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| Marx, Karl Heinrich (1818-1883)
Marx, Karl Heinrich (1818-1883)
Karl Heinrich
Marx
*
Report for the Economics
Class
*
Description of the life and works
of the Prussian
revolutionist, sociologist and
economist Karl
Heinrich Marx. Summarization of
his idea of the
perfect political and economical
system,
Marxism.
*
12/28/1994
by Ferdinand
Felder
The Life of Karl
Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was born in May, 1818, in
the city of Trier in the Rhine province of Prussia, today a part of Germany.
His father, Heinrich Marx, a Jewish lawyer and his mother, born Henrietta
Pressburg, baptized Karl in the Evangelical Established Church when he was six
years old.
In 1835 Marx matriculated at the University of
Bonn. In Bonn he spent one day in prison - the only imprisionment he suffered
in his life. However, he left Bonn after one year and enrolled at the
University of Berlin to study law and philosophy. During the time as a student
in Berlin, Marx was strongly influenced by Georg W. F. Hegel. Marx recieved his
doctor`s degree in 1841 from the University of Jena.
Marx considered Journalism as a career and in
1842 he became an editor of the `Rheinische Zeitung`. As such he was obligated
to write editorials on a variety of social and economic issues and about the new
phenomenon of Communism. In the year 1843 Karl married Jenny von Westphalen, a
close friend of his boyhood and the daughter of a high government official. A
short time afer his marrige the newspaper, at which he worked, was suppressed
and he emigrated with his wife to Paris where he became acquainted with French
socialists. After being expelled from the French government, Marx left for
Brussls in 1845.
In Brussls Marx established the lifelong
friendship with Friedrich Engels, finding that they shared the same political
views. They wanted to combine their intellectual resources and, as a result,
they published several books together.
Marx was fascinated by Ludwig Feuerbachs idea
that man had "alienated himself from himself" by creating God in his image. So
he applied the idea of "alienation" to his thougts of private property, which he
said causes men to work only for themseves and not for the whole
society.
In 1847 Marx visited London, where he and
Engels prepared a program for a secret organization of Workers. It appeared in
1848 as the `Communist Manifesto` and declared that the struggle between the
working class and the business class, under Capitalism, had to end in a
self-destruction of society and a change to Communism.
When a revolution suddenly erupted in Europe in
the first month of 1848, Marx returned to the Rhineland. Now he pressed his
policy throught the pages of the newly founded `Neue Rheinische
Zeitung`.
Expelled once more, Marx went to London in
1849. From 1851 to 1862 Marx and his family lifed in poverty, with only the
little help from Engels and the relatives of his wife. Marx refused to work for
money like a proletarian. During all these years he had one relatively steady
source of earned income. He wrote about 400 articles and editorials for the
`New York Tribune` as the European correspondent.
In 1864 Marx`s ideas had begun to influence a
group of workers and German emigres in London, who founded the International
Working Men`s Association, later known as the First International. This new
organization set up a committee to produce a program and a constitution. Marx,
invited as the representative of the German workers, used his immense
journalistic experience to present his political views to the committee. After
various other drafts had been submitted, his ideas were taken.
Marx`s name was still unknown in 1870, but he
became famous in political circles of Europe, when the French-Prussian War broke
out. He and Engels disagreed with followers in Germany who refused to vote in
favour of the war. The General Council declared that "on the German side the
war is a war of defense". But after the defeat of the French armies, they felt
that the German terms amounted to aggrandizement at the expense of the French
people. When an insurrection broke out in Paris and the Paris Commune was
proclaimed, Marx gave it his unswerving support. Engels judged the Paris
Commune as the first example of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Marx`s
name, as the leader of the First International, became synonymous throughout
Europe with the revolutionary spirit symbolized by the Paris
Commune.
In 1867, Marx published, together with Engels,
`Das Kapital`, dealing with the economic system of Capitalism. The body of
thoughts and belief known as Marxism is based one this book, also known as the
`Bible of the working class`.
During his lifetime Karl Marx wrote two major
works together with Friedrich Engels. In both of them he described and
discussed his views of politic and economic systems. The first one is `The
Communist Manifesto`, a pamphlet, writen in 1848. It embodied the authors`
materialistic conception of the stuggle between the classes in history. Also it
surveyed history from the age of feudalism down to 19th-century. Capitalism was
destined to be overthrown and replaced by a workers` society. Communism would
accomplish the "abolition of private property" and "raise the proletariat to the
position of the ruling class". The Manifesto ends with the dramatic words "The
proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
Workingmen of all countries, unite."
The other famous work is `Das Kapital`, written
by Marx and Engels in 1867. Much of `Das Kapital` deals with Marx concept of the
"surplus value" of labor and its consequences for Capitalism. In Marx mind the
large army of unemployed was blamed on the system of Capitalism. He explains in
his book that the introduction of machines is profitable for the individual
entrepreneur, to whom they give an advantage over his competitors. But as
outlay for machinery grows in relation to outlay of wages, profit declines in
relation to the total capital outlay. The capitalist will recieve less and less
per hundred dollars of capital and can only try to postpone his bankruptcy by
pressure upon the workers. Finally the "capitalist class becomes unfit to rule,
because it is incompetent to assure an existence to it`s slave within his
slavery". Consequently, the system collapses and the working class inherits the
power.
Marx spent most of his lifetime studying
economic and social history in the British Museum in London to develop his
theories. In the last years of his life, marked by illness and depression, his
creativity declined, caused by the death of his wife and his eldest daughter.
Finally, he died in March 1883 and was buried in the Highgate Cemetery in
London.
Afer his death Engels published the second and
third edition of `Das Kapital`. Today his studies on economics and sociology
themes are still very influential in academic circles and often discussed by
those who do not share his political oppinions.
The Marxism
Marxism was developed in the middle of the
19th-century by Karl Marx and, to a lesser extent, by Friedrich Engels. With
time the content of Marxism changed, because other philosopher like Lenin and
Stalin added their oppinion to the thoughts of Marx. Originally it is consisted
of three main interrelated ideas: a philosophical view of man, a theory of
history and an economic and political program.
The point of departure of human history is
living man, who seeks to satisfy certain primary needs:
"Man is first of all a natural being.
...the ojects of
his instincts exist outside him,
independent of him,
but the objects of his need, indispensable
and essential
for the realization and confirmation of
his substantial
powers." (Economic and Philosophic
Manuscripts of 1844)
Every human has various needs he tries to
satisfy. This satisfaction opens the way to more and new needs. Human activity
is essentially a struggle with nature that must furnish man the means of
satisfying his needs: food, drink, clothing and then the development of his
intellectual and artistic abilities. In this undertaking, man discovers himself
as a productive being who humanizes himself by his labor. Furthermore, man
humanizes nature while he naturalizes himself. By his labor he realizes his
identity with the nature he masters, while at the same time he recieves free
consciousness. Born of nature man becomes fully human by opposing it. By
appropriating all the creative energies, he discovers that "all that is called
history is nothing else than the process of creating man through human labor".
Fully naturalized, man recaptured his full liberty.
Another basic element that is appears in
Marxism is alienation. Living in an capitalistic society man feels not really
free. He is an alienated being; he is not home in his world. The causes of
alienatien come to have an increasingly economic and social content. The more
the worker produces the less he consumes and the more values he creates the more
he devalues himself, because his product and his labor are estranged from him.
The life of the worker depends on capital: no work, no pay. Under these
conditions, labor denies the fullnes of concrete man. "The genetic being of man
is transformed into a being which is alien to him." Alienated labor is seen as
the consequence of market product, the division of labor and the divison of
society into antagonistic classes. In Marxism the people are prevented form
alienation, because everybody works not for himself but for
society.
In Marx`s ideas of a perfect economical system,
the economy was seen a a whole and not in one or another of its aspects. In the
book `Das Kapital` he analyzes the economy of the 19th century in England to
develop a better market system. It is a system of private enterprise and
competition that arose in the 16th century from the development of sea routes,
international trade and colonialism. Its rise had been facilitated by changes
like division of labor and the concentration of workshops. The wealth of
society that brought this economy into play had been acquired through an
"enormous accumulation of commodities". If the capitalist advances funds to buy
cotton yarn with which to produce fabrics and sell the prodoct for a larger sum
than he paid, he is able to invest the difference in additional production.
"Not only is the value advance kept in circulation, but it changes in its
magnitude, adds a plus to itself, makes itself worth more, and it is this
movement that transforms it into capital." The transformation is possible only
because the capitalist has appropriated the means of production, including the
labor power of the worker. Now the labor power produces more than it is worth.
The value of labor power is determined by the amount of labor necessary for its
reproduction or, in other words, by the amount needed for the worker to subsist
and beget children. But in the hands of the capitalist the labor power employed
in the course of a day produces more than the value of the sustenance required
by the worker and his family. The difference between the two values is
appropriated by the capitalist and it corresponds exactly to the surplus value
realized by capitalists in the market. The introduction of machinery is
profitable for the individuel capitalist because it enables him to produce more
goods at a lower cost, but new techniques are soon taken by his competitors.
The outlay for machinery grows faster than the outlay for wages. Since only
labor can produce surplus value from which profit is derived, this means that
the capitalist`s rate of profit on his total outlay tends to decline. Along
with the declining rate of profit goes an increase in unemployment. The
equilibrium of the system is percarious, subject as it is to the internal
pressures resulting from its own development. Crisis shake it at regular
intervals, preludes to the general crisis that will sweep it away. This
instability is increased by the formation of a reserve army of workers, both
factory workers and peasants, whose pauperization keeps increasing. "Capitalist
production develops the technique of social production only by exhausting the
two sources of wealth: the earth and the worker."
Marxism calls itself to be the only economical
system to avoid class stuggle. There are two basic classes, which are combined
with other less important but similar classes: the class of the owners, or the
bourgeoisie and the workers, or the proletariat. "The bourgeoisie produces its
own grave-diggers. The fall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the
proletariat are equally inevitable." In other words that means that the
bourgeoisie is getting richer and richer but most of the residents of this
country are getting poorer. Because of this fact they would have to work more,
which results in more profit for the bourgeoisie. This struggle of the classes
has to end in a switch of society to a communist system.
Russia adopted Marxism as its constitution in
the year 1917, when after a revolution, Lenin, who believed in Marx`s thoughts,
came to power. Since then the gouvernment acted in the way of Marxism. Its
political system was called Marxism-Leninism, a variation of the originall
Marxism. After World War II some other countries adopted the same system as
Russia and formed a wide society. With the time the economy of all these
countries began to collapse. In 1989 the people of East Germany demonstated that
they wanted to live in a democratic country, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russian
president opened the borders. Since then most of these countries were more
west-oriantated and wanted to join the European Union. It will take many years
to bring these counties on the same economic level with the U.S.A., Japan or
Germany, because all machines are old. Also, power sources are missing or so
old that it is impossible to use them. Marx tried to avoid all these problems
im his system. The worst mistake he made was that Capitalism does not
self-destruct.
Conclusion
In my oppinion Democrazy is a better political
system than Marxism or similar systems. People in a Democrazy are allowed to
say and to do much more than the people in a Marxism society. In both systems
the people are allowed to vote, but in a Communist country there is only one
party to elect. Another possibility is that the gouvernment tells the people
that they live in a Democrazy but in reallity it is a kind Marxist system. When
the people go to vote then they can choose between various parties. But all
votes against the gouverning party are canceled out. Also the students in
school are thought to act in the way of the system and not to get their own
oppinion about politics.
References
Britannica Macropaedia 15th
ed., s.v. "Marxism",
s.v. "Marx, Karl"
Britannica Micropaedia 15th
ed., s.v. "Marxism",
s.v. "Marx, Karl",
s.v. "Friedrich Engels",
s.v. "Das Kapital",
s.v. "Communist
Manifesto",
s.v. "First International"
Multimedia
Encyclopedia, s.v. "Marxism",
s.v. "Marx, Karl"
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