Early Life of Karl Marx
Karl Marx was a political philosopher of the nineteenth century. Often considered as a radical thinker, the political philosophy expounded by him is unique in all respects and marked an important landmark in the evolution of political thinking. Born in Rhineland, in Germany in 1818, Karl Marx found himself attracted to communist thinking of political philosophy (Barbalet, 2015). He is considered to be one of the most influential political thinkers of his time and beyond. Karl Marx advocated the philosophy of communism, which was in complete contrast to the existing power structure of the world at that time. This essay seeks to discuss about Karl Marx and his political philosophy. The philosophy advocated by him is communism, which was looked at critically during his lifetime. The philosophy of communism found widespread support in the following decades and the whole world once stood in the brink of being divided based on his philosophy. The essay then discusses the critical analysis of Marxian philosophy. It concludes with the relevance of communist philosophy in the contemporary world. The main purpose of this essay is to examine the political philosophy of Karl Marx as propounded by him during his lifetime.
Karl Marx was born in 1818, in Rhineland, which is located in Germany (MacGregor, 2015). His family had a liberalist political outlook and initially belonged to the culture of Judaism. However, they changed their beliefs to Protestantism for societal reasons. Marx attended University of Bonn, in Germany, before leaving for University of Berlin (MacGregor, 2015). There, he studied philosophy, law and theology. These courses helped him to frame his own ideological thinking and gave him the capability to judge the prevailing societal and economic conditions based on his ideology. Karl Marx attained his Post-Doctoral fellowship in Philosophy where he compared and contrasted the views of Epicurus and Democritus.
Karl Marx was born at a time when capitalist form of power structure prevailed in the society. Feudalism was still in existence during the nineteenth century. Feudalism refers to that social set up where there were ‘feudal lords’ who formed an important part of nobility (Moseley, 2018). The Head of the State granted lands to the feudal lords in return for their military help and alliance to the throne. The feudal lords cultivated these lands with the help of tillers and workers who were not given enough remuneration with respect to the work they were forced to do. These workers became slaves to the feudal lords and were often exploited by them. Exploitation is one of the necessary evils of the capitalist society. Capitalism encourages healthy competition among the individuals of a society based on profit motives (Walder, Isaacson & Lu, 2015). Such power structure allows the competitors to earn more profits if the production level increases simultaneously. The feudal lords, conditioned by such power structure, used to push for more production from the land tilled by the workers, but in order to earn higher revenues, they would fail to give appropriate wages to the workers, sometimes no wage at all. This deteriorated the standard of living of the concerned workers and aggravated their problems with the passing of years. The structure of capitalist society led to the prevalence of a system of inequality among those people with wealth and those who had to work in order to earn their living.
Capitalism and the concept of Alienation
The laborers work in order to earn a minimum standard of living. For them, labor is a form of self-identity, a form of belongingness (Barbalet, 2015). However, the nature of the capitalist society, which often resulted in the exploitation of the workers, they were not able to earn in accordance with their hard work. They felt undervalued and hence, were estranged from their employers. According to Marx, this resulted in the ‘alienation’ of the workers (Marx, 2015). The employers felt they were the sole owners of the products manufactured and the workers simply facilitated the process.
It was against this capitalist power structure than socialism emerged. Karl Marx provided an alternative power structure to capitalism where the main power would be wielded by those people who form the working class of the society (Karl, 2016). Marx sought to formulate his theory of socialism based on the economic conditions of man. His form of communism was designated as ‘Scientific Communism’ (Moseley, 2018).
Karl Marx was highly influenced by Hegelian thought (MacGregor, 2015). Hegel was popular for his dialectical method where the main argument is known as thesis, the counter argument is known as antithesis and the solution is known as synthesis. Marx employed this structure in his emulation of dialectical materialism and historical materialism.
Marx reformulated Hegel’s Dialectical materialism and laid emphasis on the motion rather than on the material (MacGregor, 2015). According to him, matter existing in society will ultimately and unequivocally, reach its destination. He was trying to say that it is the natural order of history for society to evolve and move from one form of power structure to another form of power structure. Thus, it is inevitable that the ‘State’ formed will ultimately be dissolved and there will be a ‘stateless society’ in the future (Barbalet, 2015). Since the State is the main agency of capitalism, a stateless society will ensure the existence of socialism.
Historical Materialism, as formulated by Marx, is the application of the mechanisms of Dialectical Materialism to the society (MacGregor, 2015). Historical Materialism theorizes that economic development of society determines the nature of society (MacGregor, 2015). The economic structure of the society was termed by Marx as the Super Structure (Marx, 2017). It forms the foundation of the society, based on which all other aspects of society, such as political, societal, cultural are determined. They form part of the Sub Structure (Marx, 2017). As such, it is the economic conditions of the society, which determines all other aspects of society. Marx gave importance to the material structure of society than in the concept of idea and human consciousness. He believed that it is the matter which shapes the human conscience.
According to Karl Marx, the history of humankind is the history of class struggle (Frank, 2016). There has always been a conflict of interest between the people with wealth and those who work to earn their living and subsistence. Since the inception of humankind, society has passed through four stages of evolution. First was the stage of primitive communism where the people used to live in the forests and take care of their own needs (Moseley, 2018). There was no leader of representative of such people. Next came the stage of feudal society. In this structure of society, the class struggle became more prominent. The feudal lords exploited the workers to increase the profits earned (Reynolds, 2018). There was often a surplus of production and instead of giving relief to the workers by giving them a part of the produce, the feudal lords used to sell the surplus and keep the profits incurred with themselves. The era of capitalism further aggravated the problem of class conflict. Industries were established during this time and the level of inequality between the wealthy people and the common man increased more (Hakemy, 2017). The capitalists continued with their exploitation of the vulnerable masses. The last stage of social evolution, according to Marx, is dictatorship of proletariat. This form of power structure will lead to the dissolution of the State and establish a ‘stateless society’ (Jaeckel, 2014). In this form of society the conflict existing between the different classes will cease to exist as all the materials of the society will be equally distributed among every individual.
The Philosophy of Communism
Marx termed this last stage of social evolution as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The people of the working class is known as the ‘proletariat’. Joseph Weydemeyer devised the term ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’. It refers to that form of state structure where all the agencies of political power will be owned by the masses (Schmitt, 2018). No one will have the power to exploit the other. According to Marx, Dictatorship of Proletariat is a transitory stage between capitalism and communism (MacGregor, 2015). In the communist form of power structure, there is no evidence of the existence of a state. However, in Dictatorship of Proletariat, the agency of State continues to exist, but the purpose of the State during this time is to ensure that the instruments of the Sate are co-owned by everyone residing in that economy. The State is controlled by the proletariat instead of the capitalists.
Communist form of society is that which will be brought about after the dictatorship of proletariat. Communism refers to the dissolution of the concept of private ownership of property in its entirety (Walder, 2018). No one in the State will own anything, as it existed in the earlier forms of social evolution, from feudalism through dictatorship of the proletariat. In the communist society, as envisioned by Karl Marx, there will be two stages. In the first stage, the factors of production will be owned by the laborers. The working class continues to exist and they will control the mechanism of the State. In the second stage of Marx’s Communism, the very agency of the State will cease to exist. The working people will disband as a class and they will give up their ownership of the factors of production (Walder, Isaacson & Lu, 2015). This will lead to the final evolution of the society as a classless and stateless society. This is the ideal form of communism in the opinion of Marx.
Karl Marx critiqued the capitalist form of power structure because of the driving elements of earning higher profits and exploitation, but he never termed capitalism as unjust. He believed that capitalism is the necessary order of social evolution and all societies will undergo a stage of capitalism. It is because of this reason that Marx drew a distinction between his style of Scientific Socialism and the prevailing concept of Utopian Socialism, the advocators of which were highly critical of capitalism. Marx placed utmost importance to the ordering of the economic conditions of society and termed it as the Super Structure, based on which all other aspects of society are conditioned. Marx’s political philosophy on communism is idealistic in nature, even according to his standards. The social evolution of the State from primitive communism to communism will take place gradually and till now, there has been no evidence of the prevalence of a truly communist power structure. However, the achievement of a communist form of society will ensure that the workers are no longer exploited and that everyone has an equal share in the properties of the State. A true communist form of power structure will lead to the dissolution of the State as an agency and the nature of society will go back as it existed during the times of primitive communism.
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