Karl Marx: Life, Philosophy, and Impact on 19th Century Europe

Context of 19th Century Europe

The 19th century was a century of social and political revolutions. Europe was being transformed; the old regime was finished, making way for a new system of governing nations. This century began with two events that shook the continent: the French Revolution and Napoleon's conquests.

Other highlights of this century include:

• The political triumph of the bourgeoisie
• The consolidation of industrial capitalism
• The consolidation of major European nations (Germany, Italy, Greece, etc.)
• European colonial arrogance in Asia and Africa
• The restoration of the monarchy
• German idealism, positivism, and neo-Kantianism
• Romanticism
• Scientific and technical progress
• The birth of sociology, psychology, and cultural anthropology

In the cultural sphere, the University was once again the main focus of thought and science, especially in Germany and France. Hegel's philosophy extended across Europe. It was the time of German Idealism, proposing a new concept of rationality and reason: absolute, infinite creativity, establishing a new relationship between philosophy, science, and religion. Philosophy was once again systematic, discovering a new metaphysics and the dialectical method.

Hegel's followers split into two camps: those who continued his system and those who preferred his method. The Hegelian right interpreted Hegel's theories, and the Hegelian left made its way, replacing the dialectics of the idea with the dialectic of matter.

Karl Marx: A Revolutionary Thinker

Marx proposed the first reaction to romantic idealism, contrasting it with a philosophy that, starting from the reality of man, could actively transform reality itself. The philosophies of Marx led to a multiplicity of interpretations, many Marxisms: those of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Marcuse, and so on.

Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany (1818-1883) into a wealthy family of Jewish descent, converted to Protestantism. Raised in a liberal environment, his father, a lawyer, led him to study law. Soon, however, he preferred philosophy and became acquainted with the thought of Hegel. He worked as a journalist, and his articles defended universal suffrage and freedom of expression. Government censorship prevented him from continuing, and he was exiled to Paris.

Marx's Intellectual Development in Paris

This step was decisive in shaping his thinking through the confluence of disparate factors, such as:

• Contact with the incipient labor movement
• Intellectuals and revolutionaries like Proudhon or Bakunin
• The tradition of French socialism rooted in the thought of Saint-Simon

Marx made a critical reading of the conceptions of British liberal economists like Adam Smith and revised conceptions of Feuerbach in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, a work on the proposed analysis of capitalism in terms of economic alignment. He also befriended Engels, who became his intellectual partner, with whom he entered the clandestine group, the League of Communists.

Together with Engels, he wrote The Holy Family, The German Ideology, and The Communist Manifesto. His major work is Capital.