Philosophy and social thought

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx (German pronunciation: [kaːɐ̯l ˈhaɪnʀɪç ˈmaːɐ̯ks], 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a Prussian-German philosopher andrevolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the establishment of the social sciences and the development of the socialist movement. Marx's work in economics laid the basis for our understanding of labor and its relation to capital, and has influenced much of subsequent economic thought.[4][5][6][7] He published numerous books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (1867–1894).

Born into a wealthy middle-class family in Trier in the Prussian Rhineland, Marx studied at the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. After his studies, he wrote for a radical newspaper in Cologne, and began to work out his theory of dialectical materialism. He moved to Paris in 1843, where he began writing for other radical newspapers and met Fredrick Engels, who would become his life-long friend and collaborator. In 1849 he was exiled and moved to London together with his wife and children where he continued writing and formulating his theories about social and economic activity. He also campaigned for socialism and became a significant figure in the International Workingmen's Association.

Marx's theories about society, economics and politics—collectively known as Marxism—hold that human societies progress through class struggle: a conflict between an ownership class that controls production and a proletariat that provides the labour for production. He called capitalism the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie," believing it to be run by the wealthy classes for their own benefit; and he predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, capitalism produced internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system: socialism.^[8] He argued that under socialism society would be governed by the working class in what he called the "dictatorship of the proletariat", the "workers' state" or "workers' democracy".^[9][10] He believed that socialism would eventually be replaced by a stateless, classless society called communism. Along with believing in the inevitability of socialism and communism, Marx actively fought for the former's implementation, arguing that social theorists and underprivileged people alike should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic change.^[11]

Revolutionary socialist governments espousing Marxist concepts took power in a variety of countries in the 20th century, leading to the formation of such socialist states as the Soviet Union in 1922 and the People's Republic of China in 1949. Many labour unions and workers' parties worldwide were also influenced by Marxist ideas, while various theoretical variants, such as Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, and Maoism, were developed from them. Marx is typically cited, with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science.^[12] Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history.^[13][14]

Early life

Childhood and early education: 1818–1835 Karl Heinrich Marx was born on 5 May 1818 at 664 Brückergasse in Trier, a town in the Kingdom of Prussia's Province of the Lower Rhine.^[16] Ancestrally Ashkenazi Jewish, his maternal grandfather was a Dutch rabbi, while his paternal line had supplied Trier's rabbis since 1723, a role taken by his grandfather Meier Halevi Marx.^[17] Karl's father,Herschel Marx, was the first in the line to receive a secular education; becoming relatively wealthy and middle-class, his family owned a number of Moselle vineyards. To escape the constraints of anti-semitic legislation, he converted from Judaism to the Protestant Christian denomination of Lutheranism prior to his son's birth, taking on the German forename of Heinrich over the Yiddish Herschel.^[18]

Largely non-religious, Herschel was a man of the Enlightenment, interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Voltaire. A classical liberal, he took part in agitation for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, then governed by an absolute monarchy.^[19] In 1815 Herschel began work as an attorney, in 1819 moving his family to a ten-room property near the Porta Nigra.^[20] His wife, Henrietta Pressburg, was a semi-literate Dutch Jew who claimed to suffer from "excessive mother love", devoting much time to her family and insisting on cleanliness within her home.^[21]Retaining her Jewish faith, her beliefs would have some influence on her children.^[22]

Life in London Marx moved to London in May 1849 and would remain based in the city for the rest of his life. The headquarters of the Communist League also moved to London. However, in the winter of 1849-1850, a split within the ranks of the Communist League occurred when a faction within the Communist League led by August Willich and Karl Schapper began agitating for an immediate uprising on the part of the Communist League. Willich and Schapper believed that once the Communist League had initiated the uprising, the entire working class from across Europe would rise "spontaneously" to join the uprising, thus, creating revolution across Europe. Marx and Frederick Engels protested that such an unplanned uprising on the part of the Communist League was "adventuristic" and would be suicide for the Communist League.[128] Such an uprising, as that recommended by the Schapper/Willich group would easily be crushed by the police and the armed forces of the reactionary governments of Europe. This, Marx maintained, would spell doom for the Communist League itself. Changes in society, Marx argued, are not achieved overnight through the efforts and will power of "a handful of men."[128] Instead, changes in society are brought about through a scientific analysis of economic conditions of society and by moving toward revolution through different stages of social development. In the present stage of development (circa 1850), following the defeat of the 1848 uprisings across Europe, Marx felt that the Communist Leagueshould encourage the working class to unite with progressive elements of the rising bourgeoisie in order to defeat the feudal aristocracy on issues involving demands for governmental reforms, e.g. a constitution republic with freely elected assemblies and universal (male) suffrage. In other words, the working class must join with the bourgeois/democratic forces to bring about the successful conclusion of the bourgeois revolution before stressing the working class agenda and a working class revolution.

While in London, Marx devoted himself to task revolutionary organizing of the working class. For the first few years he and his family lived in extreme poverty.[133][134] His main source of income was his colleague, Engels, who derived much of his income from his family's business.[134] Marx also worked as correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune.[135] In earlier years, Marx had been able to communicate with the broad masses of the working class by editing his own newspaper or editing a newspaper financed by others sympathetic to his plilosophy. Now in London, Marx was unable to finance his own newspaper and unable to put together finacing from others. Thus, Marx sought to communicate with the public by writing articles for the New York Tribune.

The New York Daily Tribune had been founded in New York City in the United States of America by Horace Greeley in April 1841.[137] Marx's main contact on the "Tribune" was Charles Dana. Later in 1868, Charles Dana would leave the Tribune to become the owner and editor in chief of the New York Sun a competing newspaper in New York City.[138] However, at this time Charles Dana served on the editorial board of the Tribune.

From December 1851 to March 1852, Marx wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, a work on the French Revolution of 1848, in which he expanded upon his concepts of historical materialism, class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat, advancing the argument that victorious proletariat has to smash the bourgeois state.^[144]

Set them to wonder if a revolutionary upsurge would soon occur. The United States economy was too new to play host to a classical revolution. Any economic crisis which began in the United States would not lead to revolution unless one of the older economies of Europe "caught the contagion" from the United States. In other words, economies of the world were still seen as individual national systems which were contiguous with the national borders of each country. The "Panic of 1857" broke the mold of all prior thinking on the world economy. The Panic of 1857 was truly the first world-wide economic depression.

Thought

Influences

· the classical political economy (economics) of Adam Smith and David Ricardo;^[175]

· French socialist thought,^[175] in particular the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henri de Saint-Simon, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, andCharles Fourier;^[176][177]

· earlier German philosophical materialism, particularly that of Ludwig Feuerbach;^[68]

· the working class analysis by Friedrich Engels.^[64]

Marx's view of history, which came to be called historical materialism (controversially adapted as the philosophy of dialectical materialism by Engels and Lenin) certainly shows the influence of Hegel's claim that one should view reality (and history) dialectically.^[174] However, Hegel had thought in idealist terms, putting ideas in the forefront, whereas Marx sought to rewrite dialectics in materialist terms, arguing for the primacy of matter over idea.^[79][174] Where Hegel saw the "spirit" as driving history, Marx saw this as an unnecessary mystification, obscuring the reality of humanity and its physical actions shaping the world.^[174] He wrote that Hegelianism stood the movement of reality on its head, and that one needed to set it upon its feet.^[174]

Though inspired by French socialist and sociological thought,^[175] Marx criticised utopian socialists, arguing that their favoured small-scale socialistic communities would be bound to marginalisation and poverty, and that only a large-scale change in the economic system can bring about real change.^[177]

The other important contribution to Marx's revision of Hegelianism came from Engels's book, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, which led Marx to conceive of the historical dialectic in terms of class conflict and to see the modern working class as the most progressive force for revolution.^[64]

Marx believed that he could study history and society scientifically and discern tendencies of history and the resulting outcome of social conflicts. Some followers of Marx concluded, therefore, that a communist revolution would inevitably occur. However, Marx famously asserted in the eleventh of his Theses on Feuerbach that "philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it", and he clearly dedicated himself to trying to alter the world.^[11][171]

Philosophy and social thought

Marx polemic with other thinkers often occurred through critique, and thus he has been called "the first great user of critical method in social sciences."^[174][175] He criticised speculative philosophy, equating metaphysics with ideology.^[178] By adopting this approach, Marx attempted to separate key findings from ideological biases.^[175] This set him apart from many contemporary philosophers.^[11]

Date: 2016-01-03; view: 785