Karl Marx

Marx is one of the most well-known and yet polarizing political writers of the 19th century.
He was a humanist and focused on freedom of the people and for the full development of
human beings. His analysis of the capitalist system and his revolutionary politics both aimed
at the ultimate goal of freedom and human development.

HEGELIAN INFLUENCE

 Hegel was perhaps the single most influential person in Marx’s ideas
 the Hegelian dialectic was the basis for Marx’s later critique of the political economy
 One of his earliest writings was a critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and he often
rebelled against Hegel’s ideas but they did form the origin of his own thought

1. The Historical Nature of Human Though and Society

1. Every aspect of human activity is determined by the historical context and
situation of that era. Thus, even philosophy must be looked at with the
understanding of the historical era in which it was set
2. Humans are constantly set in a process of self-transformation and self-
actualization
1. History is not cyclical or governed by a common law of human nature but
rather evolves as a progressive movement of development
3. History develops through conflict and contradictions
1. Hegel believed that all questions of societal organization would be resolved
through conflict but later re-emerge at a different time period. Marx added to
this by saying that the driving motor of history was the struggle between
different social classes
4. Philosophy and Politics is the overcoming of alienation
1. Hegel and Marx both recognized the fact that there was alienation in society or
the breakdown of cohesiveness of traditional values. Hegel hoped that the
systems of modern society would restore society and rid it of alienation. Marx,
on the other hand, believed that this alienation could be traced back to
capitalism and private property and thus for alienation to be overcome, these
systems had to be abolished
5. The dialectic was the important method to understanding the world
1. Hegel believed that the world was not made up of static elements but rather it
was always in motion or flux. Thus, one would need to look at the
interconnected things as an organized whole in a larger system to understand
reality.

 Marx believed that Hegel was an idealist who thought the primary substance of reality
was thought while Marx himself was a materialist who thought the primary substance
of reality was matter
 He went on to criticize Hegel for mystifying material aspects of the world into
thought
 He believed that it was possible to “find a kernel in the mystical shell” indicating that
some of Hegel’s dynamic analyses would be retained while discarding the further
thought-centric ideas
EMANCIPATION

 Marx saw the French Revolution as a political revolution where people were equal
under the law but required significant property else they were still enslaved in the
economic sphere
 Marx believed that this one sided political emancipation needed another more holistic
one to complete the human emancipation
 Only through the abolishment of private property and capitalist relations to production
could this emancipation occur
 Marx says that theoretical philosophy would have to lead to political action
 Marx also had a theory of the self emancipation of the working class
o He witnessed the Industrial Revolution create a large working class that was
steeped in poverty
o He noticed that the Proletariat often went on strikes to force the Bourgeois to
act in their favour
o He thus concluded that the Proletariat had the power to overthrow the
bourgeois and usher in a new era where the means of production would be
under collective, democratic ownership and the system of classes in society
would be broken down.
o This theory is in contrast to his initial thinking where he distinguished the
intellectuals and the workers, he believed that the intellectuals would
strategize the emancipation and the workers would execute it.

ALIENATION

 He considered alienation as one of the biggest issues of modern society

 Alienation was the separation or distance felt between man and society or man and an
object or even man and himself
 Under capitalism, workers were alienated from the product of their labour and were
also not allowed to fluorish with new diverse and meaningful activities
 Man’s goal was to develop themselves in multiple capacities
 In modern capitalism, workers were alienated from four main things
o the product of their labour
o the process of labouring
o their fellow human beings
o their species essence
 The Product: in capitalism, workers did not own the final product in which they
invested their labour into. It would leave the factory into a shop to be purchased by a
rich consumer
 The Process: since the workers were coerced into working and did not follow the
natural voluntary rhythm and were under the command of someone else
o Marx points out the irony that workers felt most human when they were at
home doing nothing as opposed to the more human task of creative production
since capitalism did not allow workers to be creative and develop themselves
leading to physical and mental exhaustion
 From others: Marx believed that under capitalism, people viewed each other through
the lens of exchange of commodities rather than the more human lens
 Species Essence: for Marx, working and being creative was essential to our
humanness and capitalist alienated labour did not allow us to exercise these
capacities. Under Capitalism, a majority of humans did not enjoy their daily lives.
 Marx was influenced by the romantic development of humans as complex and multi-
dimensional beings as oppose to the one-dimensional and mechanic nature that they
were under capitalism.
 Marx gave the name Communism to the overcoming of alienation through abolition
of private property, wage labour and capitalism.