Karl Marx E-Book

50MINUTES

• Herausgeber: 50Minutes.com
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Serie: Economic Culture
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 27

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Revolutionary thinking and the fight against capitalism 

This book is a practical and accessible guide to understanding the life and works of Karl Marx.

In 50 minutes you will be able to:

   • Recognize and understand the main ideas behind the works of Karl Marx on economic thought
   • Identify the impact his contributions had on economics, perceptions of capitalism and political revolutions
   • Understand the limits of his contributions and systems compared to the work of other economists

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Leseprobe

Karl Marx

Key information

Born: 5 May 1818 in Trier (Prussia).Died: 14 March 1883 in London.Context and background:From a philosophical point of view, Marx was at one time interested the ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (German philosopher, 1770-1831), which dominated German thinking at the time, before completely turning away from them.To conceptualise his political vision, Marx was particularly inspired by French socialism. For example, Charles Fourier (1772-1837) and Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) envisaged a human society led by scholars and artists, in which the way of life is naturally harmonious and centred around the community.From an economic point of view, Marx extended and added nuance to the thinking of David Ricardo (British classical economist, 1772-1823). His most recognised contribution to economics is his theory on the relationship between the remuneration of labour and the value of production.Notable works:The Holy Family (Die heilige Familie), 1844-45 (with Friedrich Engels).The German Ideology (Die deutsche Ideologie), 1846 (with Friedrich Engels).The Poverty of Philosophy (Das Elend der Philosophie), 1847.Manifesto of the Communist Party (Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), 1848 (with Friedrich Engels).Capital.A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie), volume I, 1867. Key words:Alienation: Man escapes from himself. As the product of his labour does not belong to him, the effort he provides does not define him insofar as the worker produces nothing with his own hand. Rather, he is only a small part of the production line.Capitalism: According to Marx, capitalism is a political, social and economic system that perpetually seeks added value. The capitalists, who own the means of production, finance companies and employ the workers, are those who work for the systematic increase of added value to the initial capital.Class struggle: Adversarial relationship between a part of the population that is united by its desire to fight against another class. Marx emphasises two classes in particular: the ‘idle’ capitalist bourgeoisie and the ‘forced-to-work’ mass proletariat. The power is in the hands of the capitalists who impose their vision on the proletariat and, using ideas from Christianity, promise them a better future in the afterlife.Communism: Political and social system advocating the pooling of material goods and the means of production.Historical materialism: The idea that man has a dialectical relationship with his surroundings: in other words, he is the natural product of his environment and modifies it as far as he is able, through his work. As such, history is the result of struggles between social classes subject to the realities of the modes of production.Liberalism: An economic doctrine which places freedom of action and mind at the heart of the reflections of the individual, which drives them to act for the common good.Profit: Share of the added value that is not returned to the worker who produced it, but retained by the capitalist, who owns all the means of production.

Introduction

Although the economic ideas of the first half of the 19th