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The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia (TM)
(c) 1991 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.
Marx, Karl
Karl Heinrich Marx, b. May 5, 1818, d. Mar. 14, 1883, was a German
economist, philosopher, and revolutionist whose writings form the basis of
the body of ideas known as MARXISM. With the aid of Friedrich ENGELS he
produced much of the theory of modern SOCIALISM and COMMUNISM. Marx's
father, Heinrich, was a Jewish lawyer who had converted his family to
Christianity partly in order to preserve his job in the Prussian state.
Karl himself was baptized in the Evangelical church. As a student at the
University of Berlin, young Marx was strongly influenced by the philosophy
of G. W. F. HEGEL and by a radical group called Young Hegelians, who
attempted to apply Hegelian ideas to the movement against organized
religion and the Prussian autocracy. In 1841, Marx received a doctorate in
philosophy.
In 1842, Marx became editor of the Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne, a
liberal democratic newspaper for which he wrote increasingly radical
editorials on social and economic issues. The newspaper was banned by the
Prussian government in 1843, and Marx left for Paris with his bride, Jenny
von Westphalen. There he went further in his criticism of society,
building on the Young Hegelian criticism of religion. Ludwig FEUERBACH had
written a book called The Essence of Christianity (1841; Eng. trans.,
1854), arguing that God had been invented by humans as a projection of
their own ideals. Feuerbach wrote that man, however, in creating God in
his own image, had "alienated himself from himself." He had created
another being in contrast to himself, reducing himself to a lowly, evil
creature who needed both church and government to guide and control him.
If religion were abolished, Feuerbach claimed, human beings would overcome
their ALIENATION. Marx applied this idea of alienation to private
property, which he said caused humans to work only for themselves, not for
the good of their species. In his papers of this period (published in 1959
English translation as Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844), he
elaborated on the idea that alienation had an economic base. He called for
a communist society to overcome the dehumanizing effect of private
property.
In 1845, Marx moved to Brussels, and in 1847 he went to London. He
had previously made friends with Friedrich Engels, the son of a wealthy
textile manufacturer who, like himself, had been a Young Hegelian. They
collaborated on a book, The Holy Family (1845; Eng. trans., 1956), which
was a criticism of some of their Young Hegelian friends for their stress
on alienation. In 1845, Marx jotted down some notes, Theses on Feuerbach,
which he and Engels enlarged into a book, The German Ideology (1932; Eng.
trans., 1938), in which they developed their materialistic conception of
history. They argued that human thought was determined by social and
economic forces, particularly those related to the means of production.
They developed a method of analysis they called DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM,
in which the clash of historical forces leads to changes in society.
In 1847 a London organization of workers invited Marx and Engels to
prepare a program for them. It appeared in 1848 as the COMMUNIST
MANIFESTO. In it they declared that all history was the history of class
struggles. Under CAPITALISM, the struggle between the working class and
the business class would end in a new society, a communist one. The
outbreak of the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848 in Europe led Marx to return to
Cologne, where he began publication of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, but
with the failure of the German liberal democratic movement he moved
permanently (1849) to London. For many years he and his family lived in
The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia (TM)
(c) 1991 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.
poverty, aided by small subventions from Engels and by bequests from the
relatives of Marx's wife. From 1851 to 1862 he contributed articles and
editorials to the New York Tribune, then edited by Horace Greeley. Most of
his time, however, was spent in the British Museum, studying economic and
social history and developing his theories.
Marx's ideas began to influence a group of workers and German emigres
in London, who established (1864) the International Workingmen's
Association, later known as the First International (see INTERNATIONAL,
SOCIALIST). By the time of the brief COMMUNE OF PARIS in 1871, Marx's name
had begun to be well known in European political circles. A struggle
developed within the International between Marx and the Russian anarchist
Mikhail BAKUNIN, whom Marx eventually defeated and expelled, at the cost
of the destruction of the International.
In 1867, Marx published the first volume of Das KAPITAL (Eng. trans.,
1886). The next two volumes, edited by Engels, were published after Marx's
death. The fourth volume was edited by Karl KAUTSKY. Marx's last years
were marked by illness and depression. Marx continued to write treatises
on socialism, urging that his followers disdain soft-hearted bourgeois
tendencies. He took this stand, for example, in The Gotha Program (1891;
Eng. trans., 1922). His wife died in 1881, and his eldest daughter in
1883, shortly before his own death.
At Marx's funeral in Highgate Cemetery in London, Engels spoke of him
as "the best-hated and most-calumniated man of his time." The importance
of Marx's thought, however, extends far beyond the revolutionary movements
whose prophet he became. His writings on economics and sociology are still
influential in academic circles and among many who do not share his
political views.
Murray Wolfson
Bibliography:
Berlin, Isaiah, Karl Marx: His Life and Environment, 4th ed. (1978);
McLellan, David, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought (1973); Mehring, Franz,
Karl Marx: The Story of His Life, trans. by Edward Fitzgerald (1935);
Olsen, Richard E., Karl Marx (1978); Padover, Saul K., Karl Marx: An
Intimate Biography (1978); Payne, Robert, Marx (1968); Sprigge, C. J. S.,
Karl Marx (1938).
Picture Captions
Karl Marx (1818-83), German political philosopher and economist, was
the founder of Marxism, the tenets of which are outlined in the "Communist
Manifesto", written by Marx and Friederich Engels. (The Bettman Archive.)
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