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Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were two German socialist philosophers who lived in the nineteenth century. Together, they worked on the principles of communism and spread its doctrines. In 1848, Marx and Engels co-authored and published The Communist Manifesto, a document that laid down the basis for modern communism and one of the most influential
- Overview
- The thought of Karl Marx
- Historical materialism
Marxism originated in the thought of the radical philosopher and economist Karl Marx, with important contributions from his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels. Marx and Engels authored The Communist Manifesto (1848), a pamphlet outlining their theory of historical materialism and predicting the ultimate overthrow of capitalism by the industrial proletariat. Engels edited the second and third volumes of Marx’s analysis and critique of capitalism, Das Kapital, both published after Marx’s death.
Why is Marxism important?
In the mid-19th century, Marxism helped to consolidate, inspire, and radicalize elements of the labour and socialist movements in western Europe, and it was later the basis of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism, the revolutionary doctrines developed by Vladimir Lenin in Russia and Mao Zedong in China, respectively. It also inspired a more moderate form of socialism in Germany, the precursor of modern social democracy.
How is Marxism different from other forms of socialism?
Under socialism, the means of production are owned or controlled by the state for the benefit of all, an arrangement that is compatible with democracy and a peaceful transition from capitalism. Marxism justifies and predicts the emergence of a stateless and classless society without private property. That vaguely socialist society, however, would be preceded by the violent seizure of the state and the means of production by the proletariat, who would rule in an interim dictatorship.
How does Marxism differ from Leninism?
The written work of Marx cannot be reduced to a philosophy, much less to a philosophical system. The whole of his work is a radical critique of philosophy, especially of G.W.F. Hegel’s idealist system and of the philosophies of the left and right post-Hegelians. It is not, however, a mere denial of those philosophies. Marx declared that philosophy ...
In 1859, in the preface to his Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy), Marx wrote that the hypothesis that had served him as the basis for his analysis of society could be briefly formulated as follows:
In the social production that men carry on, they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure, and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and intellectual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men which determines their existence; it is on the contrary their social existence which determines their consciousness.
Raised to the level of historical law, this hypothesis was subsequently called historical materialism. Marx applied it to capitalist society, both in Manifest der kommunistischen Partei (1848; The Communist Manifesto) and Das Kapital (vol. 1, 1867; “Capital”) and in other writings. Although Marx reflected upon his working hypothesis for many years, he did not formulate it in a very exact manner: different expressions served him for identical realities. If one takes the text literally, social reality is structured in the following way:
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1. Underlying everything as the real basis of society is the economic structure. This structure includes (a) the “material forces of production,” that is, the labour and means of production, and (b) the overall “relations of production,” or the social and political arrangements that regulate production and distribution. Although Marx stated that there is a correspondence between the “material forces” of production and the indispensable “relations” of production, he never made himself clear on the nature of the correspondence, a fact that was to be the source of differing interpretations among his later followers.
Oct 25, 2024 · Karl Marx (born May 5, 1818, Trier, Rhine province, Prussia [Germany]—died March 14, 1883, London, England) was a revolutionary, sociologist, historian, and economist.He published (with Friedrich Engels) Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848), commonly known as The Communist Manifesto, the most celebrated pamphlet in the history of the socialist movement.
- Karl Marx was a German philosopher during the 19th century. He worked primarily in the realm of political philosophy and was a famous advocate for...
- Karl Marx died on March 14, 1883, when he was 64, after succumbing to a bout of bronchitis. Not owning any land when he died, he was buried in Lond...
- Karl Marx was one of nine children. When he got older, he married his childhood sweetheart, Jenny von Westphalen. The two had seven children togeth...
Oct 25, 2024 · The Communist Manifesto, pamphlet (1848) written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to serve as the platform of the Communist League. It became one of the principal programmatic statements of the European socialist and communist parties in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Learn more about The Communist Manifesto.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Nov 9, 2009 · Karl Marx (1818‑1883) was a German philosopher and economist who became a social revolutionary as co‑author of "The Communist Manifesto." ... Marx and fellow German thinker Friedrich Engels ...
Dec 30, 2023 · Marx and Engels’ Backgrounds. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels came from different social and intellectual backgrounds, yet these differences complemented each other. Marx was born in 1818 into a middle-class family in Trier, Germany. He pursued studies in philosophy and law, eventually focusing on political economy.
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In his biography of Engels, Vladimir Lenin wrote: "After his friend Karl Marx (who died in 1883), Engels was the finest scholar and teacher of the modern proletariat in the whole civilised world. [...] In their scientific works, Marx and Engels were the first to explain that socialism is not the invention of dreamers, but the final aim and necessary result of the development of the productive ...
