Karl Marx

Karl Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a 19th century German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary who, alongside his friend and long-time collaborator Engels, discovered the laws of development of human societies based on the dialectical materialist method.

Marx is one of the most important thinkers of the communist movement, having written several books on capitalism and its intrinsic exploitation, he highlighted the contradictions in the capitalist mode of production, and helped develop socialist economic models. His essays such as Capital and Manifesto of the Communist Party are works that had international influence after their publication.

Life and work

Early life

Marx was born May 5, 1818 in the small town of Trier, in the south of Rhenish Prussia, in what is today Germany, on the borders with France. At the time, Trier had only 12 thousand residents, and from 1798 to 1814, and the city belonged to France, which changed after Napoleon's defeat and Prussian annexation of the region. He was the third of the nine children, of Heinrich and Henriette Marx, and belonged to the prosperous Jewish petty bourgeois of Trier. Heinrich Marx did not follow the religious tradition, and converted to Protestantism. Heinrich Marx also had a good reputation with the Prussian government.

Karl Marx's family had a relationship with the Westphalen family, an aristocratic family with ties to the Prussian government, and during Marx's teenage years, had a friendship with the baron Johann Ludwig von Westphalen, who admired the brilliance of the young Karl Marx, and the children of the Westphalen family, Laura, Edgar and Jenny von Westphalen (1814 – 1881), which would later become Marx's longtime partner and wife.

From 1830 to 1835, Marx studied on the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium, a public secondary education school which prepared students to university. There, some teachers taught an openly rationalist and discretely liberal views. At the time, liberal philosophy was associated with revolutionary ideals and a romantic sentiment towards the French Revolution, both of which was frowned upon by the Prussian government. The Trier Gymnasium only accepted male students and relied on classical training, focusing on the study of Greek and Latin along with a third foreign language, and French was chosen by Karl Marx.

University education, relationship with Jenny

After graduating with a good school performance on the Trier Gymnasium, Marx entered the university, spending two semesters in the University of Bonn from 1835 to 1836. Marx's father disapproved of his son's drinking and bohemian lifestyle and persuaded him to transfer to the University of Berlin, at the time a well-established and highly respected university. There, he studied Law, majoring in History and Philosophy and concluded his university course in 1841, submitting a doctoral thesis on the philosophy of Epicurus. At the time Marx was a Hegelian idealist in his views and belonged to the circle of “Left Hegelians”, along with Bruno Bauer and others.