was Karl Marx’s first work, where he writes a study about alienation of workers. What does one mean by alienation? Karl Marx states that the alienated person feels a lack of meaning in his life, or a lack of self-realization. Alienation happens when you sell your labour power. There are four ways that one may feel alienation. The first type of alienation is alienation from labour. The second type of alienation is alienation from his or her product of labour. The third type of alienation is alienation from others. And fourthly, one may feel alienation from oneself and their creativity. These four forms of alienation are interconnected, and Karl Marx describes the connections between them. This is the core of his approach to the p... Free Essays on Karl Marx The late 1800’s were a time period where new ideas, theories, and philosophies ran through the minds of many young people. Amongst them was a man by the name of Karl Marx. Known as a man of great integrity and intelligence, Marx was thought to be one of the greatest thinkers of all time. Karl Marx was born in the German Rhineland to a well-cultured family, one that was not revolutionary. As a young man he received a classical education. Marx entered the University of Berlin where he read law, majoring in history as well as philosophy. His years at the university were the time period that was a turning point in Marx's life. From his early school days, philosophy had been a subject that sparked interest in Karl Marx. He was greatly concerned with humans' freedom and reviving the ancient concept of communism. The University of Berlin was where Marx had first become acquainted with the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. What attracted Marx to Hegel was his "sur! mounting of the characteristic difficulty of idealism." However, when Marx was later introduced to the philosophies of Feuerbach, his thoughts completely changed. According to Feuerbach,"man has so far in history lived primarily a life of religion, and that the essences of religion is man's estrangement from himself," At the same time of Marx becoming acquainted with these thoughts, he was jumping from one place to another causing his family to live in wretched poverty. Later on, using both the concepts of Hegelianism and of Feuerbach, Marx arrived at the formulation of his own philosophical anthropology. He first states that the primary determinant of history is economics where the history of society is viewed as the history of class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. The bourgeoisie are successful by extracting money from the proletariats for profit. Marx's theory predicts that the contradictions and weaknesses will cause economic crisis and deepe...