Karl Marx

📷 Wikimedia Commons — domaine public — John Jabez Edwin Mayall — 1875

1818 — 1883

royaume de Prusse, apatride

PhilosophyPoliticsPhilosopheRévolutionnairePolitique19th Century19th century (1818–1883)

Révolution industrielle Droits de l'Homme

German philosopher, sociologist, and economist (1818–1883), Karl Marx is the founder of historical materialism and the critical analysis of capitalism. He revolutionized political thought by proposing a theory of class struggle and social transformation.

Famous Quotes

« The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. »

« It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. »

Key Facts

1848: Publication of The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels, which became a founding text of the labour movement
1867: Publication of the first volume of Capital (Das Kapital), his major economic and philosophical work
1845–1846: Writing of The German Ideology, formulating the principles of historical materialism
1883: Death in London, where he had taken refuge after being exiled for his revolutionary activities
1864: Participation in the founding of the First International, an organization bringing together European labour movements

Works & Achievements

The Communist Manifesto (1848)

Written with Engels for the Communist League, this founding text sets out the theory of class struggle and calls on the proletarians of all countries to unite. It is the most widely read political text in modern history.

Capital (Das Kapital), Volume I (1867)

Marx's masterwork, a scientific analysis of the capitalist mode of production, labor value, and surplus value. Volumes II and III were published posthumously by Engels.

Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1844)

Early texts unpublished during Marx's lifetime, in which he develops his theory of the alienation of the worker under capitalism. Published in 1932, they had an immense influence in the 20th century.

The German Ideology (1845-1846)

Written with Engels, this work lays the foundations of historical materialism: the idea that economic structures (base) determine ideas and institutions (superstructure).

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)

A brilliant analysis of the 1851 coup d'état in France, in which Marx refines his conception of the State and social classes. Contains the famous phrase: 'history repeats itself twice, first as tragedy, then as farce'.

The Civil War in France (1871)

A text in which Marx analyzes the Paris Commune as the first experience of a workers' government and draws theoretical lessons from it on the question of the State.

Anecdotes

Karl Marx spent more than 30 years at the British Library in London writing his masterwork 'Das Kapital'. He went there daily, often in a state of great poverty, working on his manuscripts with remarkable determination. This library became the symbolic place where one of the world's most influential thinkers developed his revolutionary theory of capitalism.

Expelled from Germany for his revolutionary ideas, Marx was forced to flee several countries (Belgium, France, Switzerland) before finding refuge in England in 1852. His forced exile shows how his radical political theories alarmed European governments of the time, who saw him as a dangerous agitator of minds.

Marx was known for his extremely difficult living conditions: his clothes were worn out, his health fragile, and his family lived in poverty in London. Ironically, the theorist who analysed the poverty of workers himself experienced material poverty for most of his productive life.

The Communist Manifesto, written with Friedrich Engels in 1848, opened with the famous line: 'A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.' This short but powerful text became one of the most widely read and debated political documents in world history.

Marx had a voluminous and impressive beard that became his most recognisable physical feature. In the Victorian era, his revolutionary appearance, combined with his radical ideas, reinforced his image as a nonconformist and rebellious thinker standing against the established order.

Primary Sources

The Communist Manifesto (1848)

A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre.

Capital, Volume I (1867)

The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails presents itself as an 'immense accumulation of commodities'. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.

Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1844)

The worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and extent. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he produces.

Theses on Feuerbach (1845)

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.

Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875)

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

Key Places

Trier (Trèves), Prussia

Marx's birthplace, in the Moselle valley. It is here that he was born in 1818 and received his early education in a region shaped by the ideas of the French Revolution.

Paris, France

Marx lived here from 1843 to 1845 and wrote his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. He moved in socialist circles and met Proudhon, Heine, and above all Engels.

Brussels, Belgium

Place of exile from 1845 to 1848, where Marx and Engels wrote The German Ideology and the Communist Manifesto, commissioned by the League of Communists.

Soho, London

A working-class district of London where Marx lived in often extreme poverty with his family for many years, most notably at 28 Dean Street.

British Museum Reading Room, London

Marx's daily workplace for over twenty years, where he combed through thousands of works on political economy to write Capital.