Karl Marx: Philosophy, Economics and Influence

Karl Marx (1820-1883): Historical, Philosophical, and Cultural Context

19th Century Context

Economic Context

Karl Marx's work developed during the 19th century, a period marked by the Industrial Revolution. The steam engine propelled advancements in railways, steel production, and steamships, leading to large-scale industrial production. Marx believed that these evolving productive forces drive changes in production relations when conflicts arise. The bourgeoisie, promoters of the industrial revolution, clashed with the proletariat, who suffered the alienating effects of industrialization. These effects included excessive working hours, subhuman labor conditions for women and children, dismissals without retirement, meager wages, lack of insurance or coverage for illness or injury, squalid living conditions, overcrowded housing in impoverished neighborhoods, and widespread ignorance and illiteracy.

Social Context

Marx criticized the poverty, exploitation, and alienation experienced by the proletariat. He argued that the class struggle (political struggle) against the bourgeoisie should lead to the proletariat seizing the means of production through a violent revolution. This revolution aimed to end the exploitation of workers.

Political Context

The 19th century was a century of revolutions, including the liberal revolution of 1820, the 1848 Revolution in France, and the Paris Commune of 1871. The Paris Commune saw the proletariat rebelling against the bourgeoisie, but it was ultimately suppressed. Marx believed that a violent social revolution would lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Cultural Context

Romanticism dominated the 19th century. This anti-Enlightenment movement emphasized feeling, imagination, intuition, religious sentiment, popular tradition, nationalism, individualism, and an organic conception of nature. This contrasted with Newton's mechanistic determinism, viewing nature as a living entity that grows, develops, and dies. Hegel embodied this romanticism in absolute idealism and rationalized theology, which Marx criticized for its idealism. Realism and naturalism also gained prominence in literature.

Philosophical Influences

Marx identified three key influences on his thought: English political economy, utopian socialism, and German idealism, particularly Hegel's absolute idealism.

English Political Economy

Adam Smith and David Ricardo, rejecting the Physiocrats' focus on land ownership, considered labor the source of wealth. However, Marx argued that they failed to recognize how wage labor under capitalism also leads to alienation and social inequality due to the private ownership of the means of production.

Hegel's Absolute Idealism

Hegel's philosophical system posited that history is the development of Spirit or Idea. He claimed that everything real is rational and that the Idea is alienated in the state. Marx, while influenced by Hegel's dialectical method, believed that reality was material, not ideal. He saw history as the development of material production systems, reflecting the material conditions of human life. He agreed with Hegel's concept of reality as dialectical and contradictory, resolving in a synthesis (communism), but emphasized class struggle as the driving force of history.

Feuerbach's Materialism

Marx adopted Feuerbach's critique of Hegel's absolute idealism as rationalized theology and his materialist stance. However, he disagreed with Feuerbach's passive conception of man. Marx viewed humans as active beings who create their own nature through labor, transforming both nature and society to overcome alienation.