Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) is known for his contributions in sociology, history, economics, and more a revolution more than anything. He is a popular philosopher and sociologist because his work was a reform to change the way society works. “The Communist Manifesto” and “Das Kapital” are the most important books in the socialist movement and Marx’s originally renowned theory of Marxism.
Marx was educated from 1830 to 1835 at a high school in Trier. Suspected of harboring liberal teachers and pupils, the school was under police surveillance. Marx was a very religious person during this time period. In October 1835, he started to study at the University of Bonn. The courses he took were all about humanities subjects, such as Greek and Roman mythology and the history of art. As a student he participated in typical school activities, fought a duel, and spent a day in jail for being drunk and disorderly. Marx left Bonn to study law and philosophy at the University of Berlin.
Marx was introduced to Hegel’s philosophy while he was living in Berlin, and he became affiliated with the Young Hegelians. This was a group of thinkers who believed in the power of Hegel’s ideas. In 1841, Marx was influenced by the publication of Das Wesen des Christentums (The Essence of Christianity), which argued that Christianity is nothing more than a set of beliefs and practices that people use to try to make sense of their lives. Marx was working on a new way of thinking that would combine Hegel’s dialectic with Feuerbach’s materialism.
In January 1842, Marx started contributing to a new newspaper in Cologne. This newspaper was called the Rheinische Zeitung. Cologne was the center of the most industrialized part of Prussia. At this point in Marx’s life, he has written an essay on the freedom of the press. On October 15, 1842, Marx became the new editor of the Rheinische Zeitung. As a journalist, he had to write about a variety of social and economic issues, with a publication of oft-quoted assertion that religion is the “opium of the people,” that later got him expelled from the country to Brussels.
Marx and Engels worked together for the next two years in Brussels. They worked together on a book criticizing the idealism of theologian Bruno Bauer, and found that they shared a lot of ideas, so they combined their efforts and published the book, “Die heilige Familie.” The German Ideology is a book that explains how different societies have been shaped over time to benefit the people who have the most money. But the book was never published, and no one knows about it now.
Marx spent time living in Brussels, and as a result, he developed his ideas about socialism, communism, and capitalism. He had many difficult discussions with important leaders in the working-class movement, and as a result, he became well-known and respected for his beliefs in these topics. After several political battles in his time at Brussels, the last hopeless fighting flared in Dresden and Baden, Marx was ordered banished as an alien on May 16, 1849. The final issue of his newspaper, printed in red, caused a great sensation.
He moved to London as his final destination and wrote some of his final works along with more contributions to political and economic ideologies. The last 12 years of Marx and Engels’ life were spend in isolation in Manchester. This was the time Marx suffered financially and spiritually the most in his life where he lost children, support, and his wife.
He was working on articles and drafts for his one of the greatest work “Das Kapital” before his death, many of which remained unpublished and we’re released in their own right after his death.
