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Karl Marx was a German-born philosopher, political theorist, economist, historian, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His best-known works are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and his three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1894); the latter employs his critical approach of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism, in the culmination of his intellectual endeavours. Marx's ideas and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism, have had enormous influence on modern intellectual, economic and political history.
Friedrich Engels was a German philosopher, political theorist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He was also a businessman and Karl Marx's closest friend and collaborator, serving as a leading authority on Marxism.
In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the classical factors of production as well as the general infrastructure and capital goods necessary to reproduce stable levels of productivity. It can also be used as an abbreviation of the "means of production and distribution" which additionally includes the logistical distribution and delivery of products, generally through distributors; or as an abbreviation of the "means of production, distribution, and exchange" which further includes the exchange of distributed products, generally to consumers.
The English Revolution is a term that describes two separate events in English history. Prior to the 20th century, it was generally applied to the 1688 Glorious Revolution, when James II was deposed and a constitutional monarchy established under William III and Mary II.
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations social conflict, and social transformation. Marxism originates with the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought, and as a result, there is no single, definitive Marxist theory. Marxism has had a profound effect in shaping the modern world, with various left-wing and far-left political movements taking inspiration from it in varying local contexts.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Programme. The principle refers to free access to and distribution of goods, capital and services. In the Marxist view, such an arrangement will be made possible by the abundance of goods and services that a developed communist system will be capable to produce; the idea is that, with the full development of socialism and unfettered productive forces, there will be enough to satisfy everyone's needs.
Criticism of Marxism has come from various political ideologies, campaigns and academic disciplines. This includes general intellectual criticism about dogmatism, a lack of internal consistency, criticism related to materialism, arguments that Marxism is a type of historical determinism or that it necessitates a suppression of individual rights, issues with the implementation of communism and economic issues such as the distortion or absence of price signals and reduced incentives. In addition, empirical and epistemological problems are frequently identified.
Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Volume II: The Process of Circulation of Capital is the second of three volumes of Capital: Critique of Political Economy. It was prepared by Friedrich Engels from notes left by Karl Marx and published in 1885.
Post-theism is the belief that the belief in a god belongs to a previous stage of human development and, thus, a division of theism vs. atheism is obsolete. It is a variant of nontheism. The term appears in liberal Christianity and post-Christianity.
19th-century German philosopher Karl Marx, the founder and primary theorist of Marxism, viewed religion as "the soul of soulless conditions" or the "opium of the people". According to Marx, religion in this world of exploitation is an expression of distress and at the same time it is also a protest against the real distress. In other words, religion continues to survive because of oppressive social conditions. When this oppressive and exploitative condition is destroyed, religion will become unnecessary. At the same time, Marx saw religion as a form of protest by the working classes against their poor economic conditions and their alienation. Denys Turner, a scholar of Marx and historical theology, classified Marx's views as adhering to Post-Theism, a philosophical position that regards worshipping deities as an eventually obsolete, but temporarily necessary, stage in humanity's historical spiritual development.
Ricardian socialism is a branch of classical economic thought based upon the work of the economist David Ricardo (1772–1823). The term is used to describe economists in the 1820s and 1830s who developed a theory of capitalist exploitation from the theory developed by Ricardo that stated that labor is the source of all wealth and exchange value. This principle extends back to the principles of English philosopher John Locke. The Ricardian socialists reasoned that labor is entitled to all it produces, and that rent, profit and interest were not natural outgrowths of the free market process but were instead distortions. They argued that private ownership of the means of production should be supplanted by cooperatives owned by associations of workers.
Critique of political economy or simply the first critique of economy is a form of social critique that rejects the conventional ways of distributing resources. The critique also rejects what its advocates believe are unrealistic axioms, faulty historical assumptions, and taking conventional economic mechanisms as a given or as transhistorical. The critique asserts the conventional economy is merely one of many types of historically specific ways to distribute resources, which emerged along with modernity.
Scorpion and Felix, A Humoristic Novel is the only comedic fictional story to have been written by Karl Marx. Written in 1837 when he was 19 years old, it has remained unpublished. It was likely written under the influence of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne.
Marxist historiography, or historical materialist historiography, is an influential school of historiography. The chief tenets of Marxist historiography include the centrality of social class, social relations of production in class-divided societies that struggle against each other, and economic constraints in determining historical outcomes. Marxist historians follow the tenets of the development of class-divided societies, especially modern capitalist ones.
The socialist mode of production, or simply (Marxist) socialism or communism as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the terms communism and socialism interchangeably, is a specific historical phase of economic development and its corresponding set of social relations that emerge from capitalism in the schema of historical materialism within Marxist theory. The Marxist definition of socialism is that of production for use-value, therefore the law of value no longer directs economic activity. Marxist production for use is coordinated through conscious economic planning. According to Marx, distribution of products is based on the principle of "to each according to his needs"; Soviet models often distributed products based on the principle of "to each according to his contribution". The social relations of socialism are characterized by the proletariat effectively controlling the means of production, either through cooperative enterprises or by public ownership or private artisanal tools and self-management. Surplus value goes to the working class and hence society as a whole.
Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, also known as Capital and Das Kapital, is a foundational theoretical text in materialist philosophy and critique of political economy written by Karl Marx, published as three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his life's work, the text contains Marx's analysis of capitalism, to which he sought to apply his theory of historical materialism "to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society", following from classical political economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo. The text's second and third volumes were completed from Marx's notes after his death and published by his colleague Friedrich Engels. Das Kapital is the most cited book in the social sciences published before 1950.
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew from various sources, and the official philosophy in the Soviet Union, which enforced a rigid reading of what Marx called dialectical materialism, in particular during the 1930s. Marxist philosophy is not a strictly defined sub-field of philosophy, because the diverse influence of Marxist theory has extended into fields as varied as aesthetics, ethics, ontology, epistemology, social philosophy, political philosophy, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of history. The key characteristics of Marxism in philosophy are its materialism and its commitment to political practice as the end goal of all thought. The theory is also about the struggles of the proletariat and their reprimand of the bourgeoisie.
The political slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" is one of the rallying cries from The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
The proletariat is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power. A member of such a class is a proletarian or a proletaire. Marxist philosophy regards the proletariat under conditions of capitalism as an exploited class—forced to accept meager wages in return for operating the means of production, which belong to the class of business owners, the bourgeoisie.
Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods.
References
- 1 2 Skousen, Mark (2015-05-18). The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great Thinkers. M.E. Sharpe. p. 141. ISBN 978-0-7656-2827-5.
- ↑ McLellan, David (1973-12-01). Karl Marx: His Life and Thought. Springer. p. 22. ISBN 978-1-349-15514-9.
- ↑ Jones, Gareth Stedman (2016-10-03). Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion. Harvard University Press. pp. 43–45. ISBN 978-0-674-97480-7.
- 1 2 Rothbard, Murray (2009). Review of Austrian Economics, Volume 4. Ludwig von Mises Institute. p. 170. ISBN 978-1-61016-163-3.
- ↑ Marx, Karl (1839). "Early Works of Karl Marx: Book of Verse – Scenes from Oulanem: A Tragedy". Marxist Internet Archive. Retrieved 2024-06-15.
