The life of Marx 1818-1883

'The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion to the devaluation of the world of men. Labour produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity -- and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities generally'.

(Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844),
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html).

Who was he, what did he do, why is he remembered today?

Some sources suggest that Marx was more a of an economist than a philosopher and that he didn't want the socialists the grasp and label his ideas. Other sources recognise him as 'the most influential socialist thinker to emerge in the 19Th century' (http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html), rather then an economist.

Interestingly many of his ideas were ignored until after his life, when half of the world's population lived under ideas that classified themselves as Marxist theories. However, there is evidence to suggest that the 'original ideas of Marx have often been modified and his meanings adapted to a great variety of political circumstances' (http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html).

Marx grew up in a middle-class family near the river Moselle in Germany. Many of his ancestors were rabbis but his father was baptised as a Protestant as not to lose his job. Marx studied law at the University of Bonn and later he studies more seriously at the University of Berlin when he began to disagree with Hegelianism.

(A photograph of Marx's house where he lived growing up in Trier).



Marx filled his life with things like joining the Young Hegelian Movement giving a stark criticism of Christianity, moving onto journalism in 1842 and becoming the editor of Rheinische Zeitung, a radical newspaper with the involvement of industrialists. He moved to France and in 1843 joining groups to merge French socialist and German Hegelian ideas. He became a communist writing down his ideas (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts which were only published after 1930), and he formed an important friendship with Friedrich Engels. Being expelled from Paris in 1844, Marx and Engels moved to Brussels where the study of history was the primary focus. He looked at history, men, their materials and their production and how this shaped them. By looking at the past he predicted current downfalls; industial capitalism in to communism.

Marx wrote constantly alongside his discovery. He wrote Poverty of Philosopy as a stance against the ideas of Proudhon, and of course his famous Communist Manifesto published in 1848, revolutions shook Europe which Marx was positive about.

Marx married Jenny von Westphalen and they had six children of which three survived, in the 1850's they lived in poverty, and income was sometimes scarce.


http://www.canpopsoc.org/journal/CSPv9p109.pdf

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html