Karl Marx
Karl Marx 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a philosopher,
economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Born in
Prussia to a middle-class family, he later studied political economy and
Hegelian philosophy. As an adult, Marx became stateless and spent much of his
life in London, England, where he continued to develop his thought in
collaboration with German thinker Friedrich Engels and published various works,
the most well-known being the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto. His work
has since influenced subsequent intellectual, economic, and political history.
Marx's theories about society, economics and
politics—collectively understood as Marxism—hold that human societies develop
through class struggle: a conflict between ruling classes (known as the
bourgeoisie) that control the means of production and working classes (known as
the proletariat) that work on these means by selling their labour for wages.
Through his theories of alienation, value, commodity fetishism, and surplus
value, Marx argued that capitalism facilitated social relations and ideology
through commodification, inequality, and the exploitation of labour. Employing
a critical approach known as historical materialism, Marx propounded the theory
of base and superstructure, asserting that the cultural and political
conditions of society, as well as its notions of human nature, are largely
determined by obscured economic foundations. These economic critiques would result
in influential works such as Capital, Volume I (1867).
According to Marx, states are run in the interests of the
ruling class but are nonetheless represented as being in favor of the common
interest of all. 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. For Marx, class antagonisms under
capitalism, owing in part to its instability and crisis-prone nature, would
eventuate the working class' development of class consciousness, leading to
their conquest of political power and eventually the establishment of a
classless, communist society governed by a free association of producers.Marx
actively fought for its implementation, arguing that the working class should
carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic
emancipation.
Marx has been described as one of the most influential
figures in human history, and his work has been both lauded and criticised. His
work in economics laid the basis for much of the current understanding of
labour and its relation to capital, and subsequent economic thought. Many
intellectuals, labour unions, artists and political parties worldwide have been
influenced by Marx's work, with many modifying or adapting his ideas. Marx is
typically cited as one of the principal architects of modern sociology and
social science.
