Marx

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=Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883)=

=Major Works=

Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1. 1867. Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. 1858. "Manifesto of the Communist Party." 1848. "Wages, Price and Profits." 1865.

=Biography=

Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in Trier, Prussia (now Germany). Although the Marxs were Jewish they converted to Christianity due to Prussia's anti-Jewish laws of the time. Marx studied law and history at Bonn, and earned his PhD in Philosophy in 1841, basing his thesis on Democritus. Becoming a proponent of the dialectical Hegelian philosophy, he joined the `Left Hegelians' in Berlin. For a time he was editor of the pro-democratic, yet increasingly revolutionary //Rheinische Zeitung//, until the government suppressed it entirely in 1843. Marx next turned to the study of political economy. In 1843 he married his childhood friend Jenny von Westphalen (1814-1881) of bourgeois Prussian nobility.

Having broken away from the Left Hegelians Bruno Bauer and Max Stirner, Marx moved to Paris in the 1840's where he met Friedrich Engels who became a life-long friend. Together they produced //The Holy Family,// which was then followed by //The German Ideology in 1846//, the first substantial work of Marxist theory. //Poverty of Philosophy// was published in 1847. With the German and French governments increasingly critical of his revolutionary activities, Marx moved to Brussels where he and Engels joined the Communist League and together they outlined its purpose and program in //The Communist Manifesto//. Addressing the issues of class struggle, materialism, and the role of the proletariat, it is probably Marxs' most widely read work.

After being banished from Belgium, Marx lived in exile between France and Germany and suffered the harsh straits and degradations of poverty and rootlessness. The failures of the Revolutions in 1848-49 were also moral defeats for Marx. After settling in London, England where he remained for the rest of his life, Marx worked on the first volume of his critical analysis of capitalism, //Das Capital// (1867), a treatise of 20th century politics and economy. With influences from Jean Jacques Rousseau's //Social Contract// and Scottish political economist [|Adam Smith]'s //Wealth of Nations//, it would profoundly //"reveal the law of motion of modern society"// and be influential in the formation of some of the world's future communist regimes. Engels would subsequently finish the second two volumes from Marxs' notes after his death.

By 1864, along with Engels, Marx was actively involved in the foundation of the International Working Men’s Association in London. The historic challenge to uniformly unite the proletariat in various labour movements in numerous countries was an enormous task that Marx set-to with great passion and dexterity. His monumental efforts however, took their toll on his health, and on March 14, 1883 Karl Marx died in London, still in somewhat impoverished circumstances. He now lies buried beside Jenny in the Highgate Cemetery in London, England. His gravestone reads //"Workers of all lands, unite"//

//Source:// http://www.online-literature.com/karl-marx/

=Some Quirky Facts about Marx=

Although Marx's ancestors on both sides of his family included many Jewish Rabbis his father conformed to evangelical Lutheranism in order to avoid civil disabilities in force against Jews and to advance his legal career in Cologne.

Marx's father owned a number of Moselle vineyards.

Marx was introduced to the works of Shakespeare quite early in life and developed an enduring, and great, admiration for his works.

Marx was excused military service because of a weak chest.

In his late teens Marx, despite his Jewish background and somewhat questionable prospects in life, became engaged to a truly gorgeous daughter of a German baronial house who was four years his senior. This lady had a paternal grandfather who had been Chief of Staff in the Prussian armies during the Seven Years War and her mother was closely descended from Scottish Earls. The engaged couple remained unmarried for about seven years.

Marx may have contemplated becoming a literary man but, despite a high degree of intellectual brilliance, he found that he had not the appropriate talents.

As a radical journalist Marx was expelled from Germany and Belgium. He was also expelled from Paris with permission to live in a notoriously unhealthy part of provincial France. He therefore was obliged to seek a home in England though at one time seems to have contemplated moving on to the United States. An inability to raise the fare may have deterred such a move.

On his mother’s side Marx was a Philips, the same Philips whose name is to this day displayed on a major European electronics companies products.

Marx's wife was a daughter of her father’s second marriage. A son of his first marriage rose to become Minister of the Interior in Prussia. Reactionary Prussia would in any case have kept the noted radical Karl Marx under surveillance.

A lack of amity between this personally reactionary Minister and Marx's family tended to make this surveillance more intense.

Marx fathered a child born to the Marx family's housekeeper Helene Delmuth.

When Marx had money he was very open handed with friends and with socialist causes. Whether he had money or whether he had not Marx's family was very apt to attempt a bourgeois lifestyle that was beyond their means. Their valuables were often in pawn and they were routinely harassed by creditors.

While Marx maintained good ideological terms with Friedrich Engels virtually all other would-be socialist and communist ideologues who came to his notice were excoriated at one time or another as deviationists or opportunists.

For much of his adult life Marx suffered greatly from frequent attacks of painful boils that could break out on any part of his body.

Marx wrote to Charles Darwin seeking consent to a dedication to Darwin appearing on an English language edition of Marx's works. Darwin refused such consent.

At one stage of his life Marx received a substantial bequest from Wilhelm Wolff, a communistic comrade, and subsequently dabbled with some success in stocks and shares.

Marx lived in perpetual expectation of a serious crisis in Capitalism that would precipitate Communist revolution.

At one time during his years of living in London Marx applied for a job as a clerk but was turned down because of his handwriting. Only his wife and Friedrich Engels could decipher it!!!

Throughout his life Marx spent much time in the British Museum reading room buried in books on philosophy and economics. Continuing extensive subsidies from his friend Friedrich Engels, who considered Marx to be a true genius, helped keep Marx's family from going under completely in their financial affairs. Engels was employed in his father's cotton business in Lancashire.

Throughout his life Marx spent much time in the British Museum reading room buried in books on philosophy and economics. Continuing extensive subsidies from his friend Friedrich Engels, who considered Marx to be a true genius, helped keep Marx's family from going under completely in their financial affairs. Engels was employed in his father's cotton business in Lancashire.

In living such a life Marx echoed somewhat the lives of his Rabbinical ancestors. It was commonplace in European Jewish life for the wealthy members of the community to gain merit through the patronage of recognized scholars.

Marx does not appear to have attempted to involve himself with wider English society during his years in London.

Only eleven mourners attended Marx's funeral on 17th March 1883. In a graveside oration his long time friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels predicted that:- "His name and work will endure through the ages."

Within a century four in every ten of the world's population lived under forms of governance more or less inspired by the writings of Marx. Many of the "Social Democratic" societies meanwhiles were variously caught up in a "cold war" situation intended by themselves to limit the further spread of Marxism.

//Source:// http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philosophy/karl_marx.html

=**Marx Myths and Legends**= http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/critical_define/crit_marx.html ii. Myths about Marx’s Character iii. Myths conflating Marx with 19th Century Socialism and Positivism iv. The Myth of Dialectical Materialism v. Other Myths of Marxism vi. Recent Myths**
 * i. Myths Conflating Marx with “State Socialism”

=Marx' Philosophy=

Origins
Marx was deeply influenced by the 19th century German philosopher George Friedrich Hegel. He interpretted Hegel's philosophy as actually including materialist elements. According to Marx, although Hegel devoted a substantial portion of his writings to explaining concepts and how ideas figure into the world, he did believe in a tangible, material world, as opposed to arguing that ideas are all that exist. Hegel was also known for his discussion of a dialectic, a process that highlights the development of concepts and ideas. In the first stage of development an idea is presented in order to be analyzed. In the second stage, it's weaknesses are shown by providing counterarguments and opposing ideas. The final stage marks the perfection of this initial idea by incoporating the coutnerarguments to strenghten the idea's weaknsesses, thus marking its progression and development along this dialectic process. Marx took this notion of the dialectic and applied it to his own thinking, specifically in his development of the progression of history, referred to as the material dialectic. In the material dialectic, Marx discusses the progression of the material world (and not merely ideas), and describes how it develops and changes to achieve greater perfection. Source: www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/marx.htm

Marx claims that human nature centers around social relations.
Man is directly a natural being. As a natural being and as a living natural being he is on the one hand endowed with natural powers, vital powers – he is an active natural being. These forces exist in him as tendencies and abilities – as instincts. On the other hand, as a natural, corporeal, sensuous objective being he is a suffering, conditioned and limited creature, like animals and plants. That is to say, the objects of his instincts exist outside him, as objects independent of him; yet these objects are objects that he needs – essential objects, indispensable to the manifestation and confirmation of his essential powers. //Source:// //[|1844 Manuscripts]//

Marx believes that humans are different from all other animals.
The animal is immediately one with its life activity. It is not distinct from that activity; it is that activity. Man makes his life activity itself an object of his will and consciousness. He has conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he directly merges. Conscious life activity directly distinguishes man from animal life activity. Only because of that is he a species-being. Or, rather, he is a conscious being – i.e., his own life is an object for him, only because he is a species-being. Only because of that is his activity free activity. Estranged labour reverses the relationship so that man, just because he is a conscious being, makes his life activity, his essential being, a mere means for his existence.

//Source: The German Ideology//

Man is a species-being, not only because he practically and theoretically makes the species – both his own and those of other things – his object, but also – and this is simply another way of saying the same thing – because he looks upon himself as the present, living species, because he looks upon himself as a universal and therefore free being.

//Source:// [|//1844 Manuscripts//]

A major difference between man and animals is his ability to not only achieve immediate goals that are necessary for his own survival (such as building a shelter), but also to include the conception of the entire community of human beings as a whole into his daily life. Man has the mental capacity to orient his physical activity toward perfecting the entire community of humans, as opposed to animals which simply work to acquire immediate needs and work solely for themselves and those who live in close proximity to them.