Introduction
Karl Heinrich Marx was born in a family of nine to Henrietta Marx and Heinrich in Trier in Prussia. He was born on 5th of May 1818. Karl Marx was brought up by a father who was a lawyer who was extremely successful Voltaire and Kant. The father was also a fervent Prussian reform activist. Despite his parents bringing him as a Jew in the ancestry of rabbinical, in 1816 his father converted to Christianity at 35 years of age.
At school, Marx was never the best student. He was always an average student. For twelve years he was educated at home. After a long period of home-schooling he spent other five years in High school in the period between 1830 and 1835. He schooled in Jesuit High School. At the time that Marx was schooling the school was referred to as the Friedrich-Wilhelm Gymnasium. The principal of the school was well respected individual I the society as he was a Kantian and a liberal. He was a close friend to Marx’s father.
In the month of October in the year 1835, Marx enrolled in the University of Bonn. This is a school that had the kind of life that the character of Marx could have fit. The school had an outstanding rebellious culture, where Marx would enthusiastically take part in various student activities that took place in the school. At some point, he took life in the school a bit too far until at one juncture he was arrested and imprisoned for drunkenness and cause of disturbance. He incurred debts as he tried to sustain the drunkenness mode leading him to become a consistent participant in a duel. After the two semesters in Bonn, Marx was forced by his father to register in the University of Berlin which was a bit serious in education.
In the University of Berlin, Marx studied Philosophy and law. In the philosophy class, Marx was introduced to G.W.F Hegel’s philosophy. Hegel was a philosophy professor in the University for a long time until he died in 1831. At the beginning of his studies, Marx did not have strong connection to Hegel theories but with time he began connecting with the young Hegelians who had been motivated Hegel’s philosophical thoughts and ideas. This was a group of individuals who included Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer. This group was consistently against the religious and political establishments that existed during this time.
In 1836, Marx had become politically ardent, he secretly got engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, who was a woman from an extremely famous family in Trier and was four years older than Karl Marx. This action and the advancing radicalism for Marx angered his father so much. Writing various letters to his son, Marx’s father expressed his anger to the son by indicating that Marx was not ready to take marriage responsibilities seriously and he needed to be serious in the marriage having in mind that his wife was from an extremely well up family.
Marx never got serious of the social status that he had gained as a married man and he never settled down. In 1841, Marx received his doctorate from Jena University, but his radical politics barred him from acquiring any position as a teacher.
In 1842, he began working journalist where he became an editor for Rheinische Zeitung, which is Cologne’s liberal newspaper. Just one year later, the government ordered the newspaper’s suppression. Following this Marx resigned from the newspaper on 18th March 1843 and married Jenny Von Westphalen and they moved to Paris.
Paris had so much history on the history of Europe in the year 1843. While in Paris, Marx and Arnold Ruge founded a political journal that was known as Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher. The jurnal did not last for long following consistent philosophical disagreements between Ruge and Marx. However, in 1844, the journal made Marx meet a contributor to the journal who was renowned as Friedrich Engels who became his long time friend and a collaborator to Marx’s philosophical ideas. In conjunction, the two friends began writing a criticism philosophy to Bruno Bauer’s philosophical work. This led to publishing of the first Marx and Engel collaboration in 1845. The philosophical work was renowned as The Holy Family.
Later in 1845, Marx was expelled from France and forced to move to Belgium. In France he had began writing for a newspaper that was extremely radical and was known as the Vorwarts! This newspaper was feared as it was thought to be a possible cause of communism in the country.
In Brussels, Marx got into socialism by meeting Moses Hess, who made him break completely from Young Hegelians who had extensively influenced his philosophical work. It is in this country where he published The German Ideology through which he developed his materialism theory.
In 1846, Marx founded a Communist Correspondence Committee in an attempt to connect socialists in Europe. Following encouragement by his ideas and thoughts England socialists came up with the Communist League that pushed Marx and Engels to write the Manifesto of the Communist Party. This work was published in 1848 but in 1849 the Belgium government expelled him. He shifted to France where he anticipated for a socialist revolution but the France government also deported him. Prussia denied him naturalized citizenship and Marx was forced to move to London. Although, he was not offered citizenship in Britain he stayed in London until he died.
In Britain, Karl Marx became extremely influential until he came up with the German Workers’ Educational Society. He extended his journalism work where he worked for 10 years as a New York Daily Tribune correspondent between 1852 and 1862. However, he was not paid but Engels supported him financially. During his stay in London Marx sustained his focus on capitalism and economic theory where he published Das Kapital for the first time in 1867. He spent the remaining part of his life writing and revising scripts for more volumes, which he was not able to complete.
It was unfortunate that Karl Marx could have died without seeing all his work published. However, the remaining volumes of his work were assembled by Engels who later published them. On the 14th March in 1883, Karl Marx met his death following a defeated fight with pleurisy in London. Since then, Marx remained in the history of London. The Great Britain’s Communist Party built a large tombstone which included Marx’s bust. London is extremely respectful of the contributions of Karl Marx in making the society understand certain philosophical principles. His ideas have remained to be visited for various social questions where they have always offered outstanding answers.
Philosophical work
The main philosophical work of Karl Marx is inclined to his theory of alienation. He described this as a technique of separating elements that belong together by nature as well as assignment of resentment between elements that are in consistently harmony. Marx analyzed social alienation on the basis of human nature that is inclined to a society divided into social classes. He also brought forth the social alienation that existed in Christianity, which defines that, the super nature of God separates him from human beings. This is a theoretical approach to the extended theory of human person. Alienation is the portion of the theory that defines the main causes of separating people on the basis of various social elements.
He argued that alienation is the universal result of residing in a socially divided society, since being a mechanistic portion of a social class alienates an individual from his or her humankind. The theoretical foundation of alienation within the capitalist production mode is that the worker invariably loses the capability to decide his or her destiny in life when he is not allowed to do as his mind thinks and as he finds it fit.
Although, the worker is a self-realized individual, as an economic unit he or she is directed to aims and goals but diverted to activities that are commended by the Bourgeoisie who is the owner of production means with aim of reaping extensive maximum size of surplus value, in the itinerary of business competition among industrialists. This is the definition for the metaphysics theory that explained the human nature of always willing to be another human’s commander. However, Marx chose to bring into relation the human nature as defined in the philosophy of metaphysics the element of alienation.
In his philosophical and economic manuscripts Marx analyzed some types of alienation that take place to a worker who labor’s under a capitalist process of industrial production. One type of alienation is that of a worker from what he offers as labor. The design of a product is usually determined by the capitalist who manages the worker’s ability to mould the kind of product the he or she intends to produce. In the beginning, the capitalist holds the consumer’s tastes and he looks for the best force to make sure that the preferences of the consumer are met. Therefore, they have to control the workers for them to achieve the desired product. In this case, he categorized capitalists two. The first category is the functional capitalist who is a manager for certain means of production. The second is the rentier capitalist who is the owner of certain means of production.
The other category of alienation is the alienation of a worker from the producing action. In a mode of production that is capitalist driven the production of goods and services is achieved through a sequence of discrete and repetitive process that offers minimal satisfaction to the worker. Through extensive emphasis on the final product the labor power for the individual is reduced through extremely low wages. In this kind of alienation, the capitalist introduces division of labor, which creates an extended platform for exploitation of workers by the capitalists. Following this the worker is denied the right to control the value and effect of the labor that he or she offers to the firm. This further denies the worker the ability to consume the products or benefit from the sale of the products that he or she adversely sweated to produce. This is also a representation of the metaphysics philosophical theory.
Through his theory of idealism Karl Marx significantly contributes to the epistemology social theory. Social epistemology refers to the study for social dimensions of information and knowledge. It is a study that defines social practices on the basis of the impact that these practices may have on the beliefs of an agent. According to Karl Marx, ideology means a set of world views, beliefs, or a form of consciousness that is delusive or false. The main cause of the beliefs and delusiveness is the social status as well as believers’ interests. This theory is extremely significant in the Marx’s philosophical work. It affirms the theory of existence of social classes where people may be classified as proletariats and Bourgeoisies.
Karl Marx has also been extremely contributive in defining social ethics. He did this through the definition of the Marxist Ethics which originates from Marxist theology and philosophy. His argument is anchored to the dialectical materialism as well as class struggle. He defined ethics through the old morality where capitalists use their financial strength to exploit their workers.
Analysis
Karl Marx, fits to proper definition of philosophers. He has coined the manner through which he understands the human society following proper stratification of certain groups of people which are the owners of means of production and workers. He focuses on social metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, which are extremely significant in defining a successful society. His philosophical work has been extremely influential to the social status of different regions in the world with emphasized influence to small regions in form of cities to nationwide influence. His main work is defined on the definition of social classes. It is upon this that he has been able to develop an outstanding social understanding of a human person on the variant social basis.
Works Cited
Elliott, John E.. "Moral And Ethical Considerations In Karl Marx's Robust Vision Of The Future Society." International Journal of Social Economics 14.10 (1987): 3-26. Print.
Marx, Karl, and Loyd David Easton. Writings of the young Marx on philosophy and society. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1967. Print.
Marx, Karl. Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. Blacksburg, Va.: Wilder Publications, 2011. Print.
McCarthy, George E.. Marx and the ancients: classical ethics, social justice, and nineteenth-century political economy. Savage, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1990. Print.
Pozzuto, R.. "Toward An Understanding Of Karl Marx: A Review Of Richard J. Bernstein, Praxis And Action, Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 1971, 344 Pg.95
Wendling, Amy E.. Karl Marx on technology and alienation. Basingstoke [England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Print.
