Karl Marx: The Father of Modern Communism

Karl Marx: The Father of Modern Communism

Group 9

Jordan Scherer

Orlandis Jackson

Rebecca Rial

Brea Watson

James Johannes

Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, 1881 in Prussia

Marx was a German philosopher, economist, social scientist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.

He is considered one of the fathers of sociology and social science because of his contributions with labor and capital.

Died at the age of 64 on March 14, 1883 in London.

Parents names were Henrich Marx and Henrietta Presburg.

3rd of 9 children

Father converted to Lutheranism in 1816 from Judaism decent.

Attended the University of Berlin at age 17 where he was involved in a young radical group called the Hegelians

He began studying in 1835 at University of Bonn. After his first two semesters, he went to jail for drunkenness, & DTP. After that he enrolled in a more serious university, University of Berlin.

He received a doctorate from the University of Jena in 1841

In 1842, he worked as a journalist and became an editor of Rheiniscne Zeitung.

1 year older, government ordered the newspaper suppression.

He moved to Belguim after being expelled from France for writing another radical newspaper.

In Brussels, Marx dropped his philosophy held with the Young Hegelians.

Marx developed his 1st theory on the historical materialism in the German Ideology.

In May 1846, Marx founded a Communist Correspondence Committee.

In 1847, his organization convinced him and Engels wrote Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (Manifesto of the Communist Party)

In 1848, The Communist Manifesto, was published.

In 1849, Marx was expelled from Belgium.

He then tried to move to France, they denied him. Prussia refused to re naturalize him. So he remained in London until he died.

Karl Marx's ideas were that human societies progressed through economic development.

In each stage there is a class struggle between those who own production and those who don't and work for those that do.

Marx predicted that capitalism produced internal tensions which would lead to its self destruction and replacement by socialism.

His prediction led to the three developmental stages of capitalism which led to communism

Is a political and economic system where a country's trade and industry are ran by private owners for profit, instead of by the state.

The working class, to which the capitalist class gave birth in order to produce commodities and profits, is the "grave digger" of capitalism.

The worker is not paid the full value of what he or she produces.

is an economic and political theory of social organization that supports the means of production and exchange should be controlled or owned by the community as a whole.

Socialism, in the eyes of Marx, will succeed in raising the quality of life for all by ending the hostile contradictions which arise in capitalism through conflicts between competing capitalists nations, and ending the need for the possession of commodities and markets.

Socialism is a transitional social state between capitalism and the realization of communism.

Is a political theory advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

Marx suggests that what has ended is only the "prehistory" of human society; now, for the first time, humankind will no longer be at the mercy of productive forces which act independently of their control.

• Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organization of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism

• Leninism reversed Marx’s order of economics over politics, allowing for a political revolution led by a vanguard party of professional revolutionaries rather than a spontaneous uprising of the working class as predicted by Karl Marx.

• Believed that a small, disciplined, professional group of revolutionaries was needed to violently overthrow the capitalist system and that a “dictatorship of the PROLETARIAT” must guide society until the day when the state would wither away

In this book he explains the history of the world, and how it applied to his world and offered a solution to end class struggles

Classless and property less society. Only way to do this is to replace Capitalism to Communism

As long as private property exists and it is in the hands of the Bourgeoisie would be able to control wages, labor, and all production.

Book is divided into 4 sections

Explains the history of the class struggles, describes the development of the Proletarian class in relation to the Bourgeoisie class, critique of previous socialist and communist literature, and expands on the relationship of communism to other places throughout the world.

Perfect Utopian Society

Russia was the first country to try it and failed

Still can see Marx's ideas in modern history

College Life

General

Early Life

Marx was internally inconsistent, the former and current Sraffian economists believed their field be grounded in the right versions of Marxian economics instead of Marx's version

Some people believe some of his beliefs were interpreted incorrectly and do not stand to be what he believed in

• The Leninist vanguard party provided to the working class the political consciousness (education and Organization), and the revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism

• Leninism comprises political and socialist economic theories, developed from Marxism, as well as Lenin’s interpretations of Marxist theory for practical application to the socio-political conditions of the agrarian early-20th-century

• Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the Dictatorship of the proletariat in particular.

• After the October Revolution of 1917, Leninism was the ideological basis of Soviet socialism,

• To guide the transition of society from CAPITALISM to COMMUNISM.

• Leninism in practice meant control of all aspects of life by the COMMUNIST PARTY

• Leninism entered common usage in 1922

• After the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established in 1922, its governing philosophy, Leninism, became the predominant branch of Marxism

The Communist Manifesto

Ethical

A general criticisms of Marxism is that it believes in the end justifying the means even though it may have been something that Marx didn't believe himself

Economics

Economic Calculation Problems (more precisely a problem with Central Economic Planning)

There are reduced incentives to working

Some people will want everything to be equal but the others won't see a reason to work as hard if everything is equal and shared

CAPITALISM

Criticisms

SOCIALISM

Marx's Ideas & Theories

COMMUNISM