Karl Marx, author of the Communist Manifesto, is the mastermind behind Marxism. Born 1818 in Trier, Germany, Marx was the son of Henrietta Marx, and his father Hirschel, who later changed his name to Heinrich. Heinrich was a lawyer who moved to Protestantism.Marx attended secondary school in his birth town, Trier, then went to Bonn University, intent on majoring in law. Marx, not being the most attentive, behaved student, was also a spendthrift. He ended up transferring to Berlin University by his father?s request after he was injured in a duel and his father agreed to pay his debts. Once at the less party-school type college, Marx decided to show effort in his studies. He was enthralled ...view middle of the document...
Marx made attacks on capitalism utilizing Hegel's dialectic theory, and claimed himself a communist. This got his journal banned from Germany in February 1844 and the owner was not thrilled at Marx for this.Marx wrote Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts in 1844. He worked on developing the concepts of alienation, in which he found three main arguments against capitalism. Marx said the worker is alienated from what he?s producing, himself, and from each other, on account of the economic competitiveness. His solution was communism, which would eliminate alienation.In Paris, Marx befriended Friedrich Engels, hitting it off immediately, because of their synonymous views on capitalism. They made a nearly life-long partnership. The Prussian attempted to coerce France into exiling Marx from the country just as the partnership?s first article, The Holy Family, was being composed. The Prussians were successful and in January 1845, Marx?s stay was terminated. Both Marx and Engels moved to Brussels, Belgium due to the greatest freedom of speech of any country in Europe. Numerous people who were exiled for heresy, including Hess, were found there. Engels ended up yielding financial support for Marx?s family. One thing he did was giving Marx the royalties his book, Condition of the Working Class in England. Marx had more time to expand on his economic and political philosophies without the rigors of work. He studied capitalism intimately, and mused on creating a successful socialist revolution against the capitalists. This set Marx apart from other philosophers, because few others took into account actually making changes.The pair went to London in 1845 where he continued research and met George Julian Harney, a Chartist. Marx finished his next work, The German Ideology when they got back to Belgium. This book further expanded on the concept of history, not seen in his previous works.Marx set up a Communist Correspondence Committee in 1846 in attempt to bring the leaders of communism together. British socialists created the Communist League after being influenced significantly by Marx. He attended one of their meeting in 1847 and their goals were set in stone. ?And here it becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society... in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.? (Marx 23) They were intent on conquering the bourgeoisie, thus making everyone equal and utterly eliminating social class differentiation.When Marx returned to Belgium again to complete The Communist Manifesto. It was based on Engel?s Principles of Communism. This work was written more generally than his previous works, making a detailed analysis of what the bourgeoisie did what was wrong with their capitalistic philosophies (particularly social class segregation), and how the proletarians planned on ?overthrowing? the bourgeoisie. Marx even made references comparing theirs to the bourgeoisie during the French Revoluti...
