Marx/Marxism
Karl Marx is known as one of the great intellects of our time. His philosophies rejected the concept of Western democracy because he alleged that they enforced selfishness and competitiveness among all. Over one third of the world’s population follows Marx’s theories, known mostly today as modern communism.
Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in Trier, Germany. His father Heinrich and his mother Henrietta were both Jewish born. However, since Jews were not able to hold political positions or engage in certain professions, they had converted to Christianity and Karl was baptized at the age of six. He was the third of nine children and known to his father as the “troubled, arrogant, demanding, and self-centered” of the bunch (Feinberg 10). In school, he was considered an outcast and hardly formed any friendships due to his anti-liberal views. At the end of high school he had written an essay titled “Reflections of a Young Man on Choosing an Occupation”. In this essay, Marx discussed how the greatest men were not the ones who worked to attain fame but those who worked to help all of mankind. This essay helped to foreshadow what was to be expected from Marx in the future (12-14).
Over the course of many years, the Marxist theory slowly surfaced. This theory stated that money held power and the ones who possessed it were the ones who were powerful. He studied the aspects of the economy that held the highest amount of power, the most crucial being an owner of anything that produced for the economy, such as landowners and factory owners. In this sense, the basis of Marxism arose from economic determinism because it was believed by Marx that economics was the grounds for human functioning. This theory argued that material goods and objects helped us to endure power and claim superiority in a society (Camfield 424-27). Furthermore, the basis of Marxism was a way of survival and a way of functioning. It was a practice known to us today as...