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Karl Marx and Marxism

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Title: Karl Marx and Marxism


1
Karl Marx and Marxism
2
Biography
  • Born 1818 in Trier
  • 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 polemic
  • 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, which
    he was the first to make conscious of its own
    position and its needs, conscious of the
    conditions of its emancipation. His name will
    endure through the ages, and so also will his
    work.

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 Who paid?
13
Marx and The Revolution
  • Marx predicted that wealth would belong to fewer
    and fewer people.
  • The workers would eventually realise their
    position and overthrow the bourgeoisie
  • There would be an armed revolution which would
    begin in Britain.
  • It would happen in the very near future.

14
What happened?
  • The biggest problem with Marxism is that the
    predicted revolution never occurred in the form
    he said it would.
  • People are not poorer.
  • 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.

15
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.

16
Marx in his own words - 2
  • History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second
    as farce.

17
Marx in his own words - 3
  • The writer may very well serve a movement of
    history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of
    course create it.

18
Marx in his own words - 4
  • In bourgeois society capital is independent and
    has individuality, while the living person is
    dependent and has no individuality.

19
Conclusion
  • Marxism is a political philosophy your views
    are your own and not required in sociology.
  • Marxism is an understanding of the nature of
    social relationships which you are expected to
    evaluate. Recognise that it has strengths and
    weakness as a tool of understanding of our
    culture.

20
The end
  • For further information read books and visit
    websites. There are thousands available for you.
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