My essay on Marx
"Karl Heinrich Marx (yes that was his actual middle name) in a Nutshell"
by His Divine Grace Rev. Uncle Neil Banana Head
When the world lost Marx in 1883, it was his lifelong collaborator and companion Frederick Engels who, in a few plain paragraphs delivered as a eulogy at his graveside, summed up Marx's vast contributions to human thought:
Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means of subsistence and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case. (Sam Marcy 1994)
Karl Heinrich Marx was a man of ineffable erudition; a man who was one of the most insightful of scholars bringing together a plethora of research on matters of history, economics, and politics, to birth a form of historical/social analysis which has surpassed all those preceding it in precision. Humanity is eternally indebted to this man for what he had the brilliance to recognize: the impetus of history, i.e. the class struggle. Therein lies humanity’s hope, its potential salvation. It offers humankind a release from the cycle of war, exploitation, and oppression. It is the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel.’
Marx the man was born on May 5, 1818 into a progressive Jewish family (however he was baptized into Lutheranism later at age six), in the city of Trevirorum, Prussia, in what is now Trier, Germany (which is considered to be Germany’s oldest city). His father, Herschel, was a lawyer descended from a long line of rabbis, and his brother Samuel-Marx’s uncle-was the principal rabbi of Trevirorum. In his adolescence (1833, wherein Marx was 15), Marx went to Bonn University to study law where he was said to have spent much time partying and was often seen singing drinking songs in the beer hall instead of studying. As a result of this, his performance was somewhat poor and his father compelled him to transfer to the less jovial, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin (now known as the Humboldt University). At his new school, Marx found a new love: philosophy (much to his father’s consternation). Moreover, he found himself amidst the turbulent tumult left by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich “The Prussian Aristotle” Hegel, who claimed to have found the answers to ‘the big questions.’ Hegel asserted a complete philosophical system in which all of reality is one totality; the great or absolute spirit, and yet despite being one entity, is in contradiction with itself, that is to say that the totality of existence or absolute spirit contains within it “geists” or ideas manifesting themselves in humankind which are mutually contradictory. According to Hegel those contradictions have been, and are working themselves out through a dialectical process. Hegel asserts that this process is evident in history, and can be observed in war, competing faiths, and in philosophical contention; history began with “pure indeterminate being” and will end with “absolute idea” which is like “thought thinking itself.” Thus reality is in conflict with itself, but this conflict will eventually be worked out once the ultimate synthesis or “absolute idea” is reached. Most of this dialectical process-Hegel argued-would be characterized by gradual change, however, there would also be times of radical change, revolution and upheaval (but of an ideal or spiritual nature).
Hegel’s bold claims drew him much attention, and many followed his ideas, but by the time Marx enrolled at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Hegel had already left the mortal coil (he died in 1831). Sufficiently large was Hegel’s following, that the divergence in the interpretation of Hegel’s ideas grew to full-blown splits, leading to the formation of the left and right Hegelians. Marx was particularly impressed by the notion that humanity advances as a result of conflict, war, and revolution; that is, through struggle. He, along with several others who were attracted to Hegel’s more progressive ideas, formed a group called “The Young Hegelians,” which was in opposition to the right Hegelians, who believed that the Prussian state was the culmination of all social development or pinnacle of human progress, thus affirming the dialectical process whilst simutaneously denying it. The Young Hegelians, whose hearts were in the right places, managed to accomplish little or nothing and often seemed to quibble indefinately over philosophical and theological matters, and Marx eventually lost patience with them. Marx then pursued a career in journalism and began writing articles for the Rhenish Gazette, soon rising to the position of Editor-In-Chief. Political journalism came naturally to Marx, and under his (subversive) direction, the newspaper really made waves-so much in fact that the government shut it down.
What was a young man with employment difficulties to do? Get married of course! Marx married the beautiful, and aristocratic Jenny Von Westphalen, and in the same year of their marriage (1843) took her to live with him in Paris where he accepted a position in a radical magazine there called Franco-German Annals (in German, “Deustche-Französische Jahrbücher”). Marx expanded his knowledge exponentially while he was in the ‘city of lights’ and absorbed the ideas of French socialists such as Comte de Saint-Simon, Chales Fourier, and Pierre Proudhon; Russian anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin, and Botkin; as well as the theories of the bourgeois economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo. All of this began to set the creative wheels of Marx’s mind in motion, and all of these influences were to profoundly impact his later work. It was during the year of 1844 that Marx began to identify himself as a communist, and outlined this position of his in a series of writings known as the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, which remained unpublished until the 1930’s. It was a fateful meeting when Marx had his first contact with fellow left-Hegelian Frederick Engels in this same year, after Engels had contributed several articles of his own authorship to the Franco-German Annals, one of which was entitled “The Condition of The Working Classes in England” (1845) which Marx found to be particularly striking. Upon meeting Engels in person, Marx discovered that they shared virtually identical views regarding capitalism, and hence decided to work together more closely, a coupling which led into what was to become a lifelong parternership. The cross-pollination brought about by this now-legendary friendship was great, and they began to aspire to greater things. Meanwhile, the Prussian government now seemed to really have it out for ‘our protagonist’ and persuaded the French government to have him expelled. Marx and Engels move to Brussels, get involved in a secret society known as The Communist League and eventually write the profound (and aptly titled) Communist Manifesto. After having been expelled from Belgium, Marx took refuge in London, where he spent the next three years. He then ventured to Paris and attempted to publish a radical newspaper, which was soon suppressed by the French government. He then went back to London, where he stayed for the greater sum of the remainder of his life.
Marx was a prolific writer, and wrote hundreds of articles and approximately 15 books. Despite this, a common theme underlies all of these works: the dialectical process of history, the alienation and exploitation of humanity under capitalism, and inevitable emancipation under socialism. Marx took Hegel and stood him on his head; what he really ‘took and ran with’ was Hegel’s dialectical method. Marx wanted philosophy to be practical rather than speculative and abstract; he wanted it to deal with the real world. He was a materialist, which in of itself was not a new concept. Materialism-defined by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as a philosophiocal position holding that “the only thing that exists is matter; if anything else, such as mental events, exists, then it is reducible to matter”-has been iterated by such notable figures as Thomas Hobbes, Denis Diderot, Baron d’Holbach, and John Locke. What distinguishes Marx’s materialism from earlier iterations is the rejection of the mechanistic universe: the idea that the universe, being governed by a set of unchanging laws, is static and unchanging. The writings of Thomas Hobbes are a perfect example of this viewpoint, as he made the observation that humans are part of the natural world which he believed to be governed by physical (i.e. mechanistic) laws; human relations were thus held by him to be fixed and unchanging. Marx dismissed the notion that human social life was governed by mechanical laws, and instead turned to history and economics so as to understand the human condition through dialectics.
The term “dialectic” is Greek in origin, and was originally dialektos, meaning “to engage in debate or dialogue.” It is a process by which truth is arrived at or contradictions are resolved. The dialectical process is defined by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as constituting “an exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions.” Many students of philosophy are first introduced to this process through the study of Socrates, who was renowned for (the transcriptions of) the discussions he had in which he utilized a ‘question and answer’ format to induce critical thought in those he spoke with. Hegel introduced Marx to the idea of applying the dialectical process to history: the idea that struggle and contradiction both constitute the engine that drives the course of human events.
Ludwig Feuerbach-another influence of Marx’s (as well as another follower of Hegel’s)-denied Hegel’s idealism, and inserted instead a mechanistic materialist notion of the universe; this Marx was also to ‘half-accept.’ Marx combined both of these as he applied the dialectical process to materialism and this combination is famously known (quite simply) as dialectical materialism. Marx replaced Hegel’s geist or spirit with an understanding of nature, work and economics.
Marx starts by examining humankind’s relationship to matter; to humanity’s ‘total environment.’ This he held, was central to an analysis of human development. It is the material or imminent world which is real, and our thoughts of it are consequences of it, not causes, of the universe. Pre-eminent in determining the human relationship to matter/nature, is the mode of production, a historically specific form of organizing labor and the given means of production which is constituted of two components: 1) the forces (or means) of production-the instruments and tools used in the production of material goods, as well as persons capable of using these tools and instruments by virtue of experience and training, and 2) the relations of production-the relations established between people as they acquire and use the forces of production in the production of material goods. Marx identifies several modes of production which have come to pass in human history, but 20th century Marxian anthropologist Eric Wolf has simplified these into three stages: 1) the domestic mode of production-wherein there is a localized or ‘household’ organization of labor 2) the tributary mode of production-wherein lords/elites extract tribute from laborers (in this case peasants or serfs) 3) the capitalist mode of production-wherein labor is almost totally alienated (or isolated) from the means of production. Conceived in this way, all prior systems could be placed as sub-classifications of the aforementioned three modes. In each historical mode of production, there were-and are-social classes defined by the role they play in the relations of production. These factions or classes each have their own set of interests and outlooks which reflect those interests; for each faction there is an underlying set of shared experiences, giving rise to what Marx described as class consciousness. Thus the view each class holds regarding government, morality, and religion is an outgrowth of its shared experiences and interests. In each historical mode of production, the ascendant class proclaims that which is in their own interests to be universally beneficial, thus explaining why some members of subordinate classes hold ideas which are in contradiction to their own interests.
Under each historical mode of production, there were classes whose interests were in conflict with one another. It is from those such contradictions that cause the currents of history to flow and ebb (i.e. not ‘the hand of God’ or any such nonsense). All societies, Marx writes, characterized by irreconcilably divergent class contradictions contain within them the seeds of their own destruction. This Marx terms the class struggle, in which exploiters and exploited clash. Under capitalism, the principal contradiction lies between the bourgeoise (owners, capitalists) and the proletariat who Marx defines as:
. . .that class of society whose means of livelihood entirely depend on the sale of its labor and not on the profit derived from capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose whole existence depend on the demand for labor, hence on the alternation of good times and bad, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. (Principles of Communism)
Central to Marx’s work is the concept of alienation, which concerns the separation of humankind from its most valuable resource: its labor power-which for Marx constitutes people’s ability to transform the natural world. For one to be made to give this up is tantamount to being alienated from one’s own nature; a spiritual loss. This is in addition to the economic squalor alienation causes, as laborers are separated from the fruits of their work. Marx aptly describes alienation in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts as follows:
The Alienation of the worker is expressed thus: the more he produces,the less he can consume; the more value he creates, the less value he has. . .Labor produces fabulous things for the rich, but misery for the poor, machines replace labor, and jobs diminish, while other workers turn into machines. . .
This alienation not only debases humankind by imposing squalor upon it by separating it from the fruits of its labor as well as its very nature, but moreover de-personalizes it; the elites objectify humanity by deciding upon the kind of work, the method and rhythm, but never minding if the laborer ends up as “a mere appendage of flesh on a machine of iron. . .”
Marx’s work was infused with both a passionate desire for justice, and a sober assesment of reality, taking as the starting point of his analysis: the laborer. He took an abstract, idealistic philosophy, brought it down to earth, and made it applicable to our world. We now have Marx’s analysis as an invaluable tool with which to understand the human condition and predict the flow of history.
by His Divine Grace Rev. Uncle Neil Banana Head
When the world lost Marx in 1883, it was his lifelong collaborator and companion Frederick Engels who, in a few plain paragraphs delivered as a eulogy at his graveside, summed up Marx's vast contributions to human thought:
Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means of subsistence and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case. (Sam Marcy 1994)
Karl Heinrich Marx was a man of ineffable erudition; a man who was one of the most insightful of scholars bringing together a plethora of research on matters of history, economics, and politics, to birth a form of historical/social analysis which has surpassed all those preceding it in precision. Humanity is eternally indebted to this man for what he had the brilliance to recognize: the impetus of history, i.e. the class struggle. Therein lies humanity’s hope, its potential salvation. It offers humankind a release from the cycle of war, exploitation, and oppression. It is the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel.’
Marx the man was born on May 5, 1818 into a progressive Jewish family (however he was baptized into Lutheranism later at age six), in the city of Trevirorum, Prussia, in what is now Trier, Germany (which is considered to be Germany’s oldest city). His father, Herschel, was a lawyer descended from a long line of rabbis, and his brother Samuel-Marx’s uncle-was the principal rabbi of Trevirorum. In his adolescence (1833, wherein Marx was 15), Marx went to Bonn University to study law where he was said to have spent much time partying and was often seen singing drinking songs in the beer hall instead of studying. As a result of this, his performance was somewhat poor and his father compelled him to transfer to the less jovial, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin (now known as the Humboldt University). At his new school, Marx found a new love: philosophy (much to his father’s consternation). Moreover, he found himself amidst the turbulent tumult left by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich “The Prussian Aristotle” Hegel, who claimed to have found the answers to ‘the big questions.’ Hegel asserted a complete philosophical system in which all of reality is one totality; the great or absolute spirit, and yet despite being one entity, is in contradiction with itself, that is to say that the totality of existence or absolute spirit contains within it “geists” or ideas manifesting themselves in humankind which are mutually contradictory. According to Hegel those contradictions have been, and are working themselves out through a dialectical process. Hegel asserts that this process is evident in history, and can be observed in war, competing faiths, and in philosophical contention; history began with “pure indeterminate being” and will end with “absolute idea” which is like “thought thinking itself.” Thus reality is in conflict with itself, but this conflict will eventually be worked out once the ultimate synthesis or “absolute idea” is reached. Most of this dialectical process-Hegel argued-would be characterized by gradual change, however, there would also be times of radical change, revolution and upheaval (but of an ideal or spiritual nature).
Hegel’s bold claims drew him much attention, and many followed his ideas, but by the time Marx enrolled at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Hegel had already left the mortal coil (he died in 1831). Sufficiently large was Hegel’s following, that the divergence in the interpretation of Hegel’s ideas grew to full-blown splits, leading to the formation of the left and right Hegelians. Marx was particularly impressed by the notion that humanity advances as a result of conflict, war, and revolution; that is, through struggle. He, along with several others who were attracted to Hegel’s more progressive ideas, formed a group called “The Young Hegelians,” which was in opposition to the right Hegelians, who believed that the Prussian state was the culmination of all social development or pinnacle of human progress, thus affirming the dialectical process whilst simutaneously denying it. The Young Hegelians, whose hearts were in the right places, managed to accomplish little or nothing and often seemed to quibble indefinately over philosophical and theological matters, and Marx eventually lost patience with them. Marx then pursued a career in journalism and began writing articles for the Rhenish Gazette, soon rising to the position of Editor-In-Chief. Political journalism came naturally to Marx, and under his (subversive) direction, the newspaper really made waves-so much in fact that the government shut it down.
What was a young man with employment difficulties to do? Get married of course! Marx married the beautiful, and aristocratic Jenny Von Westphalen, and in the same year of their marriage (1843) took her to live with him in Paris where he accepted a position in a radical magazine there called Franco-German Annals (in German, “Deustche-Französische Jahrbücher”). Marx expanded his knowledge exponentially while he was in the ‘city of lights’ and absorbed the ideas of French socialists such as Comte de Saint-Simon, Chales Fourier, and Pierre Proudhon; Russian anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin, and Botkin; as well as the theories of the bourgeois economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo. All of this began to set the creative wheels of Marx’s mind in motion, and all of these influences were to profoundly impact his later work. It was during the year of 1844 that Marx began to identify himself as a communist, and outlined this position of his in a series of writings known as the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, which remained unpublished until the 1930’s. It was a fateful meeting when Marx had his first contact with fellow left-Hegelian Frederick Engels in this same year, after Engels had contributed several articles of his own authorship to the Franco-German Annals, one of which was entitled “The Condition of The Working Classes in England” (1845) which Marx found to be particularly striking. Upon meeting Engels in person, Marx discovered that they shared virtually identical views regarding capitalism, and hence decided to work together more closely, a coupling which led into what was to become a lifelong parternership. The cross-pollination brought about by this now-legendary friendship was great, and they began to aspire to greater things. Meanwhile, the Prussian government now seemed to really have it out for ‘our protagonist’ and persuaded the French government to have him expelled. Marx and Engels move to Brussels, get involved in a secret society known as The Communist League and eventually write the profound (and aptly titled) Communist Manifesto. After having been expelled from Belgium, Marx took refuge in London, where he spent the next three years. He then ventured to Paris and attempted to publish a radical newspaper, which was soon suppressed by the French government. He then went back to London, where he stayed for the greater sum of the remainder of his life.
Marx was a prolific writer, and wrote hundreds of articles and approximately 15 books. Despite this, a common theme underlies all of these works: the dialectical process of history, the alienation and exploitation of humanity under capitalism, and inevitable emancipation under socialism. Marx took Hegel and stood him on his head; what he really ‘took and ran with’ was Hegel’s dialectical method. Marx wanted philosophy to be practical rather than speculative and abstract; he wanted it to deal with the real world. He was a materialist, which in of itself was not a new concept. Materialism-defined by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as a philosophiocal position holding that “the only thing that exists is matter; if anything else, such as mental events, exists, then it is reducible to matter”-has been iterated by such notable figures as Thomas Hobbes, Denis Diderot, Baron d’Holbach, and John Locke. What distinguishes Marx’s materialism from earlier iterations is the rejection of the mechanistic universe: the idea that the universe, being governed by a set of unchanging laws, is static and unchanging. The writings of Thomas Hobbes are a perfect example of this viewpoint, as he made the observation that humans are part of the natural world which he believed to be governed by physical (i.e. mechanistic) laws; human relations were thus held by him to be fixed and unchanging. Marx dismissed the notion that human social life was governed by mechanical laws, and instead turned to history and economics so as to understand the human condition through dialectics.
The term “dialectic” is Greek in origin, and was originally dialektos, meaning “to engage in debate or dialogue.” It is a process by which truth is arrived at or contradictions are resolved. The dialectical process is defined by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as constituting “an exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions.” Many students of philosophy are first introduced to this process through the study of Socrates, who was renowned for (the transcriptions of) the discussions he had in which he utilized a ‘question and answer’ format to induce critical thought in those he spoke with. Hegel introduced Marx to the idea of applying the dialectical process to history: the idea that struggle and contradiction both constitute the engine that drives the course of human events.
Ludwig Feuerbach-another influence of Marx’s (as well as another follower of Hegel’s)-denied Hegel’s idealism, and inserted instead a mechanistic materialist notion of the universe; this Marx was also to ‘half-accept.’ Marx combined both of these as he applied the dialectical process to materialism and this combination is famously known (quite simply) as dialectical materialism. Marx replaced Hegel’s geist or spirit with an understanding of nature, work and economics.
Marx starts by examining humankind’s relationship to matter; to humanity’s ‘total environment.’ This he held, was central to an analysis of human development. It is the material or imminent world which is real, and our thoughts of it are consequences of it, not causes, of the universe. Pre-eminent in determining the human relationship to matter/nature, is the mode of production, a historically specific form of organizing labor and the given means of production which is constituted of two components: 1) the forces (or means) of production-the instruments and tools used in the production of material goods, as well as persons capable of using these tools and instruments by virtue of experience and training, and 2) the relations of production-the relations established between people as they acquire and use the forces of production in the production of material goods. Marx identifies several modes of production which have come to pass in human history, but 20th century Marxian anthropologist Eric Wolf has simplified these into three stages: 1) the domestic mode of production-wherein there is a localized or ‘household’ organization of labor 2) the tributary mode of production-wherein lords/elites extract tribute from laborers (in this case peasants or serfs) 3) the capitalist mode of production-wherein labor is almost totally alienated (or isolated) from the means of production. Conceived in this way, all prior systems could be placed as sub-classifications of the aforementioned three modes. In each historical mode of production, there were-and are-social classes defined by the role they play in the relations of production. These factions or classes each have their own set of interests and outlooks which reflect those interests; for each faction there is an underlying set of shared experiences, giving rise to what Marx described as class consciousness. Thus the view each class holds regarding government, morality, and religion is an outgrowth of its shared experiences and interests. In each historical mode of production, the ascendant class proclaims that which is in their own interests to be universally beneficial, thus explaining why some members of subordinate classes hold ideas which are in contradiction to their own interests.
Under each historical mode of production, there were classes whose interests were in conflict with one another. It is from those such contradictions that cause the currents of history to flow and ebb (i.e. not ‘the hand of God’ or any such nonsense). All societies, Marx writes, characterized by irreconcilably divergent class contradictions contain within them the seeds of their own destruction. This Marx terms the class struggle, in which exploiters and exploited clash. Under capitalism, the principal contradiction lies between the bourgeoise (owners, capitalists) and the proletariat who Marx defines as:
. . .that class of society whose means of livelihood entirely depend on the sale of its labor and not on the profit derived from capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose whole existence depend on the demand for labor, hence on the alternation of good times and bad, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. (Principles of Communism)
Central to Marx’s work is the concept of alienation, which concerns the separation of humankind from its most valuable resource: its labor power-which for Marx constitutes people’s ability to transform the natural world. For one to be made to give this up is tantamount to being alienated from one’s own nature; a spiritual loss. This is in addition to the economic squalor alienation causes, as laborers are separated from the fruits of their work. Marx aptly describes alienation in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts as follows:
The Alienation of the worker is expressed thus: the more he produces,the less he can consume; the more value he creates, the less value he has. . .Labor produces fabulous things for the rich, but misery for the poor, machines replace labor, and jobs diminish, while other workers turn into machines. . .
This alienation not only debases humankind by imposing squalor upon it by separating it from the fruits of its labor as well as its very nature, but moreover de-personalizes it; the elites objectify humanity by deciding upon the kind of work, the method and rhythm, but never minding if the laborer ends up as “a mere appendage of flesh on a machine of iron. . .”
Marx’s work was infused with both a passionate desire for justice, and a sober assesment of reality, taking as the starting point of his analysis: the laborer. He took an abstract, idealistic philosophy, brought it down to earth, and made it applicable to our world. We now have Marx’s analysis as an invaluable tool with which to understand the human condition and predict the flow of history.