Karl Marx | Biography, Theory, Books, Facts & Death

Karl Marx (born May 5, 1818, in Trier, and died on March 14, 1883, in London) was a German philosopher, economist, social theorist, political journalist, the protagonist of the labor movement, and critic of capitalism and religion.

Together with Friedrich Engels, he became the most influential theorist of socialism and communism, the main features of which the two laid down in the programmatic Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848).

Marx’s main work is Das Kapital, the first volume of which was published in his lifetime in 1867; the following two volumes were published posthumously by Engels. His political activities in the emerging international workers ‘movement (International Workers’ Association) were also influential, in which he temporarily assumed an intellectual leadership role.

The theoretical foundations of Marxism named after Marx influence the discourses of history and sociology as well as economics and political science to the present day.

The Early Life of Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was born in 1818 in Trier, in the province of Bas-Rhin, in the kingdom of Prussia (today in the Land of Rhineland-Palatinate). He is the second in a family of eight children.

His father, Heinrich Marx (1777-1838), born Herschel Marx Levi Mordechai, was a lawyer from a family of Ashkenazi Jewish rabbis – Marx’s grandfather, Meier Halevi Marx, became a rabbi in Trier in 1723 and his sons and grandchildren were the first to receive secular education – and merchants who owned vineyards in the Moselle valley.

To exercise his legal profession, he converted to Protestantism in 1816 or 1817 and changed his first name from Herschel to Heinrich. His mother, Henriette Pressburg (July 20, 1788-November 30, 1863), comes from a Dutch Jewish family.

Remained attached to the Jewish religion, she did not convert to Lutheranism until 1825, after the death of her father, who was a rabbi. She is the great-aunt of the brothers Gerard Philips and Anton Philips, founders of the Dutch company Philips.

Karl Marx was baptized into Lutheranism in 1824 and confirmed at the Trinity Church in Trier in 1834. Although his father respected Jewish tradition by giving his son the name of his grandfather, Karl Heinrich Marx, he is not raised religiously and there is no evidence that the Marx family practiced the Lutheran or Jewish religion.

Kari Marx Studies

He entered the Gymnasium Friedrich-Wilhelm in Trier in 1830. After obtaining his Abitur, he entered university, first in Bonn in October 1835 to study law and received a year-end certificate stating the excellence of his attendance and his attention, then in Berlin at Friedrich-Wilhelm University from march 1836 where he devotes himself more to history and philosophy.

He finished his studies in 1841 with the presentation of a doctoral thesis: Difference in the philosophy of nature in Democritus and Epicurus (Difference between the democratic and Epicurean natural philosophy). Marx is received in absentia doctor of the faculty of philosophy of the University of Jena on April 15, 1841.

Karl Marx Meet with Friedrich Engels

In September 1844 in Paris, Marx saw Friedrich Engels whom he had only encountered before; it is the beginning of a deep friendship. Studying philosophy by himself, Engels had become a supporter of Hegel while rejecting the support which he had given to the Prussian State. In 1842 he left Bremen to take up a position in a Manchester commercial firm owned by his father.

There he had encountered proletarian misery in all its magnitude and had systematically studied its conditions (The condition of the working classes in England, 1845). Shortly after their meeting, Marx and Engels worked together on their first joint work, The Holy Family, in which they attacked the critical philosophy of Bruno Bauer with which they had been close.

Next comes The German Ideology (essentially written by Marx), mainly centered around a very virulent criticism of Max Stirner entitled “Saint Max” and which occupies almost two-thirds of the work. This work defends a materialist conception of history which went beyond Feuerbach’s conception of materialism.

By a severe criticism of Stirner, Marx and Engels thus mark a break not only with Feuerbach but also with Proudhon. But the book does not find a publisher, and it will not be published until nearly a century later.

In the Theses on Feuerbach, a short text found in the same manuscript, Marx writes (Theses on Feuerbach): Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; what matters is to transform it.

Marriage and family of Karl Marx

Karl Marx married to Jenny von Westphalen, sister of the Prussian Interior Minister, a childhood friend with whom he became engaged as a student, but only managed to marry her after the death of her parents, who opposed the relationship, and after achieving a certain (eventual) economic stability as director of the “Franco-German Annals”.

They lived in severe economic hardship due to the irregularity of Marx’s income, political persecution (which censored and closed the magazines he published), and having to constantly move from country.

Marx had 6 children with Jenny von Westphalen, in 1849 they were already expecting the fourth, in 1855 three Guido, Franciska and Edgar had already died, due to seizures, bronchitis and tuberculosis, the little one, Eleanor Marx was part of the feminist movement and Laura Marx, she married the French socialist leader Paul Lafargue, and committed suicide with him in 1911.

Helene Demuth lived with them, helping them with housework, and having an excellent relationship with the Marx family. She was especially close to Karl, so much so, that she is supposed to have an illegitimate child with her who was recognized by Friedrich Engels as his own to avoid controversy within Karl and Jenny’s marriage.

Marx had a personal life dedicated exhaustively to the study of the different disciplines of thought and especially of philosophy and history which implied that he never had economic stability; however, he always had the faithful and unconditional support of his friend Engels.

Karl Marx theory of capitalism

Karl Marx is considered the thinker who best explained capitalism. Marx defines as the basis of capitalism the so-called original accumulation. For this, it had been necessary the expropriation of the land workers and the artisans and in turn the exploitation of the colonies.

Marx defines three stages of the capitalist regime:

Cooperation – He calls the first “Cooperation”. Within this stage, the work is called “social”, where the workers carry out the same activity in the process of production of the goods. The number of workers working in this process will depend on the capital available to the capitalist.

Manufacture – He calls the second stage “Manufacturing”. This period begins in the middle of the 16th century, until the end of the 18th century. This stage is considered to be based on cooperation but from the division of labor. During this production process, the workers work within the same workshop but in various activities.

It is called the manufacturing stage because the tools are not yet moved by the big machines, but by man, more precisely by the worker. It is at this moment when the merchandise begins to be considered as a “social product”, this means that no worker fully realizes the merchandise, they only know some parts of the production process.

Great Industry – The third period that Marx defines is the “Great Industry”. This process begins in the late eighteenth century. It is at this time that the tools stop being moved manually by man to make way for large machinery. The workers begin to specialize more and more and their job is to control the instrument of work, that is, the machinery.

Trip to Paris

After the wedding, Marx moved to Paris. In France, he was supposed to publish a radical émigré magazine with Arnold Ruge, but due to the ideological discrepancies of the editors as well as problems with distribution, only one double issue of the magazine titled “German-French Annals” came out.

Marx published two essays in it: A Contribution to the Criticism of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law and the Jewish Question, in which he eventually abandoned idealism and for the first time revealed himself as a revolutionary and internationalist, referring to the Mas and Proletariat.

In 1844 he created economic and philosophical manuscripts with which he began his criticism of political economy and Hegelian philosophy. He also developed the theory of socialist humanism in them.

In September 1844 he met Frederick Engels, a future friend, and main collaborator. They both actively participated in the political life of Paris and jointly developed the ideas of proletarian socialism, i.e. communism. Their first joint work was the Holy Family, i.e. critical criticism, critically analyzing Hegelian views, with particular emphasis on Bruno Bauer.

Trip to Brussels

In 1845, as a result of the actions of the Prussian government, he was expelled from Paris and left for Brussels. In the years 1845–1846 the first lecture of theses of historical materialism by both theoreticians was included, contained in German Ideology. In the years 1845–1847 Marx wrote for newspapers published both in France and Germany.

His articles were found in “Forward, Deutsche-Brusseler Zeitung, Das Westphalische Dampfboot” and “The social mirror”. In 1847 he published the Misery of Philosophy; a work in which he criticized Proudhon’s views.

Marx became involved in the creation of the Union of Communists, of which he and Engels became a member in the spring of 1847. In November 1847 they both participated in the Second Congress of this union in London. Their active participation in the relationship also manifested in the fact that both are the authors of his program.

It was the Manifesto of the Communist Party, published in 1848, which contained the ideas of advanced materialism, dialectics, class struggle, and ascribed revolutionary potential to the proletariat. It was the first program based entirely on the principles of scientific socialism.

The manifesto, according to AC Sutton, was a plagiarism of the previously published work Democracy Manifesto, written by the French Fourierist, Victor Prosper Considerant, and published in 1843 (Principle of socialism: Manifestation of democracy in the 19th century, published in 1843).

Karl Marx was currently involved in journalistic activities. In 1848 his Speech on free trade came out. After the outbreak of the February Revolution of 1848, Karl Marx was expelled from Belgium. He returned to Paris, and from there, after the March Revolution, he went to Cologne.

He became the editor-in-chief of the New Gazeta Wyborcza from June 1, 1848, to May 19, 1849. Marx published in it, among others Articles Wage work and capital and Liberals in power.

Trip to London

Karl Marx was accused of press crimes and calls for armed resistance to the government, he was brought before a court that acquitted him on February 9, 1849. On May 16, 1849, he was expelled from the Kingdom of Prussia.

He left for Paris, from where, after the demonstration on June 13, 1849, he went to London, where he spent the rest of his life. In England, struggling with major financial problems, he earned his living as a journalist and non-repayable loans from Engels. In London, he undertook a sharp polemic with critics of his theory and person.

From 1851 to 1862 he was a regular contributor to the New York Tribune, where some of his articles were published as editorial material. In this letter he published, among others Revolution and counterrevolution in Germany and Revelations of the history of diplomacy in the 18th century He also collaborated with the “New Order newspaper” and the Vienna “Presse”.

He studied political economy and history and created more works. He summarized the results of the revolution (1848–1851) in the 18th Brumaire by Louis Bonaparte published in 1852. The first effect of his economic studies was Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Marx’s fullest expression in this field was found in the first volume of Capital published in 1867.

He described the laws governing the economics of capitalist states. In 1871, he analyzed the period of the Paris Commune in the Civil War in France, while in Criticism of the Gothic program he criticized the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

Death and Burial of Karl Marx

Marx’s wife Jenny von Westphalen died on December 2, 1881, and Karl Marx died in 1883. They were both buried at Highgate Cemetery in London. At the time of his death, Marx was stateless.

In 1956, thanks to the funds of the Communist Party of Great Britain, the remains of Marx and his family were transferred to a new grave in the eastern part of the cemetery. The author of the new tombstone design was Laurence Bradshaw.

Karl Marx Books

• The Belgian Massacres (1869)
• The Civil War in France (1848-1850)
• The Class Struggles in France (1848–1850)
• A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)
• Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843)
• Critique of the Gotha Program (1875)
• Das Kapital, Volume I (1867)
• Das Kapital, Volume II (1885)
• Das Kapital, Volume III (1894)
• The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature (1841)
• Theories of Surplus Value (1862-1863)
• Theses on Feuerbach (1845)