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KARL MARX and Marxism

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Studied philosophy and economics in Berlin. Married Jenny von Westphalen. Earned his living (badly) as a journalist ... Jenny von Westphalen. Marx adored Jenny. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: KARL MARX and Marxism


1
KARL MARX and Marxism
2
BIOGRAPHY
  • Born 1818 in Trier (Germany)
  • Jewish extraction
  • Studied philosophy and economics in Berlin
  • Married Jenny von Westphalen
  • Earned his living (badly) as a journalist
  • Died 1883 in London having only written 3 of the
    planned 8 volumes of Das Kapital.

3
Jenny von Westphalen
  • Marx adored Jenny.
  • They were engaged for seven years before her
    family would allow a marriage.
  • They lived off her wealth.
  • He died soon after her, not wishing to be alone
    without her.

4
Politics
  • Marx was a communist.
  • He wrote The Communist Manifesto with his friend,
    Friedrich Engels in 1848.
  • He had three kinds of writing
  • Journalism
  • Political
  • Analysis of society and culture.

5
Engels on Marx
  • His real mission in life was to contribute, in
    one way or another, to the overthrow of
    capitalist society and of the state institutions
    which it had brought into being, to contribute to
    the liberation of the modern proletariat,

6
Marxism
  • Communism is a political philosophy which argues
    that men should have equal rights to wealth.
  • Marxism is a way of understanding and analysing
    the organisation and structure of society. It is
    also a way of understanding how societies develop
    and change.

7
Marxs role in history
  • When Marx died, he was not well known except in
    revolutionary circles.
  • After his death, his writing prompted a number of
    politicians to lead revolutions in his name.
  • Many of these societies were totalitarian.
  • His philosophy underlies the thinking of many
    political parties old Labour for example.

8
Conflict theory
  • All societies are divided into two groups
  • Owners
  • Workers
  • Our society is capitalist.
  • Owners are BOURGEOISIE
  • Workers are PROLETARIANS

9
Marx on history
  • The HISTORY of all hitherto existing society is
    the history of class struggle.

10
Owners and workers
  • Owners EXPLOIT workers and live off the money
    which the workers earn
  • Workers put up with this inequality because
  • They are oppressed wage slaves and cannot fight
    the system
  • They are indoctrinated by ideology and religion
    into believing what they are told by the POWERFUL.

11
Marx on the workers
  • The worker becomes all the POORER the more
    wealth he produces, the more his production
    increases in power and range.

12
Cardiff (Wales) Who paid?
13
Marx and The Revolution - 1
  • Marx predicted that wealth would belong to fewer
    and fewer people.
  • The workers would eventually realise their
    position and overthrow the bourgeoisie
  • EQUALITY FOR ALL- social economic- In the
    beginning .. Small STATE (GOVT) .. Eventually
    withers (fades) away

14
Marx and The Revolution - 2
  • There would be an armed revolution which would
    begin in Britain.
  • It would happen in the very near future.

15
What happened ?
  • The biggest problem with Marxism is that the
    predicted revolution never occurred in the form
    he said it would.
  • Governments Great Britain, Germany, France-
    labor REFORMS .. The JOB Shorter hours work
    week.. The JOB safer environment..
    Socialism Health care.. Improvements in living
    conditions - water supply, sewage, fire dept,
    police dept - FREE education, public
    transportation

16
What happened ?
  • People are not poorer.- Emergence / development
    of MIDDLE CLASS
  • LIFE IMPROVED- inventions .. Electricity-
    leisure .. Parks, theater, sports basketball,
    soccer, baseball
  • Wealth is not concentrated in the hands of a few
    rich people.
  • Britain hasnt had a Communist revolution yet and
    is not likely to in the near future.

17
Marx in his own words - 1
  • Men make their own history, but they do not make
    it just as they please they do not make it under
    circumstances chosen by themselves, but under
    circumstances directly found, given and
    transmitted from the past. The tradition of all
    the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on
    the brain of the living.

18
Marx in his own words - 2
  • HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF, first as tragedy, second
    as farce.
  • - RIGID social class structures - Rome
    Patricians vs Plebians - Middle Ages gentry
    vs peasants - Absolutism monarchs vs peasants

19
Marx in his own words - 3
  • In bourgeois society capital is independent and
    has individuality, while the living person is
    dependent and has no individuality.

20
Conclusion
  • Marxism is a political philosophy
  • Marxism is an understanding of the nature of
    social economic relationships - upper class
    vs lower class- owners vs workers
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