Karl Marx and Marx's theory of alienation

Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement. He published various books during his lifetime, with the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (1867–1894); HP G62-100 Battery some of his works were co-written with his friend and fellow German revolutionary socialist, Friedrich Engels.[4] Born into a wealthy middle class family in Trier, formerly in Prussian Rhineland now called Rhineland-Palatinate, Marx studied at both the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. In 1836, HP G62-100EB Batteryhe became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, marrying her in 1843. After his studies, he wrote for a radical newspaper in Cologne, and began to work out his theory of dialectical materialism. Moving to Paris in 1843, he began writing for other radical newspapers. He met Engels in Paris, and the two men worked together on a series of books. HP G62-100EE BatteryExiled to Brussels, he became a leading figure of the Communist League, before moving back to Cologne, where he founded his own newspaper. In 1849 he was exiled again and moved to London together with his wife and children. In London, where the family was reduced to poverty, Marx continued writing and formulating his theories about the nature of society and how he believed it could be improved, HP G62-100EJ Battery and also campaigned for socialism—he became a significant figure in the International Workingmen's Association. Marx's theories about society, economics and politics—collectively known as Marxism—hold that all societies progress through the dialectic of class struggle: a conflict between an ownership class which controls production and a lower class which produces the labour for such goods. HP G62-100SL Battery Heavily critical of the current socio-economic form of society, capitalism, he called it the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", believing it to be run by the wealthy classes purely for their own benefit, and predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, it would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialismHP G62-101TU Battery.[5] 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".[6][7] He believed that socialism would, in its turn, eventually be replaced by a stateless, classless society called communism. Along with believing in the inevitability of socialism and communism, HP G62-101XX Battery Marx actively fought for the former's implementation, arguing that both social theorists and underprivileged people should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic change.[8][9] Revolutionary socialist governments espousing Marxist concepts took power in a variety of countries in the 20th century, HP G62-103XX Battery leading to the formation of such socialist states as the Soviet Union in 1922 and the People's Republic of China in 1949. Many labor unions and worker's parties worldwide were also influenced by Marxist ideas. Various theoretical variants, such as Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and Maoism, were developed. Marx is typically cited, HP G62-104SA Battery with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science.[10] Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history.[11][ Biography [edit]Early life: 1818–1835 Marx's birthplace in Trier, HP G62-105SA Battery Rhineland-Palatinate, which is now a museum devoted to him. Karl Heinrich Marx was born on 5 May 1818 at 664 Brückergasse in Trier, a town located in the Kingdom of Prussia's Province of the Lower Rhine.[13] His ancestry was Ashkenazi Jewish, with his paternal line having supplied the rabbis of Trier since 1723, HP G62-106SA Battery a role that had been taken up by his own grandfather, Meier Halevi Marx; Meier's son and Karl's father would be the first in the line to receive a secular education.[14] His maternal grandfather was a Dutch rabbi.[15] Karl's father, Herschel Marx, was middle-class and relatively wealthy: the family owned a number of Moselle vineyards; HP G62-107SA Battery 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 Herschel.[4] In 1815, he began working as an attorney and in 1819 moved his family from a five-room rented apartment into a ten-room property near the Porta Nigra.[16] A man of the Enlightenment, HP G62-110ED Battery Heinrich Marx was interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Voltaire, and took part in agitation for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, which was then governed by an absolute monarchy.[17] Karl's mother, born Henrietta Pressburg (20 July 1788-30 November 1863), HP G62-110EE Battery was a Dutch Jew who, unlike her husband, was only semi-literate. She claimed to suffer from "excessive mother love", devoting much time to her family, and insisting on cleanliness within her home.[18] She was from a prosperous business family. Her family later founded the company Philips Electronics: she was great-aunt to Anton and Gerard Philips, HP G62-110EO Battery and great-great-aunt to Frits Philips. Her brother, Marx's uncle Benjamin Philips (1830-1900), was a wealthy banker and industrialist, who Karl and Jenny Marx would later often come rely upon for loans, while they were exiled in London.[19] Heinrich Marx converted to Lutheran Protestantism in 1816 or 1817 in order to continue practicing law after the Prussian edict denying Jews to the bar. HP G62-110EY Battery Karl was born in 1818 and baptized in 1824, but his mother, Henriette, did not convert until 1825, when Karl was 7. There is no evidence that the Marx family actually embraced Lutheranism, although there is no evidence they were practicing Jews. Marx identified himself as an atheistHP G62-110SA Battery.[20][21][22] Little is known about Karl Marx's childhood.[23] He was privately educated until 1830, when he entered Trier High School, whose headmaster Hugo Wyttenbach was a friend of his father. Wyttenbach had employed many liberal humanists as teachers; this angered the government so that the police raided the school in 1832, HP G62-110SO Battery discovering what they labelled seditious literature espousing political liberalism being distributed amongst the students.[24] In 1835, Karl, then aged seventeen, began attending the University of Bonn, where he wished to study philosophy and literature, but his father insisted on law as a more practical field of study. HP G62-110SS Battery [25] He was able to avoid military service when he turned eighteen because he suffered from a weak chest.[26] Being fond of alcoholic beverages, at Bonn he joined the Trier Tavern Club drinking society (Landsmannschaft der Treveraner) and at one point served as its co-president.[27] Marx was more interested in drinking and socialising than studying law, HP G62-110SW Battery and because of his poor grades, his father forced him to transfer to the far more serious and academically oriented University of Berlin,[28] where his legal studies became less significant than excursions into philosophy and history.[29] [edit]Hegelianism and early activism: 1836–1843 In 1836, HP G62-111EE Battery Marx became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, a beautiful baroness of the Prussian ruling class—"the most desirable young woman in Trier" [30] —who broke off her engagement with a young aristocratic second lieutenant to be with him.[31] Their eventual marriage was controversial for breaking two social taboos of the period: it was a marriage between a woman of a noble background and a man of Jewish origin, HP G62-112EE Battery as well as being between a member of the upper class (aristocracy) and a member of the middle class, respectively. Such issues were lessened by Marx's friendship with Jenny's father, Baron Ludwig von Westphalen, a liberal thinking aristocrat. Marx dedicated his doctoral thesis to him.[32] The couple married seven years later, on 19 June 1843, HP G62-112SO Battery at the Pauluskirche in Bad Kreuznach.[33] Marx became interested in, but critical of, the work of the German philosopher G.W.F Hegel (1770–1831), whose ideas were widely debated amongst European philosophical circles at the timeHP G62-113SO Battery.[34] Marx wrote about falling ill "from intense vexation at having to make an idol of a view I detested."[35] He became involved with a group of radical thinkers known as the Young Hegelians, who gathered around Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer.[29] Like Marx, the Young Hegelians were critical of Hegel's metaphysical assumptions, HP G62-115SE Battery but still adopted his dialectical method in order to criticise established society, politics and religion. Marx befriended Bauer, and in July 1841 the two scandalised their class in Bonn by getting drunk, laughing in church, and galloping through the streets on donkeys.[36] During that period, Marx concentrated on his criticism of Hegel and certain other Young Hegelians. HP G62-115SO Battery [4] A contemporary drawing of Karl Marx as a young man. Marx also wrote for his own enjoyment, writing both non-fiction and fiction. In 1837, he completed a short novel, HP G62-117SO BatteryScorpion and Felix; a drama, Oulanem and some poems, none of which were published.[37] In 1971, Marx's one act play Oulanem was made available in English by author Robert Payne. According to Payne, the title Oulanem is an anagram for "Manuelo" which is a variant of "Emmanuel" meaning "God is with us"HP G62-118EO Battery.[38] He soon gave up writing fiction for other pursuits, including learning English and Italian.[39] He was deeply engaged in writing his doctoral thesis, The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, which he finished in 1841. The essay has been described as "a daring and original piece of work in which he set out to show that theology must yield to the superior wisdom of philosophy"HP G62-120EC Battery,[40] and as such was controversial, particularly among the conservative professors at the University of Berlin. Marx decided to submit it instead to the more liberal University of Jena, whose faculty awarded him his PhD based on it.[29][41] From considering an academic career, Marx turned to journalism. HP G62-120EE Battery [4][42] He moved to the city of Cologne in 1842, where he began writing for the radical newspaper Rheinische Zeitung, where he expressed his increasingly socialist views on politics.[43] He criticised the governments of Europe and their policies, but also liberals and other members of the socialist movement whose ideas he thought were ineffective or outright anti-socialistHP G62-120EG Battery.[44] The paper eventually attracted the attention of the Prussian government censors, who checked every issue for potentially seditious material before it could be printed. Marx said, "Our newspaper has to be presented to the police to be sniffed at, and if the police nose smells anything un-Christian or un-Prussian, HP G62-120EH Battery the newspaper is not allowed to appear."[45] After the paper published an article strongly criticising the monarchy in Russia, the Russian Tsar Nicholas I, an ally of the Prussian monarchy, requested that the Rheinische Zeitung be banned. The Prussian government shut down the paper in 1843. HP G62-120EK Battery [46] Marx wrote for the Young Hegelian journal, the Deutsche-Französische Jahrbücher, in which he criticised the censorship instructions issued by Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. His article was censored and the newspaper closed down by the authorities shortly after.[47] In 1843, HP G62-120EL Battery Marx published On the Jewish Question, in which he distinguished between political and human emancipation. He also examined the role of religious practice in society.[4] That same year he published Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, in which he dealt more substantively with religion, describing it as "the opiate of the people"HP G62-120EP Battery.[4] He completed both works shortly before leaving Cologne.[48] [edit]Paris: 1843–1845 Following the government-imposed shutdown of the Rheinische Zeitung, Marx got involved with a new radical newspaper, HP G62-120EQ Batterythe Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (German-French Annals), which was then being set up by Arnold Ruge, another German socialist revolutionary.[49] The paper was based not in Germany, but in the city of Paris in neighbouring France, HP G62-120ER Batteryand it was here that both Marx and his wife moved in October 1843. They initially lived with Ruge and his wife communally at 23 Rue Vaneau, but finding these living conditions difficult, the Marxes moved out following the birth of their daughter Jenny in 1844.[50] Although it was intended to attract writers from both France and the German states, HP G62-120ES Batterythe Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher was dominated by the latter, with the only non-German writer being the exiled Russian anarcho-communist Michael Bakunin.[51] Only one issue was ever published, but it was relatively successful, largely owing to the inclusion of Heinrich Heine's satirical odes on King Ludwig of Bavaria, which led to those copies sent to Germany being confiscated by the state's police force. HP G62-120ET Battery [52] It was in Paris that, on 28 August 1844, Marx met German socialist Friedrich Engels at the Café de la Régence after becoming interested in the ideas that the latter had expressed in articles written for the Rheinische Zeitung and the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. Although they had briefly met each other at the offices of the Rheinische Zeitung in 1842HP G62-120EY Battery, it was here in Paris that they began their friendship that would last for the rest of their lives.[53] Engels showed Marx his recently published book, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844,[54] which convinced Marx that the working class would be the agent and instrument of the final revolution in historyHP G62-120SE Battery.[55] Engels and Marx soon set about writing a criticism of the philosophical ideas of Marx's former friend, the Young Hegelian Bruno Bauer, which would be published in 1845 as The Holy Family.[56] Although critical of Bauer, Marx was increasingly influenced by the ideas of the other Young Hegelians Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach, HP G62-120SL Battery but eventually also abandoned Feuerbachian materialism as well.[57] In 1844 Marx wrote The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, a work which covered numerous topics, and went into detail to explain Marx's concept of alienated labour.[4] A year later Marx would write Theses on Feuerbach, HP G62-120SS Battery best known for the statement that "the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it".[4] This work contains Marx's criticism of materialism (for being contemplative), idealism (for reducing practice to theory) and overall, criticising philosophy for putting abstract reality above the physical world. HP G62-120SW Battery [4] It thus introduced the first glimpse at Marx's historical materialism, an argument that the world is changed not by ideas but by actual, physical, material activity and practice.[4][58] After the collapse of the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, Marx, HP G62-121EE Battery still living on the Rue Vaneau, began writing for what was then the only uncensored German-language radical newspaper in Europe, Vorwärts!.[59] Based in Paris, the paper had been established and was run by many activists connected to the revolutionary socialist League of the Just, which would come to be better known as the Communist League within a few years.[60][61] In Vorwärts!, HP G62-125EK Battery Marx continued to refine his views on socialism based upon the Hegelian and Feuerbachian ideas of dialectical materialism, whilst at the same time criticising various liberals and other socialists operating in Europe at the time.[62] However in 1845, after receiving a request from the Prussian king, HP G62-125EL Battery the French government agreed to shut down Vorwärts!, and furthermore, Marx himself was expelled from France by the interior minister François Guizot.[62] [edit]Brussels: 1845–1847 The first edition of The Manifesto of the Communist Party, published in German in 1848 Unable either to stay in France or to move to Germany, HP G62-125EV Battery Marx decided to emigrate to Brussels in Belgium, but had to pledge not to publish anything on the subject of contemporary politics in order to enter.[62] In Brussels, he associated with other exiled socialists from across Europe, including Moses Hess, Karl Heinzen and Joseph Weydemeyer, and soon Engels moved to the city in order to join them. HP G62-125SL Battery [62] In 1845 Marx and Engels visited the leaders of the Chartists, a socialist movement in Britain, using the trip as an opportunity to study in various libraries in London and Manchester.[63] In collaboration with Engels he also set about writing a book which is often seen as his best treatment of the concept of historical materialism, HP G62-130 BatteryThe German Ideology; the work, like many others, would not see publication in Marx's lifetime, being published only in 1932.[4][5][64] He followed this with The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), a response to the French anarcho-socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's The Philosophy of Poverty and a critique of French socialist thought in general.[65] HP G62-130EG Battery These books laid the foundation for Marx and Engels's most famous work, a political pamphlet that has since come to be commonly known as The Communist Manifesto. First published on 21 February 1848, HP G62-130EK Battery it laid out the beliefs of the Communist League, a group who had come increasingly under the influence of Marx and Engels, who argued that the League must make their aims and intentions clear to the general public rather than hiding them as they had formerly been doing.[66] The opening lines of the pamphlet set forth the principal basis of Marxism, HP G62-130ET Batterythat "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."[67] It goes on to look at the antagonisms that Marx claimed were arising between the clashes of interest between the bourgeoisie (the wealthy middle class) and the proletariat (the industrial working class). Proceeding on from thisHP G62-130EV Battery, the Manifesto presents the argument for why the Communist League, as opposed to other socialist and liberal political parties and groups at the time, was truly acting in the interests of the proletariat to overthrow capitalist society and replace it with socialism.[68] Later that year, HP G62-130SD Battery Europe experienced a series of protests, rebellions, and often violent upheavals, the Revolutions of 1848.[69] In France, a revolution led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the French Second Republic.[69] Marx was supportive of such activity, and having recently received a substantial inheritance from his father of either 6000[70] or 5000 francs, HP G62-130SL Battery [71][72] allegedly used a third of it to arm Belgian workers who were planning revolutionary action.[73] Although the veracity of these allegations is disputed,[70][74] the Belgian Ministry of Justice accused him of it, subsequently arresting him, and he was forced to flee back to France, where, with a new republican government in powerHP G62-134CA Battery, he believed that he would be safe.[72][75] [edit]Cologne: 1848–1849 Temporarily settling down in Paris, Marx transferred the Communist League executive headquarters to the city and also set up a German Workers' Club with various German socialists living thereHP G62-135EV Battery.[76] Hoping to see the revolution spread to Germany, in 1848 Marx moved back to Cologne (Köln) where he began issuing a handbill entitled the Demands of the Communist Party in Germany, in which he argued for only four of the ten points of the Communist Manifesto, believing that in Germany at that time, HP G62-140EL Battery the bourgeoisie must overthrow the feudal monarchy and aristocracy before the proletariat could overthrow the bourgeoisie.[77] On 1 June, Marx started publication of the daily Neue Rheinische Zeitung ("New Rhenish Newspaper"), which he helped to finance through his recent inheritance from his father. HP G62-140EQ Battery Designed to put forward news from across Europe with his own Marxist interpretation of events, Marx remained one of its primary writers, accompanied by other fellow members of the Communist League who wrote for the paper, although despite their input it remained, HP G62-140ES Battery according to Friedrich Engels, "a simple dictatorship by Marx", who dominated the choice of content.[78][79][80] Whilst editor of the paper, Marx and the other revolutionary socialists were regularly harassed by the police, and Marx was brought to trial on several occasions, HP G62-140ET Battery facing various allegations including insulting the Chief Public Prosecutor, an alleged press misdemeanor and inciting armed rebellion through tax boycotting,[81][82][82][83][84] although each time he was acquitted.[82][84] Meanwhile, HP G62-140SF Battery the democratic parliament in Prussia collapsed, and the king, Frederick William IV, introduced a new cabinet of his reactionary supporters, who implemented counter-revolutionary measures to expunge leftist and other revolutionary elements from the country.[81] As a part of this, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung was soon suppressed and Marx was ordered to leave the country on 16 MayHP G62-140SS Battery.[80][85] Marx returned to Paris, which was then under the grip of both a reactionary counter-revolution and a cholera epidemic, and was soon expelled by the city authorities who considered him a political threat. With his wife Jenny expecting their fourth child, HP G62-140US Battery and not able to move back to Germany or Belgium, in August 1849 he sought refuge in London.[86][87] [edit]London: 1849–1883 Karl and Jenny Marx in 1866 Marx moved to London in May 1849 and would remain in the city for the rest of his life. HP G62-143CL Battery It was here that he founded the new headquarters of the Communist League, and got heavily involved with the socialist German Workers' Educational Society, who held their meetings in Great Windmill Street, Soho, central London's entertainment district.[88][89] Marx devoted himself to two activities: revolutionary organising, and an attempt to understand political economy and capitalism. HP G62-144DX BatteryFor the first few years he and his family lived in extreme poverty.[90][91] His main source of income was his colleague, Engels, who derived much of his income from his family's business.[91] Marx also briefly worked as correspondent for the New York Tribune in 1851. HP G62-145NR Battery [92] 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. HP G62-147NR Battery [93] The 1850s and 1860s also mark the line between what some scholars see as idealistic, Hegelian young Marx from the more scientifically-minded mature Marx writings of the later period.[94][95][96][97] This distinction is usually associated with the structural Marxism school; HP G62-149WM Battery [97] not all scholars agree that it indeed exists.[96][98] In 1864 Marx became involved in the International Workingmen's Association (also known as First International).[82] He became a leader of its General Council, to whose General Council he was elected at its inception in 1864. HP G62-150EE Battery [99] In that organisation Marx was involved in the struggle against the anarchist wing centred around Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876).[91] Although Marx won this contest, the transfer of the seat of the General Council from London to New York in 1872, which Marx supported, led to the decline of the International. HP G62-150EF Battery [100] The most important political event during the existence of the International was the Paris Commune of 1871 when the citizens of Paris rebelled against their government and held the city for two months. On the bloody suppression of this rebellion, HP G62-150EQ Battery Marx wrote one of his most famous pamphlets, The Civil War in France, a defense of the Commune.[101] Given the repeated failures and frustrations of workers' revolutions and movements, Marx also sought to understand capitalism, HP G62-150ET Batteryand spent a great deal of time in the reading room of the British Museum studying and reflecting on the works of political economists and on economic data.[102] By 1857 he had accumulated over 800 pages of notes and short essays on capital, HP G62-150EV Battery landed property, wage labour, the state, foreign trade and the world market; this work did not appear in print until 1941, under the title Grundrisse.[91][103] In 1859, Marx published Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, his first serious economic work. In the early 1860s he worked on composing three large volumes, HP G62-150SE Battery the Theories of Surplus Value, which discussed the theoreticians of political economy, particularly Adam Smith and David Ricardo.[91] This work is often seen as the fourth book of Capital, and constitutes one of the first comprehensive treatises on the history of economic thought.[104] In 1867 the first volume of Capital was published, HP G62-150SF Batterya work which analyzed the capitalist process of production.[105] Here, Marx elaborated his labour theory of value (influenced by Thomas Hodgskin[citation needed]); and his conception of surplus value and exploitation which he argued would ultimately lead to a falling rate of profit and the collapse of industrial capitalismHP G62-150SL Battery.[106] Volumes II and III remained mere manuscripts upon which Marx continued to work for the rest of his life and were published posthumously by Engels.[91] Marx in 1882 During the last decade of his life, HP G62-153CA Battery Marx's health declined and he became incapable of the sustained effort that had characterised his previous work.[91] He did manage to comment substantially on contemporary politics, particularly in Germany and Russia. His Critique of the Gotha Programme opposed the tendency of his followers Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel to compromise with the state socialism of Ferdinand Lassalle in the interests of a united socialist party. HP G62-154CA Battery [91] This work is also notable for another famous Marx's quote: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."[107] In a letter to Vera Zasulich dated 8 March 1881, HP G62-165SL Battery Marx even contemplated the possibility of Russia's bypassing the capitalist stage of development and building communism on the basis of the common ownership of land characteristic of the village mir.[91][108] While admitting that Russia's rural "commune is the fulcrum of social regeneration in Russia",HP G62-166SB Battery Marx also warned that in order for the mir to operate as a means for moving straight to the socialist stage without a preceding capitalist stage, it "would first be necessary to eliminate the deleterious influences which are assailing it (the rural commune) from all sides."[109] Given the elimination of these pernicious influences, HP G62-200XX Battery Marx allowed, that "normal conditions of spontaneous development" of the rural commune could exist.[109] However, in the same letter to Vera Zasulich, Marx points out that "at the core of the capitalist system ... lies the complete separation of the producer from the means of production."[109] In one of the drafts of this letter, HP G62-201XX BatteryMarx reveals his growing passion for anthropology, motivated by his belief that future communism would be a return on a higher level to the communism of our prehistoric past. He wrote that 'the historical trend of our age is the fatal crisis which capitalist production has undergone in the European and American countries where it has reached its highest peak, HP G62-219WM Battery a crisis that will end in its destruction, in the return of modern society to a higher form of the most archaic type — collective production and appropriation'. He added that 'the vitality of primitive communities was incomparably greater than that of Semitic, Greek, Roman, etc. societies, and, a fortiori, that of modern capitalist societies'HP G62-251XX Battery.[110] Before he died, Marx asked Engels to write up these ideas, which were published in 1884 under the title The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. [edit]Death The tomb of Karl Marx, Highgate Cemetery, London Following the death of his wife Jenny in December 1881, HP G62-400 BatteryMarx developed a catarrh that kept him in ill health for the last 15 months of his life. It eventually brought on the bronchitis and pleurisy that killed him in London on 14 March 1883. He died a stateless person;[111] family and friends in London buried his body in Highgate Cemetery, London, on 17 March 1883. HP G62-450SA Battery There were between nine and eleven mourners at his funeral.[112][113][114] Several of his closest friends spoke at his funeral, including Wilhelm Liebknecht and Friedrich Engels. Engels's speech included the passage: “       On the 14th of March, HP G62-451SA Battery at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep—but forever.[115]         ” Marx's daughter Eleanor and Charles Longuet and Paul Lafargue, HP G62-452SA Battery Marx's two French socialist sons-in-law, were also in attendance.[114] Liebknecht, a founder and leader of the German Social-Democratic Party, gave a speech in German, and Longuet, a prominent figure in the French working-class movement, made a short statement in FrenchHP G62-454TU Battery.[114] Two telegrams from workers' parties in France and Spain were also read out.[114] Together with Engels's speech, this constituted the entire programme of the funeral.[114] Non-relatives attending the funeral included three communist associates of Marx: Friedrich Lessner, HP G62-456TU Battery imprisoned for three years after the Cologne communist trial of 1852; G. Lochner, whom Engels described as "an old member of the Communist League" and Carl Schorlemmer, a professor of chemistry in Manchester, a member of the Royal Society, and a communist activist involved in the 1848 Baden revolution. HP G62-460TX Battery [114] Another attendee of the funeral was Ray Lankester, a British zoologist who would later become a prominent academic.[114] Upon his own death, Engels left Marx's two surviving daughters a "significant portion" of his $4.8 million estate. HP G62-467TX Battery [30] Marx's tombstone bears the carved message: "WORKERS OF ALL LANDS UNITE", the final line of The Communist Manifesto, and from the 11th Thesis on Feuerbach (edited by Engels): "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways—the point however is to change it".HP G62-468TX Battery [9] The Communist Party of Great Britain had the monumental tombstone built in 1954 with a portrait bust by Laurence Bradshaw; Marx's original tomb had had only humble adornment.[9] In 1970 there was an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the monument using a homemade bomb. HP G62-550EE Battery [116] The later Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm remarked that "One cannot say Marx died a failure" because, although he had not achieved a large following of disciples in Britain, his writings had already begun to make an impact on the leftist movements in Germany and Russia. Within 25 years of his death, HP G62-a00 Battery the continental European socialist parties that acknowledged Marx's influence on their politics were each gaining between 15 and 47% in those countries with representative democratic elections.[117] [edit]Marx's thought [edit]Inspirations The philosophers G.W.F. HP G62-a00EF Battery Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach, whose ideas on dialectics heavily influenced Marx Friedrich Engels Main article: Influences on Karl Marx Marx's thought demonstrates influences from many thinkers, HP G62-a01SA Battery including but not limited to: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's philosophy;[118] The classical political economy (economics) of Adam Smith and David Ricardo;[119] French socialist thoughtHP G62-a02SA Battery,[119] in particular the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier;[120][121] Earlier German philosophical materialism, particularly that of Ludwig Feuerbach;[57] The working class analysis by Friedrich Engels.[55] Marx's view of history, HP G62-a03SA Batterywhich 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.[118] However, Hegel had thought in idealist terms, putting ideas in the forefront, HP G62-a04EA Battery whereas Marx sought to rewrite dialectics in materialist terms, arguing for the primacy of matter over idea.[4][118] 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.[118] He wrote that Hegelianism stood the movement of reality on its head, HP G62-a04SA Batteryand that one needed to set it upon its feet.[118] Though inspired by French socialist and sociological thought,[119] 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.[121] HP G62-a10EV Battery 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 revolutionHP G62-a10SA Battery.[55] 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, HP G62-a11SA BatteryMarx 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.[8][9] [edit]Philosophy and social thought Marx polemic with other thinkers often occurred through critique, HP G62-a11SE Battery and thus he has been called "the first great user of critical method in social sciences."[118][119] He criticised speculative philosophy, equating metaphysics with ideology.[122] By adopting this approach, Marx attempted to separate key findings from ideological biases. HP G62-a12SA Battery [119] This set him apart from many contemporary philosophers.[8] [edit]Human nature Further information: Marx's theory of human nature Fundamentally, Marx assumed that human history involves transforming human nature, which encompasses both human beings and material objects. HP G62-a12SE Battery [123] Humans recognise that they possess both actual and potential selves.[124][125] For both Marx and Hegel, self-development begins with an experience of internal alienation stemming from this recognition, followed by a realisation that the actual self, as a subjective agent, renders its potential counterpart an object to be apprehended. HP G62-a13EE Battery [125] Marx further argues that, by molding nature[126] in desired ways,[127] the subject takes the object as its own, and thus permits the individual to be actualised as fully human. For Marx, then, human nature—Gattungswesen, or species-being—exists as a function of human labour.[124][125][127] Fundamental to Marx's idea of meaningful labour is the proposition that, in order for a subject to come to terms with its alienated object, HP G62-a13SA Battery it must first exert influence upon literal, material objects in the subject's world.[128] Marx acknowledges that Hegel "grasps the nature of work and comprehends objective man, authentic because actual, as the result of his own work",[129] but characterises Hegelian self-development as unduly "spiritual" and abstract. HP G62-a13SE Battery [130] Marx thus departs from Hegel by insisting that "the fact that man is a corporeal, actual, sentient, objective being with natural capacities means that he has actual, sensuous objects for his nature as objects of his life-expression, or that he can only express his life in actual sensuous objects."[128] Consequently, Marx revises Hegelian "work" into material "labour",HP G62-a14SA Battery and in the context of human capacity to transform nature the term "labour power".[4] [edit]Labour, class struggle, and false consciousness Further information: Labour theory of valueHP G62-a15EO Battery The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. — Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto[67]) Marx had a special concern with how people relate to that most fundamental resource of all, their own labour powerHP G62-a15SA Battery.[131] He wrote extensively about this in terms of the problem of alienation.[132] As with the dialectic, Marx began with a Hegelian notion of alienation but developed a more materialist conception.[131] Capitalism mediates social relationships of production (such as among workers or between workers and capitalists) through commodities, HP G62-a16SA Battery including labour, that are bought and sold on the market.[131] For Marx, the possibility that one may give up ownership of one's own labour—one's capacity to transform the world—is tantamount to being alienated from one's own nature; it is a spiritual loss.[131] Marx described this loss as commodity fetishism, HP G62-a17EA Battery in which the things that people produce, commodities, appear to have a life and movement of their own to which humans and their behavior merely adapt.[133] Commodity fetishism provides an example of what Engels called "false consciousness",HP G62-a17SA Battery [134] which relates closely to the understanding of ideology. By "ideology", Marx and Engels meant ideas that reflect the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but which contemporaries see as universal and eternal.[135] Marx and Engels's point was not only that such beliefs are at best half-truths; they serve an important political function. HP G62-a18SA Battery Put another way, the control that one class exercises over the means of production includes not only the production of food or manufactured goods; it includes the production of ideas as well (this provides one possible explanation for why members of a subordinate class may hold ideas contrary to their own interests) HP G62-a19EA Battery.[4][136] An example of this sort of analysis is Marx's understanding of religion, summed up in a passage from the preface[137] to his 1843 Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. HP G62-a19SA Battery Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusionsHP G62-a20SA Battery. —Karl Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right[138] Whereas his Gymnasium senior thesis argued that religion had as its primary social aim the promotion of solidarity, HP G62-a21EA Battery here Marx sees the social function of religion in terms of highlighting/preserving political and economic status quo and inequality.[139] [edit]Economy, history and society Further information: Marxian economics Marx's thoughts on labour were related to the primacy he gave to the economic relation in determining the society's past, HP G62-a21SA Battery present and future (see also economic determinism).[118][121][140] Accumulation of capital shapes the social system.[121] Social change, for Marx, was about conflict between opposing interests, driven, in the background, by economic forces.[118] This became the inspiration for the body of works known as the conflict theory. HP G62-a22SA Battery [140] In his evolutionary model of history, he argued that human history began with free, productive and creative work that was over time coerced and dehumanised, a trend most apparent under capitalism.[118] Marx noted that this was not an intentional process; rather, no individual or even no state can go against the forces of economy. HP G62-a22SE Battery [121] The organisation of society depends on means of production. Literally those things, like land, natural resources, and technology, necessary for the production of material goods and the relations of production, in other words, the social relationships people enter into as they acquire and use the means of productionHP G62-a23SA Battery.[140] Together these compose the mode of production, and Marx distinguished historical eras in terms of distinct modes of production. Marx differentiated between base and superstructure, with the base (or substructure) referring to the economic system, and superstructure, to the cultural and political systemHP G62-a24SA Battery.[140] Marx regarded this mismatch between (economic) base and (social) superstructure as a major source of social disruption and conflict.[140] Despite Marx's stress on critique of capitalism and discussion of the new communist society that should replace it, his explicit critique of capitalism is guarded, HP G62-a25EA Battery as he saw it as an improved society compared to the past ones (slavery and feudal).[4] Marx also never clearly discusses issues of morality and justice, although scholars agree that his work contained implicit discussion of those concepts.[4] Memorial to Karl Marx in Moscow. The inscription reads "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" HP G62-a25SA Battery Marx's view of capitalism was two sided.[4][95] On one hand, Marx, in the 19th century's deepest critique of the dehumanising aspects of this system, noted that defining features of capitalism include alienation, exploitation and recurring, cyclical depressions leading to mass unemployment; HP G62-a26SA Battery on the other hand capitalism is also characterised by "revolutionizing, industrializing and universalizing qualities of development, growth and progressivity" (by which Marx meant industrialisation, urbanisation, technological progress, increased productivity and growth, rationality and scientific revolution), HP G62-a27SA Battery that are responsible for progress.[4][95][118] Marx considered the capitalist class to be one of the most revolutionary in history, because it constantly improved the means of production, more so than any other class in history, and was responsible for the overthrow of feudalism and its transition to capitalism. HP G62-a28SA Battery [121][141] Capitalism can stimulate considerable growth because the capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies and capital equipment.[131] According to Marx capitalists take advantage of the difference between the labour market and the market for whatever commodity the capitalist can produce. HP G62-a29EA Battery Marx observed that in practically every successful industry input unit-costs are lower than output unit-prices. Marx called the difference "surplus value" and argued that this surplus value had its source in surplus labour, the difference between what it costs to keep workers alive and what they can produce. HP G62-a29SA Battery [4] Marx's dual view of capitalism can be seen in his description of the capitalists: he refers to them as to vampires sucking worker's blood, but at the same time,[118] he notes that drawing profit is "by no means an injustice"[4] and that capitalists simply cannot go against the systemHP G62-a30SA Battery.[121] The true problem lies with the "cancerous cell" of capital, understood not as property or equipment, but the relations between workers and owners – the economic system in general.[121] At the same time, Marx stressed that capitalism was unstable, and prone to periodic crises. HP G62-a38EE Battery [5] He suggested that over time, capitalists would invest more and more in new technologies, and less and less in labour.[4] Since Marx believed that surplus value appropriated from labour is the source of profits, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall even as the economy grew.[106] Marx believed that increasingly severe crises would punctuate this cycle of growth, HP G62-a40SA Batterycollapse, and more growth.[106] Moreover, he believed that in the long-term this process would necessarily enrich and empower the capitalist class and impoverish the proletariat.[106][121] In section one of The Communist Manifesto Marx describes feudalism, capitalism, HP G62-a43SA Battery and the role internal social contradictions play in the historical process: We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, HP G62-a44EE Battery the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged ... the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, HP G62-a44SA Battery accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on before our own eyes ... The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; HP G62-a45SA Batteryon the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring order into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. —Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto[142] HP G62-a50SG Battery Marx believed that those structural contradictions within capitalism necessitate its end, giving way to socialism, or a post-capitalistic, communist society: The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. HP G62-a53SG Battery What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." —Karl Marx and Frederic Engels, The Communist Manifesto[142] Thanks to various processes overseen by capitalism, such as urbanisation, the working class, the proletariat, HP G62-a60SA Batteryshould grow in numbers and develop a class consciousness, in time realising that they have to change the system.[118][121] Marx believed that if the proletariat were to seize the means of production, they would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, abolishing exploiting class, and introduce a system of production less vulnerable to cyclical crisesHP G62-b00SA Battery.[118] Marx argued that capitalism will end through the organised actions of an international working class: Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." HP G62-b09SA Battery —Karl Marx, The German Ideology[143] In this new society the self-alienation would end, and humans would be free to act without being bound by the labour market.[106] It would be a democratic society, enfranchising the entire populationHP G62-b10SA Battery.[121] In such a utopian world there would also be little if any need for a state, which goal was to enforce the alienation.[106] He theorised that between capitalism and the establishment of a socialist/communist system, HP G62-b11SA Battery a dictatorship of the proletariat—a period where the working class holds political power and forcibly socialises the means of production—would exist.[121] As he wrote in his "Critique of the Gotha Program", "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. HP G62-b12SA Battery Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."[144] While he allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures (such as Britain, the US and the Netherlands), HP G62-b13EA Batteryhe suggested that in other countries with strong centralised state-oriented traditions, like France and Germany, the "lever of our revolution must be force."[145] [edit]Personal life Jenny Carolina and Jenny Laura Marx. All the Marx daughters were named in honour of their mother, Jenny von WestphalenHP G62-b13SA Battery Marx married Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Together had seven children, but partly owing to the poor living conditions they were forced to live in whilst in London, only three survived to adulthood.[146] The children were: HP G62-b14SA BatteryJenny Caroline (m. Longuet; 1844–83); Jenny Laura (m. Lafargue; 1845–1911); Edgar (1847–1855); Henry Edward Guy ("Guido"; 1849–1850); Jenny Eveline Frances ("Franziska"; 1851–52); Jenny Julia Eleanor (1855–98) and one more who died before being named (July 1857). There are allegations that Marx also fathered a son, HP G62-b15SA BatteryFreddy,[30] out of wedlock by his housekeeper, Helene Demuth.[147] Marx frequently used pseudonyms, often when renting a house or flat, apparently to make it harder for the authorities to track him down. HP G62-b16EA Battery While in Paris, he used that of 'Monsieur Ramboz', whilst in London he signed off his letters as 'A. Williams'. His friends referred to him as 'Moor', owing to his dark complexion and black curly hair, something which they believed made him resemble the historical Moors of North Africa, HP G62-b16SA Batterywhilst he encouraged his children to call him 'Old Nick' and 'Charley'.[148] He also bestowed nicknames and pseudonyms on his friends and family as well, referring to Friedrich Engels as 'General', his housekeeper Helene as 'Lenchen' or 'Nym', while one of his daughters, Jennychen, was referred to as 'Qui Qui, Emperor of China' and another, HP G62-b17EO BatteryLaura, was known as 'Kakadou' or 'the Hottentot'.[148] [edit]Legacy Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels monument in Marx-Engels-Forum, Berlin-Mitte Marx is widely thought of as one of the most influential thinkers in history, HP G62-b17SA Batterywho has had a significant influence on both world politics and intellectual thought, and in a 1999 BBC poll was voted the top "thinker of the millennium".[11][12][8] Robert C. Tucker credits Marx with profoundly affecting ideas about history, society, economics, culture, politics, and the nature of social inquiry.[149] Marx's biographer Francis Wheen considers the "history of the twentieth century" to be "Marx's legacy",HP G62-b18SA Battery [150] whilst philosopher Peter Singer believes that Marx's impact can be compared with that of the founders of the two major world religions, Jesus Christ and Muhammad.[151] Singer notes that "Marx's ideas brought about modern sociology, transformed the study of history, and profoundly affected philosophy, literature and the arts. HP G62-b19SA Battery"[151] Paul Ricœur calls Marx one of the masters of the "school of suspicion", alongside Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud.[152] Philip Stokes says that Marx's ideas led to him becoming "the darling of both European and American intellectuals up until the 1960s".[153] Marx has influenced disciplines such as archaeology, anthropologyHP G62-b20SA Battery,[154] media studies,[155] political science, theater, history, sociological theory, cultural studies, education, economics, geography, literary criticism, aesthetics, critical psychology, and philosophy.[156] In July 2005, 27.9% of listeners in a BBC Radio 4 series In Our Time poll selected Marx as their favorite thinker.[157] HP G62-B20so Battery The reasons for Marx's widespread influence revolve around his ethical message; a "morally empowering language of critique" against the dominant capitalist society. No other body of work was so relevant to the modern times, and at the same time, so outspoken about the need for change. HP G62-b21SA Battery [8] In the political realm, Marx's ideas led to the establishment of governments using Marxist thought to replace capitalism with communism or socialism (or augment it with market socialism) across much of the world, whilst his intellectual thought has heavily influenced the academic study of the humanities and the arts. HP G62-b22SA Battery [edit]Marxism A Karl Marx monument in the German city Chemnitz, formerly the East German city Karl-Marx-Stadt (Karl Marx City) Followers of Marx have drawn on his work to propose grand, HP G62-b23SA Battery cohesive theoretical outlooks dubbed "Marxism". This body of works has had significant influence on the both political and scientific scenes.[158] The Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara summed up his own appeal to Marxism by stating that "the merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in the history of social thought. HP G62-b24SA Battery He interprets history, understands its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition to predicting it, he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed."[159] NeverthelessHP G62-b25SA Battery, Marxists have frequently debated amongst themselves over how to interpret Marx's writings and how to apply his concepts to their contemporary events and conditions.[158] The legacy of Marx's thought has become bitterly contested between numerous tendencies which each see themselves as Marx's most accurate interpreters, HP G62-b26SA Battery including (but not limited to) Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Luxemburgism, and libertarian Marxism.[158] In academic Marxism, various currents have developed as well, often under influence of other views, resulting in structuralist Marxism, HP G62-b27EA Battery historical Marxism, phenomenological Marxism, Analytical Marxism and Hegelian Marxism.[158] Moreover, there is a distinction between "Marxism" and "what Marx believed"; for example, shortly before he died in 1883, Marx wrote a letter to the French workers' leader Jules Guesde, HP G62-b27SA Battery and to his own son-in-law Paul Lafargue, accusing them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of lack of faith in the working class. After the French party split into a reformist and revolutionary party, some accused Guesde (leader of the latter) of taking orders from Marx; Marx remarked to Lafargue, "if that is Marxism, HP G62 Battery then I am not a Marxist" (in a letter to Engels, Marx later accused Guesde of being a "Bakuninist").[160] [edit]Founder of social science Marx is typically cited, along with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social scienceHP G62 Notebook PC Series Battery.[10] In contrast to philosophers, Marx offered theories that could often be tested with the scientific method.[8] Both Marx and Auguste Comte set out to develop scientifically justified ideologies in the wake of European secularisation and new developments in the philosophies of history and science. HP G62t-100 CTO Battery Whilst Marx, working in the Hegelian tradition, rejected Comtean sociological positivism, in attempting to develop a science of society he nevertheless came to be recognised as a founder of sociology as the word gained wider meaningHP G62t Battery.[42] In modern sociological theory, Marxist sociology is recognised as one of the main classical perspectives. For Isaiah Berlin, Marx may be regarded as the "true father" of modern sociology, "in so far as anyone can claim the title."[161] [edit]Debate over predictions and theories While many Marxist concepts are still of importance for modern social science, HP G72-101SA Batterysome specific predictions Marx made have been shown to be unlikely.[8] Marx is often criticised for expecting a wave of socialist revolutions, originating in the most highly industrialised countries,[162] to overturn capitalism. However others, pointing to Marx's encounter with late 19th-century Russian populism and Marx and Engels's preface to the second Russian edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1882), HP G72-102SA Battery have argued that Marx evinced a growing conviction in his late writings that revolution could in fact emerge first in Russia.[163] Marx predicted the eventual fall of capitalism, to be replaced by socialism, yet since the late 20th century state socialism is in retreat, as the Soviet Union collapsed, and the People's Republic of China shifted towards a market economy. HP G72-105SA Battery [164] Additionally, his argument that profits are generated only through surplus labour has been challenged by the counterclaim that profits also come from investments in human capital and technology.[8] Marx correctly predicted that over time, inequality would grow[165] but he also believed that this would mean growing impoverishment of the growing worker class, increasingly exploited by the capitalistsHP G72-110EL Battery.[8] The latter has also come true; as in the developed world, through liberal reforms, trade unions won many concessions, improving the situation of the workers (something that Marx considered very unlikely); in the more populated parts of the world such as Africa, India, and China the populations continue to grow and all the industry is moving there if it has not already established itself in the last two decadesHP G72-110EV Battery. Worldwide poverty has increased since the end of the 19th century especially considering that the richest are richer than ever but the poor have remained at the same level and the percentage has risen in the last 30 years.[8][166][167][168] (Scholars have debated whether Marx's comments about the proletariat can be analyzed in the context of the working class). HP G72-110SA Battery [169] In addition to specific predictions, certain of Marx's theories, such as his labour theory of value, have also been criticised.[4][119] However, in the wake of the economic crisis of 2008, Greek government debt crisis, and European sovereign debt crisis some thinkers like Terry Eagleton, David Harvey, HP G72-110SD Batteryand David McNally have given renewed impetus to the debate on whether Marx was right that capitalism inherently tends towards crisis (which Marx discussed as the "contradictions of capital").[170] The neutrality of this section is disputed. HP G72-110SO Battery Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (March 2012) [edit]Totalitarianism 100 Mark der DDR note used in the German Democratic Republic. 100-Mark banknotes with Marx's portrait circulated from 1964 until monetary union with West Germany in July 1990. HP G72-110SW Battery While Marxist thought may be used to empower marginalised and dispossessed people, it has also been used to prop up governments who have utilised violence to remove those seen as impeding the revolution.[8][119] In some instances, his ultimate goals have been used as justification for the end justifies the means logic. HP G72-120EG Battery [8] Moreover, contrary to his goal, his ideas have been used to promote dogmatism and intolerance.[8] Polish historian Andrzej Walicki noted that Marx's and Engels's theory was the "theory of freedom", but a theory that, at the height of its influence, was used to legitimise the totalitarian socialist state of the Soviet Union. HP G72-120EP Battery [171] This abuse of Marx's thought is perhaps most clearly exemplified in Stalinist Marxism, described by critics as the "most widespread and successful form of mass indoctrination... a masterly achievement in transforming Marxism into the official ideology of a consistently totalitarian state. HP G72-120EV Battery"[172] The controversy is further fueled as some left-wing theorists have tried to shield Marxism from any connection to the Soviet regime.[173] Lastly, the undue focus on the Marxist thought in the former Eastern Bloc, often forbidding social science arguments from outside the Marxist perspective, HP G72-120EW Battery [174][175] led to a backlash against Marxism after the revolutions of 1989. In one example, references to Marx drastically decreased in Polish sociology after the fall of the revolutionary socialist governments, and two major research institutions which advocated the Marxist approach to sociology were closed.[176] Marx's theory of alienationHP G72-120SD Battery Marx's theory of alienation (Entfremdung in German, which literally means "estrangement"), as expressed in the writings of the young Karl Marx (in particular the Manuscripts of 1844), refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are properly in harmony. HP G72-120SG BatteryIn the concept's most important use, it refers to the social alienation of people from aspects of their "human nature" (Gattungswesen, usually translated as 'species-essence' or 'species-being'). He believed that alienation is a systematic result of class society.[citation needed] HP G72-120SO Battery Marx's theory relies on Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1841), which argues that the idea of God has alienated the characteristics of the human being. Stirner would take the analysis further in The Ego and Its Own (1844), declaring that even 'humanity' is an alienating ideal for the individual, HP G72-130 Batteryto which Marx and Engels responded in The German Ideology (1845).[citation needed] Types [edit]In the labour process According to Marx, alienation is a systemic result of class society. Marx's theory of alienation is founded upon his observation that, HP G72-130ED Battery within the capitalist mode of production, workers invariably lose determination of their lives and destinies by being deprived of the right to conceive of themselves as the director of their actions, to determine the character of their actions, HP G72-130EG Battery to define their relationship to other actors, and to use or own the value of what is produced by their actions. Workers become autonomous, self-realized human beings, but are directed and diverted into goals and activities dictated by the bourgeoisie, HP G72-130EV Battery who own the means of production in order to extract from workers the maximal amount of surplus value possible within the current state of competition between industrialists. By working, each contributes to the common wealth. Alienation in capitalist societies occurs because the worker can only express this fundamentally social aspect of individuality through a production system that is not collectively, HP G72-130SA Batterybut privately owned; a privatized asset for which each individual functions not as a social being, but as an instrument: Let us suppose that we had carried out production as human beings. Each of us would have in two ways affirmed himself and the other person. 1) In my production I would have objectified my individuality, its specific character, and therefore enjoyed not only an individual manifestation of my life during the activityHP G72-130SF Battery, but also when looking at the object I would have the individual pleasure of knowing my personality to be objective, visible to the senses and hence a power beyond all doubt. 2) In your enjoyment or use of my product I would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of having satisfied a human need by my work, HP G72-140ED Battery that is, of having objectified man’s essential nature, and of having thus created an object corresponding to the need of another man's essential nature. ... Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature. —Comment on James Mill In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 Marx identifies four types of alienation in labor under capitalism.[1] These include: HP G72-150EF Battery Alienation of the worker from the work he produces, from the product of his labor. The product's design and the manner in which it is produced are determined not by its actual producers, nor even by those who consume products, but rather by the Capitalist class, HP G72-251XX Batterywhich appropriates labor - including that of designers and engineers - and seeks to shape consumers' taste in order to maximize profit. Aside from the lack of workers’ control over the design and production protocol, however, this form of alienation refers more broadly to the conversion of the activity of work, which is conducted to generate a use value in the form of a product, HP G72-260US Battery into a commodity itself which - like products - can be assigned an exchange value. In other words, the Capitalist gains control of the worker - including intellectual and creative workers - and the beneficial effects of his work by setting up a system that converts the worker's efforts not only into a useful, HP G72-a10SA Battery concrete thing capable of benefiting consumers, but also into an illusory, reified concept—something called "work"—which is compensated in the form of wages at a rate as low as possible to maintain a maximum rate of return on the industrialist's investment capital (an aspect of exploitation). Furthermore, within this illusory frameworkHP G72-a20SA Battery, the exchange value that could be generated by the sale of products and returned to workers in the form of profits is absconded with by the managerial and Capitalist classes. Alienation of the worker from working, from the act of producing itself. HP G72-a30SA BatteryThis kind of alienation refers to the patterning of work in the Capitalist Mode of Production into an endless sequence of discrete, repetitive, trivial, and meaningless motions, offering little, if any, intrinsic satisfaction. The worker's labor power is commodified into exchange value itself in the form of wages. HP G72-a40SA BatteryA worker is thus estranged from the unmediated relation to his activity via such wages. Aside from the limitation of the inherent plurality of one's species being that the Capitalist division of labor imposes upon workers, Marx was also identifying another feature of exploitation with this kind of alienation. According to Marx, HP G72-b01EA Batteryone's species being is fulfilled when it maintains control over the subject of its labor by the ability to determine how it shall be used directly or exchanged for something else. Capitalism removes the right of the worker to exercise control over the value or effects of his labor, robbing him of the ability to either consume the product he makes directly or receive the full value of the product when it is sold: HP G72-b01SA Batterythis is the first alienation of worker from product. However, the first alienation contributes to the second alienation of worker from the very act of working, as it removes the worker's feeling of control over the use and exchange of his labor power. This loss of control disrupts the ability of the worker to specialize, focus, HP G72-b02SA Battery direct or apply the inherently plural potency of his species being, thus separating or alienating any activity that he does engage in from the intentional core of that being. Alienation of the worker from himself as a producer, from his or her "species being" or "essence as a species". To Marx, HP G72-b10SA Battery this human essence was not separate from activity or work, nor static, but includes the innate potential to develop as a human organism. Species being is a concept that Marx deploys to refer to what he sees as the original or intrinsic essence of the species, which is characterized both by plurality and dynamism: HP G72-b15SA Batteryall beings possess the tendency and desire to engage in multiple activities to promote their mutual survival, comfort and sense of inter-connection. A man's value consists in his ability to conceive of the ends of his action as purposeful ideas distinct from any given step of realizing them: man is able to objectify his intentional efforts in an idea of himself (the subject) and an idea of the thing which he produces (the object). HP G72-b20SA BatteryAnimals, according to Marx, do not objectify themselves or their products as ideas because they engage in self-sustaining actions directly, without sustained future projection or conscious intention. While human nature or essence does not exist apart from specific, HP G72 Batteryhistorically conditioned activity, it becomes actualized as man's species being when man - within his historical circumstances - is free to subordinate his will to the demands imposed by his own imagination and not those mandated solely for the purpose of allowing others to do so. Notwithstanding, the character of an individual's consciousness (his will and imagination) is conditioned by his relationship to that which facilitates survival; HP G72 Notebook PC Series Batterysince any individual's survival and betterment is fundamentally dependent upon cooperation with others, a given person's personal consciousness is determined inter-subjectively or collectively rather than merely subjectively or individually. As far as has been heretofore observed, all societies have, according to Marx, organized groups with differing basic relationships to the means of material survival available to them—i.e. HP G72T-200 CTO Batterythe means of production. One group has owned and controlled the means while another has operated them, the goal of the former being to benefit as much as possible through the latter's efforts. Every time there is a shift in the organization of the means of production—as with say, HP G72t Battery the displacement of agrarian feudalism and pre-industrial mercantilism with the technologies that gave rise to industrial capitalism—there is a rearrangement and rupture of the social class structure that relates to those means—a class structure Marx termed the relations of production. That is to say, HP Pavilion dv6-3005sa Battery a new class relationship emerges, subordinating one group and the species beings of its members to the activities and corresponding values that enable it to operate the means of production for the profit of the dominant group, whose consciousness and values are also conditioned to maintain this dominance. While industrialization holds the promise of the masses' eventual liberation from an imagination conditioned chiefly by brute necessityHP Pavilion dv6-3005TX Battery, the division of labor within Industrial Capitalism blunts the worker's "species being" and renders him as a replaceable cog in an abstract machine instead of a human being capable of defining his own value through direct, purposeful activity (see Marx's theory of human nature). And yet, industrializationHP Pavilion dv6-3006TX Battery, in Marx's view, would eventually progress to a state of near-total mechanization and automation of productive processes. During this progression, the newly dominant Bourgeoisie Capitalist class would exploit the Industrial working class or Proletariat to the degree that the value they excised from their labor would begin to infringe upon the ability of the Proletariat to materially survive. HP Pavilion dv6-3010sa Battery When this begins to occur, and when the productive forces are sufficiently developed, there will be a final revolution whose end result will be the reorientation of the relations of production to the means of production in a Communist mode of production. In the Communist mode of production, because all members of the society will relate to the means of production on a fundamentally equal and non-conflictual manner, HP Pavilion dv6-3011TX Batterythere will be no fundamental differentiation between groups or classes as previously, and the species being of every individual will assume a full actualization of its tendencies, as the application of his efforts will return to him in direct, unmediated proportion to what he is able to conceive. This is partly due to the fact that a Communist society would distribute the benefits and duties of production evenly, HP Pavilion dv6-3015sa Battery in accordance with the capacities its members, such that each member could direct his action more directly towards his interests and preferences rather than a narrowly designated function designed to generate maximal return of value to an owner. In this classless, collectively managed societyHP Pavilion dv6-3020sa Battery, the dialectical exchange of value between one worker's objectified labor power (via production) and another's benefit from that objectification (via consumption) will not be directed by the narrow interest of one group over the needs of another, HP Pavilion dv6-3025sa Battery and will thus directly enrich the consciousness and material state of all of producers and consumers to the maximal possible degree. Though production will still be differentiated to some degree, it will be directed by the collective demand and not the narrow demand of one class at the expense of those of another. HP Pavilion dv6-3026tx Battery Since ownership will be shared, the relation of individuals' consciousness to the mode of production will be identical, and will assume the character that corresponds, as in previous times, to the interest of its group: the universal, Communist class. The direct, un-siphoned return of the fruit of each worker's labor to that group's interest - and thus as directly as possible to his own interest, HP Pavilion dv6-3030sa Battery which assumes the character of his group's - will constitute an un-alienated state of labor, restoring the worker to the fullest exercise and determination of his species being as is possible at any given moment in the future development of Communist society. Alienation of the worker from other workers or producers. HP Pavilion dv6-3030TX Battery Capitalism reduces labour to a commercial commodity to be traded on the market, rather than a social relationship between people involved in a common effort for survival or betterment. The competitive labour market is set up in Industrial Capitalist economies to extract as much value as possible in the form of capital from those who work to those who own enterprises and other assets that control the means of production. HP Pavilion dv6-3031sa Battery This causes the relations of production to become conflictual; i.e. it puts worker against worker, alienating members of the same class from their mutual interest, an effect Marx called false consciousness. Marx also placed emphasis on the role of religion in the alienation process, HP Pavilion dv6-3032sa Batteryindependently from his famous quotation on the "opiate of the masses".[2] [edit]Significance in Marx's thought "For Hegel, the unhappy consciousness is divided against itself, separated from its ‘essence’, HP Pavilion dv6-3032TX Battery which it has placed in a ‘beyond’. Marx used essentially the same notion to portray the situation of modern individuals—especially modern wage labourers—who are deprived of a fulfilling mode of life because their life-activity as socially productive agents is devoid of any sense of communal action or satisfaction and gives them no ownership over their own lives or their products. HP Pavilion dv6-3033sa Battery In modern society, individuals are alienated in so far as their common human essence, the actual co-operative activity which naturally unites them, is power-less in their lives, which are subject to an inhuman power—created by them, but separating and dominating them instead of being subject to their united will. This is the power of the market, HP Pavilion dv6-3035sa Batterywhich is ‘free’ only in the sense that it is beyond the control of its human creators, enslaving them by separating them from one another, from their activity, and from its products. The German verbs entäussern and entfremden are reflexive, and in both Hegel and Marx alienation is always fundamentally self-alienation. Fundamentally, HP Pavilion dv6-3040sa Battery to be alienated is to be separated from one's own essence or nature; it is to be forced to lead a life in which that nature has no opportunity to be fulfilled or actualized. In this way, the experience of ‘alienation’ involves a sense of a lack of self-worth and an absence of meaning in one's life." HP Pavilion dv6-3042TX Battery [3] [edit]Influence from Hegel and Feuerbach Alienation is a foundational claim in Marxist theory. Hegel described a succession of historic stages in the human Geist (Spirit), by which that Spirit progresses towards perfect self-understandingHP Pavilion dv6-3044sa Battery, and away from ignorance. In Marx's reaction to Hegel, these two, idealist poles are replaced with materialist categories: spiritual ignorance becomes alienation, and the transcendent end of history becomes man's realisation of his species-being; triumph over alienation and establishment of an objectively better society. HP Pavilion dv6-3045sa Battery This teleological (goal-oriented) reading of Marx, particularly supported by Alexandre Kojève before World War II, is criticized by Louis Althusser in his writings about "random materialism" (matérialisme aléatoire). Althusser claimed that said reading made the proletariat the subject of history (i.e. HP Pavilion dv6-3046sa BatteryGeorg Lukács' History and Class Consciousness [1923] published at the Hungarian Soviet Republic's fall), was tainted with Hegelian idealism, the "philosophy of the subject" that had been in force for five centuries, which was criticized as the "bourgeois ideology of philosophy". [edit]Relation to Marx's theory of historyHP Pavilion dv6-3047sa Battery In The German Ideology Marx writes that 'things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but, also, merely to safeguard their very existence'.[4] In other words, Marx seems to think thatHP Pavilion dv6-3048sa Battery, while humans do have a need for self-activity (self-actualisation, the opposite of alienation), this will be of secondary historical relevance. This is because he thinks that capitalism will increase the economic impoverishment of the proletariat so rapidly that they will be forced to make the social revolution just to stay alive - they probably wouldn't even get to the point of worrying that much about self-activity. HP Pavilion dv6-3048tx Battery This doesn't mean, though, that tendencies against alienation only manifest themselves once other needs are amply met, only that they are of reduced importance. The work of Raya Dunayevskaya and others in the tradition of Marxist humanism drew attention to manifestations of the desire for self-activity even among workers struggling for more basic goals. HP Pavilion dv6-3050eo Battery