Karl Marx: The Father Of Communism

Karl Marx is often viewed as a father of Socialism and Communism. And he was certainly influential in the German and Eastern European political transformation of the 1900’s. Much of his political theory, thought and beliefs are written down in his various works, most famously his Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1848. But his later works, including A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy(1859) specifically lay out his beliefs on liberal democracy and individual rights and why they are harmful to the proletariat. They also documented his plan to abolish private property.
Marx believed that all society was organized in it economy by two things, it’s social organisation and the methods of production. Thus wealth and work are …show more content…
To Marx, alienation, the estrangement or separation of people from their essence as human beings, was a sin of capitalism. In fact, it was the central concept in his analysis of capitalism and it’s faults. And according to Marx, it was a product of a stratified class system. But more than that, Marx thought that the idea of the individual itself was unimportant. He argued that production forces people to exchange good and services, not individuals. Economic relations are beyond the individual in the sense that they grow and change separate to the interconnections of individuals, And these relationships have power over the individual. Individuals aren’t independents, they just appear so when separated from society. But, as Marx states, they can’t be separated from society because in capitalism, social classes shaped the individual and how they interacted with production and each other. Much like liberal democracy, Marx believed that individual rights were harmful to the proletariat because they favored the landowning bourgeoisie over the proletariat. When individuals can’t be separated from society and class structure, it gives those with a higher place in the structure more opportunities to improve their rights and the right to fight for their liberties. Equal rights, to Marx and Marxists were never equal, because people, in capitalism weren’t treated equally or given equal protection. …show more content…
While in theory Marx’s ideas are understandable or even worthy of further investigation, knowing what his particular brand of socialism and communism did to the countries who were influenced by the writings of his inspirations, him and his followers makes it hard to justify his attacks on capitalism. In countries like Germany, Russia and China, thousands died of starvation and millions more went into poverty, the value of their money drastically decreased to the point that money became as common as paper and it took wheelbarrows full of it to buy a loaf of bread. While eliminating the class system seems like a way to make every individual equal, it really just eliminates any need to raise once social status, especially through means in production and income, meaning the economy grinds to a halt. Competition is often viewed as an inherently capitalist idea, but competition undeniably drives a country, whether economically, politically or socially. Working class people- the proletariat that Marx championed didn 't and still don’t receive equal rights and don’t receive just consideration in government. In order to create more opportunities to move up the ladder, Marxism ended the need for these opportunities at all. In fact, in Marxist thought, the ladder didn’t need to exist at