Historical materialism

Historical materialism (or what Marx himself called "the materialist conception of history" - materialistische Geschichtsauffassung) is a social theory and an approach to the study of history and sociology, normally considered the intellectual basis of Marxism. Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human history in economic, technological, and more broadly, material factors, as well as the clashes of material interests among tribes, social classes and nations. It can be contrasted with other interpretations of history (which Marxists might call idealisms) which attribute the causes of historical and social change primarily to politics, philosophy, art, God, or any number of other manifestations of consciousness. It centers on the notion that the ways in which human life is forever changing, so that even capitalism is a temporary institution that emerged a few centuries ago, and will someday be overthrown.

Development of the materialist outlook

Marx and Friedrich Engels first developed their outlook on the dynamics of history as young men, in a series of early critiques of the idealist philosophers of their age, including The Holy Family, The Poverty of Philosophy, the 1844 Paris Manuscipts, The Condition of the Working Class in England, but more especially The German Ideology and the Theses on Feuerbach. An excellent bit of rhetoric in the Communist Manifesto sums up the gist of it: "Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views, and conception, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life? What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class." After writing the Communist Manifesto, Marx provided a short summary of his view in his 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, reproduced here: "The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies can be summarised as follows. In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production — antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence — but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation." Lenin later commented: "This idea of materialism in sociology was in itself a stroke of genius. Naturally, for the time being it was only a hypothesis, but one which first created the possibility of a strictly scientific approach to historical and social problems. (...) Then, however, Marx, who had expressed this hypothesis in the [1840s], set out to study the factual (nota bene) material. He took one of the social-economic formations— the system of commodity production—and on the basis of a vast mass of data (which he studied for not less than twenty five years) gave a most detailed analysis of the laws governing the functioning of this formation and its development." (V. I. Lenin, What the Friends of the People Are and How they Fight the Social Democrats (1894)). http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1894/friends/01.htm#v01zz99h-131-GUESS

Disclaimers

Marx himself took care to indicate that he was only proposing a guideline to historical research (Leitfaden or Auffassung), and was not providing any substantive "theory of history" or "grand philosophy of history", let alone a "master-key to history". Numerous times, he and Engels expressed irritation with dilletante academics who sought to knock up their skimpy historical knowledge as quickly as possible into some grand theoretical system that would explain "everything" about history. To their great annoyance, the materialist outlook was used as an excuse for not studying history. In the 1872 Preface to the French edition of Das Kapital Vol. 1, Marx also emphasised that "There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits". Reaching a scientific understanding was hard work. Conscientious, painstaking research was required, instead of philosophical speculation and unwarranted, sweeping generalisations. But having abandoned abstract philosophical speculation in his youth, Marx himself showed great reluctance during the rest of his life about offering any generalities or universal truths about human existence or human history. The first explicit and systematic summary of the materialist interpretation of history published (Anti-Dühring)was written by Frederick Engels. One of the aims of Engels's polemic Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science (written with Marx's approval) was to ridicule the easy "world schematism" of philosophers, who invented the latest wisdom from behind their writing desks. Towards the end of his life, in 1877, Marx wrote a letter to editor of the Russian paper Otetchestvennye Zapisky, which significantly contained the following disclaimer: "(...) If Russia is tending to become a capitalist nation after the example of the Western European countries, and during the last years she has been taking a lot of trouble in this direction - she will not succeed without having first transformed a good part of her peasants into proletarians; and after that, once taken to the bosom of the capitalist regime, she will experience its pitiless laws like other profane peoples. That is all. But that is not enough for my critic. He feels himself obliged to metamorphose my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into an historico-philosophic theory of the marche generale imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself, in order that it may ultimately arrive at the form of economy which will ensure, together with the greatest expansion of the productive powers of social labour, the most complete development of man. But I beg his pardon. (He is both honouring and shaming me too much.)" Marx goes on to illustrate how the same factors can in different historical contexts produce very different results, so that quick and easy generalisations are not really possible. To indicate how seriously Marx took research, it is interesting to note that when he died, his estate contained several cubic metres of Russian statistical publications (it was, as the old Marx observed, in Russia that his ideas gained most influence). Contrary to what Karl Popper later falsely alleged, Marx & Engels did not want to pose as "prophets of the course of history" and they rejected historicism. Already in their polemic The Holy Family, they had stated that "History does nothing, possesses no enormous wealth, fights no battles. It is rather man, the real, living man, who does everything, possesses, fights. It is not History, as if she were a person apart, who uses men as a means to work out her purposes, but history itself is nothing but the activity of men pursuing their purposes." But what is true is that insofar Marx and Engels regarded historical processes as law-governed processes, the possible future directions of historical development were to a great extent limited and conditioned by what happened before. Retrospectively, historical processes could be understood to have happened by necessity in certain ways and not others, and to some extent at least, the most likely variants of the future could be specified on the basis of careful study of the known facts. Towards the end of his life, Engels commented several times about the abuse of historical materialism. In a letter to Conrad Schmidt dated August 5, 1890, he stated that "And if this man (i.e. Paul Barth) has not yet discovered that while the material mode of existence is the primum agens this does not preclude the ideological spheres from reacting upon it in their turn, though with a secondary effect, he cannot possibly have understood the subject he is writing about. (...) The materialist conception of history has a lot of [dangerous friends] nowadays, to whom it serves as an excuse for not studying history. Just as Marx used to say, commenting on the French "Marxists" of the late 70s: "All I know is that I am not a Marxist." (...) In general, the word "materialistic" serves many of the younger writers in Germany as a mere phrase with which anything and everything is labeled without further study, that is, they stick on this label and then consider the question disposed of. But our conception of history is above all a guide to study, not a lever for construction after the manner of the Hegelian. All history must be studied afresh, the conditions of existence of the different formations of society must be examined individually before the attempt is made to deduce them from the political, civil law, aesthetic, philosophic, religious, etc., views corresponding to them. Up to now but little has been done here because only a few people have got down to it seriously. In this field we can utilize heaps of help, it is immensely big, anyone who will work seriously can achieve much and distinguish himself. But instead of this too many of the younger Germans simply make use of the phrase historical materialism (and everything can be turned into a phrase) only in order to get their own relatively scanty historical knowledge — for economic history is still in its swaddling clothes! — constructed into a neat system as quickly as possible, and they then deem themselves something very tremendous. And after that a Barth can come along and attack the thing itself, which in his circle has indeed been degraded to a mere phrase." Source: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_05.htm Finally, in a letter to Franz Mehring, Frederick Engels dated 14 July 1893, Engels stated: "...there is only one other point lacking, which, however, Marx and I always failed to stress enough in our writings and in regard to which we are all equally guilty. That is to say, we all laid, and were bound to lay, the main emphasis, in the first place, on the derivation of political, juridical and other ideological notions, and of actions arising through the medium of these notions, from basic economic facts. But in so doing we neglected the formal side — the ways and means by which these notions, etc., come about — for the sake of the content. This has given our adversaries a welcome opportunity for misunderstandings, of which Paul Barth is a striking example." Source: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1893/letters/93_07_14.htm

Historical materialism as doctrine

Nevertheless, at least from the 1870s the pressure towards the doctrinalisation of Marx's interpretation of history became increasingly strong, for several reasons. (1) Marx & Engels did aim to increase their own political influence in the labor movement and socialist movement, and for this they needed a popular ideology or doctrine which people could easily understand and act upon. Both men were quite capable of splendid political rhetoric and, occasionally, of making sweeping generalisations (2) Attacks by critics, academics and competitors in the socialist movement also forced them to systematise their ideas; generalisations from experience and research demanded a more explicit coherent theoretical framework. (3) Christian religious and moral doctrine was still very influential among the working classes, who mostly lacked access to a scientific education, and this created the political need or pressure to articulate a complete alternative belief system or scientific world outlook. Thus, Engels sought to distinguish between religious-utopian and practical-scientific socialism. These three factors are the original sources of the tension between science and ideology in Marxism. Engels, who was the first great "Marxist systematiser", tried to take a nuanced approach in his writings and popularise the materialist approach without vulgarisation. In a Preface to the English edition of his pamphlet Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (completed in 1880), Frederick Engels indicated that he accepted the usage of the term "historical materialism". Recalling the early days of the new interpretation of history, he stated: "We, at that time, were all materialists, or, at least, very advanced free-thinkers, and to us it appeared inconceivable that almost all educated people in England should believe in all sorts of impossible miracles, and that even geologists like Buckland and Mantell should contort the facts of their science so as not to clash too much with the myths of the book of Genesis; while, in order to find people who dared to use their own intellectual faculties with regard to religious matters, you had to go amongst the uneducated, the "great unwashed", as they were then called, the working people, especially the Owenite Socialists". http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/int-mat.htm In a foreword to his essay Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1886), three years after Marx's death, Engels claimed confidently that "In the meantime, the Marxist world outlook has found representatives far beyond the boundaries of Germany and Europe and in all the literary languages of the world." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/foreword.htm In his old age, Engels speculated about a new cosmology or ontology which would show the principles of dialectics to be universal features of reality. He also drafted an article on The part played by labour in the transition from Ape to Man, apparently a theory of anthropogenesis which would integrate the insights of Marx and Charles Darwin http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/ (This is discussed by Charles Woolfson in The Labour Theory of Culture: a Re-examination of Engels Theory of Human Origins). At the very least, Marxism had now been born, and "historical materialism" had become a distinct philosophical doctrine, subsequently elaborated and systematised by intellectuals like Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, Georgi Plekhanov and Nikolai Bukharin. Even so, up to the 1930s many of Marx's earlier works were still unknown, and in reality most self-styled Marxists had not read beyond Capital Vol. 1. Isaac Deutscher provides an anecdote about the knowledge of Marx in that era: "Capital is a tough nut to crack, opined Ignacy Daszyński, one of the most wellknown socialist "people's tribunes" around the turn of the 20th century, but anyhow he had not read it. But, he said, Karl Kautsky had read it, and written a popular summary of the first volume. He hadn't read this either, but Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, the party theoretician, had read Kautsky's pamphlet and summarised it. He also had not read Kelles-Krauz's text, but the financial expert of the party, Hermann Diamand, had read it and had told him, i.e. Daszynski, everything about it". http://www.rote-ruhr-uni.org/seminare/lesekreis.shtml After Lenin's death in 1924, Marxism was transformed into Marxism-Leninism and from there to Maoism or Marxism-Leninism-Mao Ze Dong Thought in China which some regard as the "true doctrine" and others as a "state religion". In the early years of the 20th century, historical materialism was often treated by socialist writers as interchangeable with dialectical materialism, a formulation never used by Friedrich Engels however. According to many Marxists influenced by Soviet Marxism, historical materialism is a specifically sociological method, while dialectical materialism refers to a more general, abstract, philosophy. The Soviet orthodox Marxist tradition, influential for half a century, based itself on Joseph Stalin's pamphlet Dialectical and Historical materialism and on textbooks issued by the "Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union".
Criticisms
The main serious objection advanced by the critics of Marxism and of historical materialism is that as soon as Marxists really begin to study the historical facts, there is either no longer anything distinctively "Marxist" about what they do, or else the facts are twisted to fit with a preconceived dogma. In the worst case, this arguably leads to the totalitarian temptation to try and force the course of history in a particular direction, based on a false belief that one "knows" the way history is moving. The idea here is that the doctrine (or Marxism) really gets in the way of genuinely scientific historical research, and leads to political projects which run roughshod over the morals, interests and beliefs of the people. In reply, Marxists have pointed to historical analyses by for example Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Isaac Deutscher, Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hill, Robin Blackburn, Frank Furedi and Perry Anderson among many others as valid examples of the application of historical materialism to the historical facts. They have also pointed to the social and material progress in many countries which would not have occurred without Marxist movements. In postmodern theory, however, the very notion of historical progress is contested. Underlying the dispute among historians are the different assumptions made about the definition or concept of "history" and "historiography". Different historians take a different view of what it is all about, and what the possibilities of historical and social scientific knowledge are. Historians also differ greatly about questions such as(1) the kinds of generalisations which can be validly made about history, (2) about the kinds of causal connections which can validly be postulated in history, and (3) about the validity of different kinds of explanation of historical development. Different theoretical frameworks for historical research also lead to different questions being asked about the historical facts. All historians operate with guiding assumptions in their research - assumptions which may be modified by their results - even although these assumptions (or biases) may not be made explicit. Therefore, probably the best way to assess the merits of historical materialism is to look at the actual results of the historical research done by the Marxists, the semi-Marxists (such as the Annales school) and the non-Marxists who claim to have been inspired by historical materialism. When this is done, it is clear that historical materialism has been a very fertile and productive research hypothesis. To be sure, it has often been dogmatically interpreted, but it has also stimulated pathbreaking research that put the understanding of history in a new light. Göran Therborn has argued that the method of historical materialism should be applied to historical materialism as intellectual tradition, and to the history of Marxism itself. In the early 21st century, the main attacks on the materialist interpretation of history come from theorists of sociobiology, creationism and intelligent design. That is, human history is reduced to biological factors, or the hand of God is seen in the course of history.
Marxist beliefs about history
According to Marxist theorists, history develops in accordance with the following observations: #Social progress is driven by progress in the material, productive forces a society has at its disposal (technology, labor, capital goods, etc.) #Humans are inevitably involved in production relations (roughly speaking, economic relationships or institutions), which constitute our most decisive social relations. #Production relations progress, with a degree of inevitability, following and corresponding to the development of the productive forces. #Relations of production help determine the degree and types of the development of the forces of production. For example, capitalism tends to increase the rate at which the forces develop and stresses the accumulation of capital. #Both productive forces and production relations progress independently of mankind's strategic intentions or will. #The superstructure -- the cultural and institutional features of a society, its ideological materials -- is ultimately an expression of the mode of production (which combines both the forces and relations of production) on which the society is founded. #Every type of state is a powerful institution of the ruling class; the state is an instrument which one class uses to secure its rule and enforce its preferred production relations (and its exploitation) onto society. #State power is usually only transferred from one class to another by social and political upheaval. #When a given style of production relations no longer supports further progress in the productive forces, either further progress is strangled, or 'revolution' must occur. #The actual historical process is not predetermined but depends on the class struggle, especially the organization and consciousness of the working class. This sketch is abstract - real historical understanding needed for developing political strategy and tactics must involve "concrete analysis of concrete conditions" (V.I. Lenin).
Alienation and freedom
Hunter-gatherer societies were structured so that the economic forces and the political forces were one and the same. The elements of force and relation operated together, harmoniously. In the feudal society, the political forces of the kings and nobility had their relations with the economic forces of the villages through serfdom. The serfs, although not free, were tied to both forces and, thus, not completely alienated. Capitalism, Marx argued, completely separates the economic and political forces, leaving them to have relations through a limiting government. He takes the state to be a sign of this separation - it exists to manage the massive conflicts of interest which arise between classes in all those societies based on property relations.
Marx and Wakefield
In Das Kapital, Marx took from Edward Gibbon Wakefield's work the example of an emigré to Australia, to illustrate the concept of relations of production: "...Wakefield discovered that in the Colonies, property in money, means of subsistence, machines, and other means of production, does not as yet stamp a man as a capitalist if there be wanting the correlative — the wage-worker, the other man who is compelled to sell himself of his own free-will. He discovered that capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons, established by the instrumentality of things. Mr. Peel, he moans, took with him from England to Swan River, West Australia, means of subsistence and of production to the amount of £50,000. Mr. Peel had the foresight to bring with him, besides, 3,000 persons of the working-class, men, women, and children. Once arrived at his destination, “Mr. Peel was left without a servant to make his bed or fetch him water from the river.” Unhappy Mr. Peel who provided for everything except the export of English modes of production to Swan River!" The workers deserted Mr Peel, despite all his wealth, because land was available freely and there was no state, legislation or economic necessity compelling them to work for him - they were free to work on own account as they chose, because the English social relations binding them to the status of servants were absent. Source: [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch33.htm Capital, vol. I, ch. 33, courtesy of www.marxists.org]
A revision of historical materialism?
Several scholars have argued that historical materialism ought to be revised in the light of modern scientific knowledge. Jürgen Habermas believes historical materialism "needs revision in many respects", especially because it has ignored the significance of `communicative action'. Leszek Nowak argues explicitly for a post-Marxist historical materialism.
Commentaries on different aspects of historical and dialectical materialism

- Franz Mehring, On Historical Materialism (classic statement by a contemporary and friend of Marx & Engels)http://www.marxists.org/archive/mehring/1893/histmat/index.htm
- Z.A. Jordan, The evolution of Dialectical Materialism (good survey) http://marxmyths.org/jordan/article.htm
- Gustav A. Wetter, Dialectical Materialism: a Historical and Systematic Survey of Philosophy in the Soviet Union. (alternative survey)
- Loren R. Graham, Science Philosophy and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union. (sympathetically-critical of dialectical materialism)
- George Novack, Understanding History: Marxist Essays (Trotskyist interpretations of problems of history) http://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/index.htm
- H. B. Acton, The Illusion of the Epoch. (critical account which focusses on incoherencies in the thought of Marx, Engels and Lenin)
- Gerald Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. (influential analytical Marxist interpretation)
- Helmut Fleischer, Marxism and History. (good reply to false interpretations of Marx's view of history)
- E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory. (polemic which ridicules theorists of history who do not actually study history)
- [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415316987/qid=1113236902/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_0_1/026-0812300-2811657 Karl Marx (Arguments of the Philiosophers series)], Routledge 2004 by Allen W Wood - delves into misinterpretations of Marx including the substitution of "Historical materialism" by Lenin/Engels's concept of Dialectical Materialism
- William H. Shaw, Marx's theory of history (short survey)
- Johan Witt-Hansen, Historical Materialism: The Method, The Theories. (sees historical materialism as a methodology, and Das Kapital as an application of the method)
- Gordon V. Childe, Man Makes Himself (free interpretation of Marx's idea)
- Leszek Nowak, Property and Power. Towards a non-Marxian Historical Materialism. (attempt to develop a post-Stalinist interpretation of Marx's project)
- Joseph Stalin, Historical and Dialectical Materialism. (classic statement of Marxist-Leninist doctrine) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm
- Mao Tse Tung, Four Essays on Philosophy. (standard Maoist reading of Marx's materialism) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/index.htm
- Goran Therborn, Science, Class and Society (critical survey of the relationship between sociology and historical materialism)
- Ernest Mandel, Introduction to Marxism. (emphasizes understanding the roots of class society and the state)
- Ernest Mandel, The Place of Marxism in History (modelled on Lenin's "Three components of Marxism" but with an interesting section on the reception and diffusion of Marxism in the world)
- Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution (4 volumes). (captures the full subtlety of Marx's thought, but at length)
- Franz Jakubowski, Ideology and superstructure. (attempts to provide an alternative to schematic interpretations of historical materialism)
- Wal Suchting, Marx: An Introduction. (good short introduction)
- Chris Harman, A People's History of the World (Marxist view of history according to a leader of the International Socialist Tendency)
- Jürgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society. (argues historical materialism must be revised to include communicative action)
Note
Brill publishers of Leyden publish a journal called "Historical Materialism" which explores different strands of theory in the tradition of Marx, Engels and the Western Marxists. A variety of myths and lies about Marx's thought are refuted on this site: http://marxmyths.org/index.shtml An extensive bibliography of modern commentaries on Marx's thought is available here: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/sefd0/bib/marx.htm
See also

- Marxism
- Dialectical materialism
- Karl Marx
External links

- http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1894/friends/01.htm
- http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
- http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm Category:Marxist theory ja:唯物史観

Karl Marx
:This article is about the German political philosopher Karl Marx, for other uses of Marx, see Marx (disambiguation) Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883 London, England) was an influential philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary organizer of the International Workingmen's Association. While Marx addressed a wide range of issues, he is most famous for his analysis of history in terms of class struggles, summed up in the opening line of the introduction to the Communist Manifesto: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle."
Biography

Early life
Karl Marx was born into a progressive and wealthy Jewish family in Trier, Prussia. His father Herschel, descending from a long line of rabbis, although harboring many deistic tendencies, converted to the Christian religion, joining the relatively liberal Lutheran denomination, in order to become a lawyer. The Marx household hosted many visiting intellectuals and artists during Karl's early life.
Education
In 1835 Marx enrolled in the University of Bonn to study law, where he joined the Trier Tavern Club and at one point served as its president; his grades suffered as a result. The following year, his father forced him to transfer to the far more serious and academically oriented Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin. During his stead, Marx wrote much poetry and essays concerning life, using the theological language acquired from his liberal, deistic father, such as "the Deity." It was during this period that he absorbed the atheistic philosophy of the left-Hegelians.
Marx and the Young Hegelians
In Berlin, Marx's interests turned to philosophy, and he joined the circle of students and young professors known as the "Young Hegelians". For many of them, the so-called left-Hegelians, Hegel's dialectical method, separated from its theological content, provided a powerful weapon for the critique of established religion and politics. Some members of this circle drew an analogy between post-Aristotelian philosophy and post-Hegelian philosophy. Another Young Hegelian, Max Stirner, applied Hegelian criticism and argued that stopping anywhere short of nihilistic egoism was mysticism. His views were not accepted by most of his colleages; nevertheless, Stirner's book was the main reason Marx abandoned the Feuerbachian view and developed the basic concept of historical materialism.
Career
When his mentor, Bruno Bauer, was dismissed from Friedrich-Wilhelms' philosophy faculty in 1842, Marx abandoned philosophy for journalism and went on to edit the Rheinische Zeitung, a radical Cologne newspaper. After the newspaper was shut in 1843, in part due to Marx's conflicts with government censors, Marx returned to philosophy, turned to political activism, and made his living as a freelance journalist. Marx was soon forced to move, something he would do often as a result of his views. Marx first moved to France, where he re-evaluated his relationship with Bauer and the Young Hegelians, and wrote On the Jewish Question, mostly a critique of current notions of civil rights and political emancipation that also includes several offensive references to Judaism and Jewish culture. It was in Paris that he met and began working with his life-long close friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels, a committed Communist, who kindled Marx's interest in the situation of the working class and guided Marx's interest in economics. After he was forced to leave Paris for his writings, Marx and Engels moved to Brussels, Belgium. There they co-wrote The German Ideology, a scathing criticism of the philosophy of Bruno Bauer, Hegel and the Young Hegelians. Marx next wrote The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), a critique of French socialist thought. These works laid the foundation for Marx and Engels' most famous work, The Communist Manifesto, first published on February 21, 1848, which was commissioned by the Communist League (formerly, the League of the Just), an organization of German émigrés whom Marx had converted in London. That year Europe experienced revolutionary upheaval; a working-class movement seized power from King Louis Philippe in France and invited Marx to return to Paris. When this government collapsed in 1849, Marx moved back to Cologne and restarted the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, only to be swiftly expelled again. In 1864 Marx organized the International Workingmen's Association, later called the First International, as a base for continued political activism. In his inaugural address, he purported to quote Gladstone's speech, to the effect that, "This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power is entirely confined to classes of property." He repeated the citation in Volume 1 of Capital. The discrepancy between Marx's quote and the Hansard version of the speech (which was well-known) was soon employed in an attempt to discredit the International. Marx attempted to rebut the accusations of dishonesty, but the allegation continued to resurface. Marx later gave as his source the newspaper The Morning Star. Engels devoted a good deal of attention to the affair in the preface to the fourth edition of Capital — which, likewise, did not put the matter to rest. Engels claimed that it was not The Morning Star but The Times that Marx was following. Indeed, modern critics of Marx continue to invoke Marx's supposed misquotation as evidence of general dishonesty.
Family life
Karl Marx's engagement to Jenny von Westphalen, an aristocrat, was kept secret at first, and for several years was opposed by both the Marxes and Westphalens. Jenny and Karl had many children, several of whom died young. Their daughter Eleanor (1855-1898), who was born in London, was a committed socialist who helped edit her father's works.
Later life
Marx was generally impoverished during the later period of his life, depending on financial contributions from close friend and fellow author, Friedrich Engels, to help with his family's living expenses and debts. Following the death of his wife Jenny in 1881, Marx died in London in 1883, and is buried in Highgate Cemetery, London. The message carved on Marx's tombstone – a monument built in 1954 by the British Communist Party – is: "Workers of all lands, unite". Marx's original tomb was humbly adorned.
Influences on Marx's thought
Marx's thought was strongly influenced by:
- The dialectical historicism of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel;
- The classical political economy of Adam Smith and David Ricardo;
- French socialist and sociological thought, in particular the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Marx believed that he could study history and society scientifically and discern tendencies of history and the resulting outcome of social conflicts. Some followers of Marx concluded, therefore, that a communist revolution is inevitable. However, Marx famously asserted that "philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it", and he clearly dedicated himself to trying to alter the world. Consequently, most followers of Marx are not fatalists, but activists who believe that revolutionaries must organize social change. social change Marx's view of history, which came to be called the materialist interpretation of history (and which was developed further as the philosophy of dialectical materialism) is certainly influenced by Hegel's claim that reality (and history) should be viewed dialectically, through a clash of opposing forces. Hegel believed that the direction of human history is characterized in the movement from the fragmentary toward the complete and the real (which was also a movement towards greater and greater rationality). Sometimes, Hegel explained, this progressive unfolding of the Absolute involves gradual, evolutionary accretion but at other times requires discontinuous, revolutionary leaps — episodal upheavals against the existing status quo. For example, Hegel strongly opposed the ancient institution of legal slavery that was practiced in the United States during his lifetime, and he envisioned a time when Christian nations would radically eliminate it from their civilization. While Marx accepted this broad conception of history, Hegel was an idealist, and Marx sought to rewrite dialectics in materialist terms. He wrote that Hegelianism stood the movement of reality on its head, and that it was necessary to set it upon its feet. (Hegel's philosophy remained and remains in direct opposition to Marxism on this key point.) Marx's acceptance of this notion of materialist dialectics which rejected Hegel's idealism was greatly influenced by Ludwig Feuerbach. In The Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach argued that God is really a creation of man and that the qualities people attribute to God are really qualities of humanity. Accordingly, Marx argued that it is the material world that is real and that our ideas of it are consequences, not causes, of the world. Thus, like Hegel and other philosophers, Marx distinguished between appearances and reality. But he did not believe that the material world hides from us the "real" world of the ideal; on the contrary, he thought that historically and socially specific ideologies prevented people from seeing the material conditions of their lives clearly. The other important contribution to Marx's revision of Hegelianism was Engels' book, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, which led Marx to conceive of the historical dialectic in terms of class conflict and to see the modern working class as the most progressive force for revolution.
Marx's philosophy
As the American Marx scholar Hal Draper remarked, there are few thinkers in modern history whose thought has been so badly misrepresented, by Marxists and anti-Marxists alike. Indeed, shortly before his death, Marx himself said, in response to so-called 'marxists' who supported reform instead of revolution, something to the effect of "if that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist". Subsequently, the merger of Marxist thought with Leninism, forming the official state ideology (Marxism-Leninism) of the Soviet bloc, arguably departed further from Marx's own beliefs and analyses. However, following the 1989-91 collapse of the Soviet bloc there has been a return by non-Marxists to Marx's own writing, in particular for insights in his analysis of capitalism that are still relevant today. The notion of labour is fundamental in Marx's thought. Basically, Marx argued that it is human nature to transform nature, and he calls this process of transformation "labour" and the capacity to transform nature labour power. For Marx, this is a natural capacity for a physical activity, but it is intimately tied to the human mind and human imagination: :A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. (Capital, Vol. I, Chap. 7, Pt. 1) Karl Marx inherits that Hegelian dialectic and, with it, a disdain for the notion of an underlying invariant human nature. Sometimes Marxists express their views by contrasting “nature” with “history”. Sometimes they use the phrase “existence precedes consciousness”. The point, in either case, is that who a person is, is determined by where and when he is — social context takes precedence over innate behavior; or, in other words, one of the main features of human nature is adaptability. Marx did not believe that all people worked the same way, or that how one works is entirely personal and individual. Instead, he argued that work is a social activity and that the conditions and forms under and through which people work are socially determined and change over time. Marx's analysis of history is based on his distinction between the means / forces of production, literally those things, such as land, natural resources, and technology, that are necessary for the production of material goods, and the relations of production, in other words, the social and technical relationships people enter into as they acquire and use the means of production. Together these comprise the mode of production; Marx observed that within any given society the mode of production changes, and that European societies had progressed from a feudal mode of production to a capitalist mode of production. In general, Marx believed that the means of production change more rapidly than the relations of production (for example, we develop a new technology, such as the Internet, and only later do we develop laws to regulate that technology). For Marx this mismatch between (economic) base and (social) superstructure is a major source of social disruption and conflict. Marx understood the "social relations of production" to comprise not only relations among individuals, but between or among groups of people, or classes. As a scientist and materialist, Marx did not understand classes as purely subjective (in other words, groups of people who consciously identified with one another). He sought to define classes in terms of objective criteria, such as their access to resources. For Marx, different classes have divergent interests, which is another source of social disruption and conflict. Marx was especially concerned with how people relate to that most fundamental resource of all, their own labour-power. Marx wrote extensively about this in terms of the problem of alienation. As with the dialectic, Marx began with a Hegelian notion of alienation but developed a more materialist conception. For Marx, the possibility that one may give up ownership of one's own labour — one's capacity to transform the world — is tantamount to being alienated from one's own nature; it is a spiritual loss. Marx described this loss in terms of commodity fetishism, in which the things that people produce, commodities, appear to have a life and movement of their own to which humans and their behavior merely adapt. This disguises the fact that the exchange and circulation of commodities really are the product and reflection of social relationships among people. Under capitalism, social relationships of production, such as among workers or between workers and capitalists, are mediated through commodities, including labor, that are bought and sold on the market. Commodity fetishism is an example of what Engels called false consciousness, which is closely related to the understanding of ideology. By ideology they meant ideas that reflect the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but which are presented as universal and eternal. Marx and Engels' point was not only that such beliefs are at best half-truths; they serve an important political function. Put another way, the control that one class exercises over the means of production includes not only the production of food or manufactured goods; it includes the production of ideas as well (this provides one possible explanation for why members of a subordinate class may hold ideas contrary to their own interests). Thus, while such ideas may be false, they also reveal in coded form some truth about political relations. For example, although the belief that the things people produce are actually more productive than the people who produce them is literally absurd, it does reflect the fact (according to Marx and Engels) that people under capitalism are alienated from their own labour-power. Another example of this sort of analysis is Marx's understanding of religion, summed up in a passage from the Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: :Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. Whereas his Gymnasium senior thesis argued that the primary social function of religion was to promote solidarity, here Marx sees the social function as a way of expressing and coping with social inequality, thereby maintaining the status quo.
Critique of capitalism
Marx argued that this alienation of human work (and resulting commodity fetishism) is precisely the defining feature of capitalism. Prior to capitalism, markets existed in Europe where producers and merchants bought and sold commodities. According to Marx, a capitalist mode of production developed in Europe when labor itself became a commodity — when peasants became free to sell their own labor-power, and needed to do so because they no longer possessed their own land or tools necessary to produce. People sell their labor-power when they accept compensation in return for whatever work they do in a given period of time (in other words, they are not selling the product of their labor, but their capacity to work). In return for selling their labor power they receive money, which allows them to survive. Those who must sell their labor power to live are "proletarians." The person who buys the labor power, generally someone who does own the land and technology to produce, is a "capitalist" or "bourgeois." (Marx considered this an objective description of capitalism, distinct from any one of a variety of ideological claims of or about capitalism). The proletarians inevitably outnumber the capitalists. Marx distinguished industrial capitalists from merchant capitalists. Merchants buy goods in one place and sell them in another; more precisely, they buy things in one market and sell them in another. Since the laws of supply and demand operate within given markets, there is often a difference between the price of a commodity in one market and another. Merchants, then, practice arbitrage, and hope to capture the difference between these two markets. According to Marx, capitalists, on the other hand, take advantage of the difference between the labor market and the market for whatever commodity is produced by the capitalist. Marx observed that in practically every successful industry input unit-costs are lower than output unit-prices. Marx called the difference "surplus value" and argued that this surplus value had its source in surplus labour. The capitalist mode of production is capable of tremendous growth because the capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies. Marx considered the capitalist class to be the most revolutionary in history, because it constantly revolutionized the means of production. But Marx argued that capitalism was prone to periodic crises. He suggested that over time, capitalists would invest more and more in new technologies, and less and less in labor. Since Marx believed that surplus value appropriated from labor is the source of profits, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall even as the economy grew. When the rate of profit falls below a certain point, the result would be a recession or depression in which certain sectors of the economy would collapse. Marx understood that during such a crisis the price of labor would also fall, and eventually make possible the investment in new technologies and the growth of new sectors of the economy. Marx believed that this cycle of growth, collapse, and growth would be punctuated by increasingly severe crises. Moreover, he believed that the long-term consequence of this process was necessarily the enrichment and empowerment of the capitalist class and the impoverishment of the proletariat. He believed that were the proletariat to seize the means of production, they would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, and a system of production less vulnerable to periodic crises. In general, Marx thought that peaceful negotiation of this problem was impracticable, and that a massive, well-organized and violent revolution would in general be required, because the ruling class would not give up power without violence. He theorized that to establish the socialist system, a dictatorship of the proletariat - a period where the needs of the working-class, not of capital, will be the common deciding factor - must be created on a temporary basis. As he wrote in his "Critique of the Gotha Program", "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm]
Critique of bourgeois democracy and of anti-Semitism
Some scholars have presented an alternative reading of Marx, primarily based on his essay On the Jewish Question. Economist Tyler Cowen, historian Marvin Perry, and political scientist Joshua Muravchik have suggested that what they see as an intense hatred for the "Jewish Class" was part of Marx's belief that if he could convince his contemporaries and the public to hate Jewish capitalists, the public would eventually come to dislike non-Jewish capitalists as well. Most scholars reject this claim for two reasons: first, it is based on two short essays written in the 1840s, and ignores the bulk of Marx's analysis of capitalism written in the following years. Second, it distorts the argument of On the Jewish Question, in which Marx deconstructs liberal notions of emancipation. During the Enlightenment, philosophers and political theorists argued that religious authority had been oppressing human beings, and that religion must be separated from the functions of the state for people to be truly free. Following the French Revolution, many people were thus calling for the emancipation of the Jews. At the same time, many argued that Christianity is a more enlightened and advanced religion than Judaism. For example, Marx's former mentor, Bruno Bauer, allegedly argued that Christians need to be emancipated only once (from Christianity), and Jews need to be emancipated twice — first from Judaism (presumably, by converting to Christianity), then from religion altogether. Marx rejects Bauer's argument as a form of Christian ethnocentrism, if not anti-Semitic. Marx proceeds to turn Bauer's language, and the rhetoric of anti-Semites, upside down to make a more progressive argument. First, he points out that Bruno Bauer's argument is too parochial because it considers Christianity to be more evolved than Judaism, and because it narrowly defines the problem that requires emancipation to be religion. Marx instead argues that the issue is not religion, but capitalism. Pointing out that anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews are fundamentally anti-capitalist, Marx provides a theory of anti-Semitism by suggesting that anti-Semites scapegoat Jews for capitalism because too many non-Jews benefit from, or are invested in capitalism, to attack capitalism directly. Marx also uses this rhetoric ironically to develop his critique of bourgeois notions of emancipation. Marx points out that the bourgeois notion of freedom is predicated on choice (in politics, through elections; in the economy, through the market), but that this form of freedom is anti-social and alienating. Although Bauer and other liberals believe that emancipation means freedom to choose, Marx argues that this is at best a very narrow notion of freedom. Thus, what Bauer believes would be the emancipation of the Jews is for Marx actually alienation, not emancipation. After explaining that he is not referring to real Jews or to the Jewish religion, Marx appropriates this anti-Semitic rhetoric against itself (in a way that parallels his Hegelian argument that capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction) by using "Judaism" ironically as a metaphor for capitalism. In this sense, Marx states, all Europeans are "Jewish". This is a pun on two levels. First, if the Jews must be emancipated, Marx is saying that all Europeans must be emancipated. Second, if by "Judaism" one really means "capitalism," then far from Jews needing to be emancipated from Christianity (as Bauer called for), Christians need to be emancipated from Judaism (meaning, bourgeois society). See: works by historian Hal Draper and David McLellan.
Marx's influence
See also: Marxism Marxism Marx and Engels' work covers a wide range of topics and presents a complex analysis of history and society in terms of class relations. Followers of Marx and Engels have drawn on this work to propose a political and economic philosophy dubbed Marxism. Nevertheless, there have been numerous debates among Marxists over how to interpret Marx's writings and how to apply his concepts to current events and conditions (and it is important to distinguish between "Marxism" and "what Marx believed"; for example, shortly before he died in 1883, Marx wrote a letter to the French workers' leader Jules Guesde, and to Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue, accusing them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of denying the value of reformist struggles; "if that is Marxism" — paraphrasing what Marx wrote — "then I am not a Marxist"). Essentially, people use the word "Marxist" to describe those who rely on Marx's conceptual language (e.g. mode of production, class, commodity fetishism) to understand capitalist and other societies, or to describe those who believe that a workers' revolution is the only means to a communist society. The clash between Marx's own theoretical framework and the umbrella term "Marxist" is often misconstrued, a prime example being the bias placed against studying Marx’s writings during the Cold War period in American academic institutions. Six years after Marx's death, Engels and others founded the "Second International" as a base for continued political activism. This organization collapsed in 1914, in part because some members turned to Edward Bernstein's "evolutionary" socialism, and in part because of divisions precipitated by World War I. World War I also led to the Russian Revolution and the consequent ascendance of Vladimir Lenin's leadership of the communist movement, embodied in the "Third International". Lenin claimed to be both the philosophical and political heir to Marx, and developed a political program, called Leninism or Bolshevism, which called for revolution organized and led by a centrally organized Communist Party. After Lenin's death, the Secretary-General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, rose to a position of immense power in the Party and state apparatus. He argued that before a world-wide communist revolution would be possible, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had to dedicate itself to building communism in its own country. It was Stalin's Soviet Union and its policies that undermined the concept of Marxism in the Western world, where, for many years, especially during the Cold War period, it was popularly equated with the system in the USSR - which in turn was understood as a political totalitarianism disregarding civil rights. In 1929, Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Union and in 1938 founded the competing "Fourth International." Some followers of Trotsky argued that Stalin had created a bureaucratic state rather than a socialist state. Marx believed that the communist revolution would take place in advanced industrial societies such as France, Germany and England, but Lenin argued that in the age of imperialism, and due to the "law of uneven development", where Russia had on the one hand, an antiquated agricultural society, but on the other hand, some of the most up-to-date industrial concerns, the "chain" might break at its weakest points, that is, in the so-called "backward" countries. In China Mao Zedong also claimed to be an heir to Marx, but argued that peasants and not just workers could play a leading role in a Communist revolution. This was a departure from Marx and Lenin's view of revolution, which maintained that the proletariat must have the leading role. Marxism-Leninism as espoused by Mao came to be internationally known as Maoism. Maoism In the 1920s and '30s, a group of dissident Marxists founded the Institute for Social Research in Germany, among them Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse. As a group, these authors are often called the Frankfurt School. Their work is known as Critical Theory, a type of Marxist philosophy and cultural criticism heavily influenced by Hegel, Freud, Nietzsche, and Max Weber. The Frankfurt School broke with earlier Marxists, including Lenin and Bolshevism in several key ways. First, writing at the time of the ascendance of Stalinism and Fascism, they had grave doubts as to the traditional Marxist concept of proletarian class consciousness. Second, unlike earlier Marxists, especially Lenin, they rejected economic determinism. While highly influential, their work has been criticized by both orthodox Marxists and some Marxists involved in political practice for divorcing Marxist theory from practical struggle and turning Marxism into a purely academic enterprise. Other influential non-Bolshevik Marxists at that time include Georg Lukacs, Walter Benjamin and Antonio Gramsci, who along with the Frankfurt School are often known by the term Western Marxism. Henryk Grossman, who elaborated the mathematical basis of Marx's 'law of capitalist breakdown', was another affiliate of the Frankfurt School. Also prominent during this period was the Polish revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. In 1949 Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman founded Monthly Review, a journal and press, to provide an outlet for Marxist thought in the United States independent of the Communist Party. In 1978, G. A. Cohen attempted to defend Marx's thought as a coherent and scientific theory of history by reconstructing it through the lens of analytic philosophy. This gave birth to Analytical Marxism, an academic movement which also included Jon Elster, Adam Przeworski and John Roemer. Bertell Ollman is another Anglophone champion of Marx within the academy. Marx was ranked #27 on Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history. In July 2005 Marx was the surprise winner of the 'Greatest Philosopher of All Time' poll by listeners of BBC Radio 4.[http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1530250,00.html]
Criticisms
Many proponents of capitalism have argued that capitalism is a more effective means of generating and redistributing wealth than socialism or communism, and that the gulf between rich and poor that concerned Marx and Engels was a temporary phenomenon. Some suggest that greed and the need to acquire capital is an inherent component of human behavior, and is not caused by the adoption of capitalism or any other specific economic system (although economic anthropologists have questioned this assertion) and that different economic systems reflect different social responses to this fact. The Austrian School of economics has criticized Marx's use of the labor theory of value. In addition, the political repression and economic problems of several historical socialist states have done much to destroy Marx's reputation in the Western world, particularly following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Marx has also been criticized from the Left. Evolutionary socialists and social democrats reject his claim that socialism can be accomplished only through class conflict and violent revolution. Others argue that class is not the most fundamental inequality in history and call attention to patriarchy or race. However, Marxists argue that these inequalities are linked to class and therefore will largely cease to exist after the formation of a classless society. Some today question the theoretical and historical validity of "class" as an analytic construct or as a political actor. In this line, some question Marx's reliance on 19th century notions that linked science with the idea of "progress" (see social evolution). Many observe that capitalism has changed much since Marx's time, and that class differences and relationships are much more complex — citing as one example the fact that much corporate stock in the United States is owned by workers through pension funds (Even though it is widely known that the top 1% of wage earners own more than 50% of the nation's publicly traded company stocks). Still others criticize Marx from the perspective of philosophy of science. Karl Popper has criticized Marx's theories as he believed they were not falsifiable, which he argued would render some particular aspects of Marx’s historical and socio-political arguments unscientific. Primarily, this stems from Marx's assertion that class revolt will be part of the process in overcoming capitalism. The argument goes that the critic says "this will not happen" to which the reply is "but it will." However it has been argued that such statements show a simplistic understanding or a deliberate misinterpretation, because the reply has no basis in what Marx actually said. A common critique of Marx points out that the increasing class antagonisms he predicted never actually developed in the Western world following industrialization. While socioeconomic gaps between the bourgeoisie and proletariat remained, industrialization in countries such as the United States and Great Britain also saw the rise of a middle class not inclined to violent revolution, and of a welfare state that helped contain any revolutionary tendencies among the working class. While the economic devastation of the Great Depression broadened the appeal of Marxism in the developed world, future government safeguards and economic recovery led to a decline in its influence. In contrast, Marxism remained extremely influential in feudal and industrially underdeveloped societies such as Czarist Russia, where the Bolshevik Revolution was successful. [http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.10009,filter.all/pub_detail.asp] Marxist political parties and movements have significantly declined since the fall of the Soviet Union. Critics argue that the Soviet Union's numerous internal failings and subsequent collapse were a direct result of the practical failings of Marxism, but modern-day Marxists, especially Trotskyists, respond to this by pointing out that the Soviet Union's political system did not actually resemble true socialism at all. Marx analyzed the world of his day and refused to draw up plans of how a future socialist society should be run saying he did not "write recipes...for cook-shops of the future." Outside Europe and the United States, communism has generally been superseded by anti-colonialist and nationalist struggles which sometimes appeal to Marx for theoretical support. In India, the southern province of Kerala was the first in the world to elect a coalition of communist parties (see Communist Party of India) to power at the state level, in 1957. In the eastern state of West Bengal a coalition of Communist parties led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has been democratically elected to power at the provincial level continuously since 1977. Contemporary supporters of Marx argue most generally that Marx was correct that human behavior reflects determinate historical and social conditions (and is therefore changing and can not be understood in terms of some universal "human nature"). More specifically, they argue his analysis of commodities is still useful and that alienation is still a problem.
References

- Stephen Jay Gould, [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_7_108/ai_55698600/pg_1 A Darwinian Gentleman at Marx's Funeral - E. Ray Lankester], Page 1, [http://www.findarticles.com/ Find Articles.com] (1999). (Marx's tomb)
- Daniel Little, The Scientific Marx, University of Minnesota Press (1986), trade paperback, 244 pages, ISBN 0816615055 (Marx's work considered as science)
- Duncan, Ronald, with Wilson, Colin, (editors) Marx Refuted, Bath, U.K.,(1987) ISBN 0906798-71-X
- David McLellen, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought
- Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution (4 volumes). Monthly Review Press.
- Boris Nicolaevski & Otto Maenchen-Helfen, Karl Marx: Man and Fighter. Penguin books.
- Francis Wheen, Karl Marx, Fourth Estate (1999), ISBN 1857026373 (biography of Marx)
- Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx: His Life and Environment by Isaiah Berlin
See also

- Friedrich Engels
- Karl-Marx-House
- Marxism
- Class struggle
- historical materialism
- Das Kapital
- The Frankfurt School
- History of socialism
- Young Marx
- Mature Marx
- Marx Myths & Legends
External links

Bibliography and online texts

- Marx and Engels Internet Archive [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/]
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/ Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right] (1843)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/ On the Jewish Question] (1843)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/ Notes on James Mill] (1844)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844] (1844)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm Theses on Feuerbach] (1845)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ The German Ideology] [with Engels] (1845-46)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ The Poverty of Philosophy] (1846-47)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ Wage-Labour and Capital] (1847)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ Manifesto of the Communist Party] [with Engels] (1847-48)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte] (1852)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ Grundrisse] (1857-58)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/ A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy] (1859)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/us-civil-war/index.htm Writings on the U.S. Civil War] [with Engels; compiled] (1861)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ Theories of Surplus Value, 3 volumes] (1862)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ Value, Price and Profit] (1865)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm Capital vol. 1] (1867)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ The Civil War in France] (1871)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ Critique of the Gotha Programme] (1875)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/01/wagner.htm Notes on Wagner] (1883)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw/volume36/ Capital, vol. 2] [posthumously, by Engels] (1893)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ Capital, vol. 3] [posthumously, by Engels] (1894)
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/letters/index.htm Letters] [with Engels; compiled] (1833-95)
- Ethnological Notebooks — ISBN 9023209249 (1879-80)
-
- [http://www.sicetnon.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=PagEd&file=index&topic_id=2&page_id=77 "The Reality Behind Commodity Fetishism" (in English)] at [http://www.sicetnon.org/index.php Sic et Non (in German)]
- [http://libcom.org/library/karl-marx Libertarian Communist Library Karl Marx Archive]
Biographies

- Vladimir Lenin's [http://welshcommunists.co.uk/karl.htm Karl Marx Biography]
- Franz Mehring's [http://www.marxists.org/archive/mehring/1918/marx/ch01.htm Karl Marx: The Story of His Life]
- Francis Wheen's [http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj85/morgan.htm The Man Behind the Mask]
- [http://www.tutor2u.net/newsmanager/templates/?a=812&z=58 Student-focused biography of Marx]
Portraits

- [http://www.iisg.nl/collections/marx/ Portraits of Karl Marx]
Encyclopedia entries

- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry]
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/19xx/marx/ Ernest Mandel, Karl Marx (New Palgrave article)] Marx, Karl Marx, Karl
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- Marx, Karl Marx, Karl Marx, Karl Category:Humanists Marx, Karl Marx, Karl Marx, Karl Marx, Karl Marx, Karl Marx, Karl Marx, Karl Marx, Karl ko:카를 마르크스 ms:Karl Marx zh-min-nan:Karl Marx ja:カール・マルクス simple:Karl Marx th:คาร์ล มาร์กซ

Social theory
Social theory refers to the use of abstract and often complex theoretical frameworks to explain and analyze social patterns and large-scale social structures. Though many commentators consider social theory a branch of sociology, it functions inherently in an interdisciplinary manner, as it uses ideas from and contributes to a plethora of disciplines such as anthropology, economics, theology, history, and many others. Social theory attempts to answer the question 'what is?', not 'what should be?'. One should therefore not confuse it with philosophy or with belief.
Social theory in relation to hard science
Main article: sociology versus social theory Social theory always had an uneasy relationship with the more traditional academic disciplines; many of its key thinkers never held a university position. Compared to workers in disciplines within the “objective“ natural sciences -- such as physics or chemistry -- social theorists may make less use of the scientific method and of other fact-based methods to prove a point. Instead, they tackle very large-scale social trends and structures using hypotheses that they cannot easily prove, except over the course of time. Criticism from opponents of social theories often objects to this. Extremely critical theorists, such as deconstructionists or postmodernists, may argue that any type of research or method has inherent flaws. Often, however, thinkers may present their ideas as social theory because the social reality that those ideas describe appears so overarching as to remain unprovable. The social theories of modernity or anarchy can exemplify this. However, social theories still play a major part in the sciences of sociology, anthropology, economics, and others. Objective science-based research often begins with a hypothesis formed from a social theory. Likewise, science-based research can often provide support for social theories or can spawn new ones. For instance, statistical research grounded in the scientific method that finds a severe income disparity between women and men performing the same occupation can complement the underlying premises of the complex social theories of feminism or of patriarchy. In general, and in particular among adherents of pure sociology, social theory has appeal because it takes the focus away from the individual (the way in which most humans look at the world) and focuses it on the society itself and the social forces which control individuals' lives. This sociological insight (often termed the sociological imagination) has appealed to students and others dissatisfied with the status quo because it looks beyond the assumption of societal structures and patterns as purely random.
History

Pre-classical social theorists
Prior to 19th century, social theory took largely narrative and normative traits. Expressed in story form, it both assumed ethical principles and recommended moral acts. Thus one can regard religious figures as the earliest social theorists. Saint Augustine (354 - 430) and St. Thomas Aquinas (circa 1225 - 1274) concerned themselves exclusively with a just society. St. Augustine describes late Ancient Roman society but through a lens of hatred and contempt for what he saw as false Gods, and in reaction theorized The City of God. Similarly, in China, Master Kong (otherwise known as Confucius) (551 - 479 BCE) envisaged a just society that went beyond his contemporary society of the Warring States. Later on, also in China, Mozi (circa 470 - circa 390 BCE) recommended a more pragmatic sociology, but ethical at base.
Classical social theory
The first “modern” social theories (known as classical theories) that begin to resemble the analytic social theory of today developed almost simultaneously with the birth of the science of sociology. Auguste Comte (1798 - 1857), known as the 'father of sociology', laid the groundwork for one of the first social theories - social evolutionism. In the 19th century three great classical theories of social and historical change emerged: the social evolutionism theory (of which Social Darwinism forms a part), the social cycle theory and the Marxist historical materialism theory. Another early modern theorist, Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903), coined the term "survival of the fittest" (and incidentally recommended avoidance of governmental action on behalf of the poor (socialism) as a positive act). Vilfredo Pareto (1848 - 1923) and Pitirim A. Sorokin argued that 'history goes in cycles', and presented the social cycle theory to illustrate their point. Emile Durkheim postulated a number of major theories regarding anomie and functionalism. Max Weber theorized on bureaucracy, religion, and authority. Karl Marx theorized on the class struggle and social progress towards communism and laid the groundwork for the theory that became known as Marxism. Marxism became more than a theory, of course, carrying deep implications over the course of 20th century history (including the Russian Revolution of 1917). Most of the 19th century pioneers of social theory and sociology, like Saint-Simon, Comte, Marx, John Stuart Mill or Spencer, never held university posts. Most people regarded them as philosophers, because much of the their thinking was interdisciplinary and "outside the box" of the existing disciplines of their time (eg:, philology, law, and history). Many of the classical theories had one common factor: they all agreed that the history of humanity is pursuing a certain fixed path. They differed on where that path would lead: social progress, technological progress, etc. Social cycle theorists were much more skeptical of the Western achievements and technological progress, however, arguing that progress is but an illusion in of the ups and downs of the historical cycles. The classical approach, close to historicism, has been criticized by many modern sociologists and theorists, among them Karl Popper, Robert Nisber, Charles Tilly and Immanuel Wallerstein.
Modern social theory
Although the majority of 19th-century social theories now class as obsolete, they have spawned new, modern social theories. Some modern social theories represent some advanced version of the classical theories, like Multilineal theories of evolution (neoevolutionism, sociobiology, theory of modernization, theory of post-industrial society) and various strains of Neo-Marxism. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, by a more or less arbitrary division of topics, the social theory became most closely related to academic sociology while other subjects such as anthropology, philosophy, and social work branched out into their own disciplines. Such subjects as "philosophy of history" withered, and their subject matter became part of social theory as taught in sociology. Attempts to recapture a space for discussion free of disciplines began in earnest in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Frankfurt Institute for Social Research provides the most successful example. The Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago followed in the 1940s. In the 1970s, programs in Social and Political Thought were established at Sussex and York. Others followed, with various different emphases and structures, such as Social Theory and History (University of California, Davis). Cultural Studies programs, notably that of Birmingham University, extended the concerns of social theory into the domain of culture and thus anthropology. A chair and undergraduate program in social theory was established at the University of Melbourne and a number of universities now specialize in social theory (UC-Santa Cruz is one example). Finally social theory seems to be gaining more acceptance as a classical academic discipline. In modern times, generally speaking, social theory began to stress free will, individual choice, subjective reasoning, and the importance of unpredictable events in place of the classic determinism – thus social theory become much more complex. Rational Choice Theory and Symbolic Interaction Theory furnish two examples. Most modern sociologists deem there are no great unifying 'laws of history', but rather smaller, more specific, and more complex laws that govern society.
Post-modern social theory
See also post-modern feminism and postmodernism.
See also

- Functionalism (sociology)
- Interactionism
- Postmodernism
External links

- [http://www.cas.usf.edu/socialtheory/ The International Social Theory Consotrium]
- [http://www.bolender.com/Sociological%20Theory/Sociological%20Theorists.htm Sociological Theorists]
- [http://www.theory.org.uk/ Social theory and popular culture] Category:Sociology

Sociology

and their consequences are the subject of sociology studies. Here we see people engaged in various actions on the stairs of the institution of Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.]] Sociology is a social science on the study of the social lives of people, groups, and societies, sometimes defined as the study of social interactions. It is a relatively new academic discipline that evolved in the early 19th century. It concerns itself with the social rules and processes that bind and separate people not only as individuals, but as members of associations, groups, and institutions. Sociology is interested in our behavior as social beings; thus the sociological field of interest ranges from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes. In a broad sense, sociology is the scientific study of social groups, the entities through which humans move throughout their lives. There is a current trend in sociology to make it a more "applied" discipline, applicable in areas such as non-profit organizations and nursing homes. The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers, administrators, and others interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy. Most sociologists work in one or more specialties, such as social organization, social stratification, and social mobility; racial and ethnic relations; education; family; social psychology; urban, rural, political, and comparative sociology; sex roles and relationships; demography; gerontology; criminology; and sociological practice.

History of sociology

Main Article: History of sociology Sociology is a relatively new academic discipline among other social sciences including economics, political science, anthropology, history, and psychology. The ideas behind it, however, have a long history and can trace their origins to a mixture of common human knowledge and philosophy. Sociology as a scientific discipline emerged in the early 19th century as an academic response to the challenge of modernity: as the world was becoming smaller and more integrated, people's experience of the world was increasingly atomized and dispersed. Sociologists hoped not only to understand what held social groups together, but also to develop an antidote to social disintegration. social disintegration The term "sociology" was coined by Auguste Comte in 1838 from Latin socius (companion, associate) and Greek logia (study of, speech). Comte hoped to unify all studies of humankind--including history, psychology and economics. His own sociological scheme was typical of the 19th century; he believed all human life had passed through the same distinct historical stages and that, if one could grasp this progress, one could prescribe the remedies for social ills. Sociology was to be the 'queen of sciences'. The first book with the term 'sociology' in its title was written in the mid-19th century by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer. In the United States, the discipline was taught by its name for the first time at the University of Kansas, Lawrence in 1890 under the course title Elements of Sociology (the oldest continuing sociology course in America and the Department of History and Sociology was established in 1891 [http://www.ku.edu/%7Esocdept/about/],[http://www.news.ku.edu/2005/June/June15/sociology.shtml]) and the first full fledged independent university department of sociology in the United States was established in 1892 at the University of Chicago by Albion W. Small, who in 1895 founded the American Journal of Sociology [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJS/home.html]. The first European department of sociology was founded in 1895 at the University of Bordeaux by Émile Durkheim, founder of L'Année Sociologique (1896). The first sociology department to be established in the United Kingdom was at the London School of Economics and Political Science (home of the British Journal of Sociology) [http://www.lse.ac.uk/serials/Bjs/] in 1904. In 1919 a sociology department was established in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich by Max Weber and in 1920 in Poland by Florian Znaniecki. Florian Znaniecki] International cooperation in sociology began in 1893 when René Worms founded the small Institut International de Sociologie that was eclipsed by the much larger International Sociologist Association [http://www.ucm.es/info/isa/] starting in 1949 (ISA). In 1905 the American Sociological Association, the world's largest association of professional sociologists, was founded. Other "classical" theorists of sociology from the late 19th and early 20th centuries include Karl Marx, Ferdinand Toennies, Émile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto, and Max Weber. Like Comte, these figures did not consider themselves only "sociologists". Their works addressed religion, education, economics, psychology, ethics, philosophy, and theology, and their theories have been applied in a variety of academic diciplines. Their most enduring influence, however, has been on sociology, (with the exception of Marx, who is a central figure in the field of economics as well) and it is in this field that their theories are still considered most applicable. theology] Early theorists' approach to sociology, led by Comte, was to treat it in the same manner as natural science, applying the same methods and methodology used in the natural sciences to study social phenomena. The emphasis on empiricism and the scientific method sought to provide an incontestable foundation for any sociological claims or findings, and to distinguish sociology from less empirical fields like philosophy. This methodological approach, called positivism, became a source of contention between sociologists and other scientists, and eventually a point of divergence within the field itself. As early as the 19th century positivist and naturalist approaches to studying social life were questioned by scientists like Wilhelm Dilthey and Heinrich Rickert, who argued that the natural world differs from the social world, as human society has unique aspects like meanings, symbols, rules, norms, and values. These elements of society result in human cultures. This view was further developed by Max Weber, who introduced antipositivism (humanistic sociology). According to this view, which is closely related to antinaturalism, sociological research must concentrate on humans and their cultural values. This has led to some controversy on how one can draw the line between <