Karl Marx Invention

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

German philosopher and writer whose enormous impact on the world — for good or bad — continues today. The “inventor” of communism was born Karl Heinrich Marx in the German city of Trier (then in Rhenish Prussia) to a Jewish family whose members were all Lutherans. Marx studied at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena.

He was greatly influenced by the writings of the German philosopher Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). Because of his rebellious tendencies, Marx spent most of his adult life in exile. After 1849, he lived the rest of his life in London with his wife and children, usually on the verge of starvation. Before going into British exile, Marx and his friend Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) had completed The Communist Manifesto (“Workers of the world, unite!”), first published in London in February 1848.

Also in London Marx helped organize the First International (workers party, 1864) and wrote Das Kapital (1867-1894) — a work that consumed the last 25 years of his life. He was only able to finish the first three of five volumes before his death. (Engels completed the work based on Marx's notes.) Most of Marx's influence came after his death (at the age of 65), primarily in connection with Lenin's 1917 revolution in Russia (Marxism-Leninism).

was an insensitive man -- he was not that concerned about the feelings of those individuals with whom he came in contact. The majority of men, he thought, were either fools or sycophants. His public attitude was over-bearing, offensive and unyielding. But, within his circle of friends and family, he was quite intimate. Here, in the bosom of his family, Marx was secure, happy, considerate and generous. It is odd that throughout his entire life Marx remained an isolated figure among other revolutionaries of the period.

But mid-19th century European revolutionaries were a diverse lot. Whether or not they believed in violent revolution, there is at least one thing they did have in common -- they appealed explicitly to moral standards common to all mankind. They criticized and condemned the existing condition of humanity in terms of an ideal, of a system whose desirability was self-evident to all men of moral vision.

Their schemes varied -- some were utopian, some were not. But they were agreed on the ultimate end which needed to be pursued. In their minds, what needed to be done was:

(1) ascertain the kind of world you wanted to see built,
(2) consider how much of the present state of things ought to be retained and
(3) find the most effective means of accomplishing the desired transformation.

This is an attitude of the vast majority of revolutionaries and reformers, not only in 1850 but at earlier times as well. Marx would have nothing to do with this attitude. He was convinced that human history is governed by scientific laws which cannot be altered by the mere intervention of individuals embracing one idea or another.

Because men are conditioned by the material world into which they are born, their ideas assume objective proportions. Under this influence, men misinterpret the nature of the world in which they breathe, work, love, suffer and die. They misunderstand their position and the meaning of their position. Later Marxists would eventually label this misinterpretation "false consciousness," a predicament intensified by the appearance of industrial capitalism.