Karl Marx (1818-1883)

1. Karl Marx (1818-1883)

2. 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

3. Main Works: The Phenomenology of Spirit; The Philosophy of History; The Philosophy of Right Dominant philosophical influence in Germany of the early 1800s Georg Hegel (1770-1831)

4. Hegel’s 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 Marx’s earliest writings are examinations of this work

5. The Dialectic • Historical process of development: intellectual, moral, political, social, etc. • Basic idea is development through a process of conflict and resolution • In principle this never ends, though Hegel in fact ends this process in his philosophy and the Prussian state

6. 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 “contradictions”—problems inherent to the system that can’t be solved within the system—thus economic development is dialectical • History is the history of class conflict • Utopian element: economic development is inevitable, and terminates in communism

7. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) • Fundamental moral principle: always treat persons as ends in themselves, never as a mere means • Serves as the moral assumption behind Marx’s moral critique of capitalism

8. 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

9. First met Marx in 1842 They frequently collaborated, most notably on the Communist Manifesto Served as Marx’s economic support during his exile After Marx’s death, edited and published Capital Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)

10. 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 society’s 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. A Life of Involvement • Ran the NeueRheinischeZeitung from 1848-1850 • Was a prominent supporter and spokesman for labor unions, and served as President of the Working Men’s International Association in 1864 • Worked as a foreign correspondent for the New York Tribune, where he publicly criticized colonialism and supported many national independence movements in Africa and India

17. 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 in Africa (FLN, Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba) • Liberation Theology, developed in the 1960s, was heavily influenced by Marxism

18. Why Marx Now? • Fall of the U.S.S.R. allows us to disconnect Marx’s ideas from Soviet policies • Influence of Marx’s 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