Karl Marx's History Is Still Relevant Today

Improved Essays
Karl Marx was born the Prussian city of Trier in 1818. Although his family converted to Christianity due to the antiemetic laws of Prussia, they were originally a German Jewish family. Much like Hegel before him, Marx saw reality as an ongoing process of history. For Marx that history was a history of class conflict. His conclusion was not only relevant in his time, but it is still relevant today. Marx said there were two classes of people in the world. The first was the ruling class or as he called them the bourgeoisie [bo͝orZHwäˈzē]. The second was the workers of the world which he called the proletariat [prōləˈterēət] (Kishlansky, 2009). During his lifetime he saw that the bourgeoisie had set up a system were the proletariat were set in a system of wage slavery. As he put it, they were paid a minimum wage for their labor that only gave them enough capital to cover the bare minimum of existence. That included food, rent, and a few other meager items. They could never earn enough capital to own the means of production of their own labor or even their own home. Ownership was something that only the bourgeoisie had the …show more content…
Free trade is a policy that the ruling class keeps saying is the backbone of capitalism and good for the American people. Yet, any investigation into free trade will show that it increases the wealth of the ruling class or as Bernie Sanders has coined the phrase the “billionaire class” while taking good paying jobs from the American people. The factories that used to pay $20 an hour now have been replace by Walmart and McDonalds who pay from $7.25 an hour to $10 an hour. Since the 1970’s, when Nixon opened trade to China, the average working has only seen a 6% increase in his wages while the coast of living has gone up astronomically, and the average CEO has seen a 900% increase in his wages. All free trade dose is let the ruling class take advantage of third world nations with horrible labor conditions a

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Marx thought it only a matter of time before the working class as a whole rose up and over threw the rich. That the line would eventually be pushed too far, that the workers would reach the end of what they were willing to endure. Bourgeois and proletarians, or the rich and the poor were in a constant struggle for control and that the proletarians would eventually rise up and take control of what was rightfully theirs. That the workers could and would take being ground into the dirt for the gain of others for only so long. Once the proletarians had taken control, the means of production would be distributed among publically owned corporations.…

    • 2117 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Carlyle Vs. Marx

    • 1409 Words
    • 6 Pages

    “As of September 14, 2016, Britannica.com listed on its website. . . Karl Heinrich Marx a revolutionary, historian, sociologist, and economist was born May 5th 1818 in the city Trier located in Rhine, Prussia. Marx was the oldest boy of nine children. In 1835 attended the University of Bonn for a year then went to Berlin to study philosophy and law. Eight years later Marx married Jenny von Westphalen who was smart and attractive to the eye.…

    • 1409 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    YeJoon Kang HST 103_06 Professor Borbonus 10 February 2015 Karl Marx & Samuel Smiles During the time of Industrialization, Europe and the United States were the leading exporters in the global markets. It was most difficult for the working class when there was an abundant amount of supplies, also known as surplus of products once in demand. One of many reasons they were suffering was because; “As more and more factories were built to produce the same commodity…competitors slashed prices by slashing wages” (Marks 136). Many similar problems were practiced in the time.…

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mccarthyism Vs Marxism

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In the Communist Manifesto Marx explained the historical class struggles that each society has come across since the beginning of time. Class resemblances are usually, the oppressor and the oppressed on opposite sides and classes with various orders of complicated arrangements (p.15). Marx’s believed that his society has not left the class antagonism from earlier times such as the Ancient Roman’s, however, enforced new classes with new conditions and struggles for the oppressed individuals, in place of the old policies (p.15). In Communist Manifesto Marx noted the two classes of his society were the bourgeoisie and proletariats (p.16). Quite simply, the bourgeoisie were the capitalists who were the enforcers and owners of the properties in…

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Like the classical economists, he focused on the dynamic evolution of capitalism as a system, and the turbulent relationships between different classes. ”(Stanford p.54) During the Mid-nineteenth century, Marx opposed capitalism, believing “payment of profit on private investments did not reflect any particular economic function” (Stanford p.54). Marx is saying that the workers aren’t getting paid for the amount of work they put in. Capitalists were exploiting these workers and rather than sharing the wealth/profits, they were paying the workers a diminished amount (Labor Theory of Value).…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Karl Marx sought to abolish the belief system that preserved the uneven distribution of wealth and prolonged the suffering of the proletariat. As a result of the industrial revolution, the upper class exercised its power over the lower classes exclusively for the purpose of protecting self-interest. The labor of the lower classes not only supported their subsistence, but upheld the luxurious existence of the bourgeoisie as well. While the bourgeoisie retained control of the means of production, they entered an agreement with the proletariat to form “the rights of man,” which preserve the rights to life, liberty, and security with the limitation that one man’s rights should not undermine the rights of another. In his effort to outline the implications of “the rights of man,” Karl Marx presents a clear argument that the rights to life, liberty, and security ultimately preserve self-interest and detach man from civil society.…

    • 1744 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Wetbacks followed people from south America and Mexico trying to illegally enter the United States. Due to their social location or, the group memberships that people have because of their location in history and society, they are subjected to conditions here in America we would never experience. Ana’s father could no longer afford to pay for tuition for her schooling so she had to be pulled from the 7th grade. In the US, school up through high school is free because with federal and state taxes we can afford to pay for free and universal primary education.…

    • 1996 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Karl Marx believes that goods and services is directly connected to the amount of labor required for its production. Most importantly, the two classes in society, the bourgeoisie(the wealthy capital owning) and proletariat(the poor working class) will forever be stuck in their same class because of capitalism. To illustrate such idea he developed the ideas of surplus values. Karl ideas of surplus values is the relationship between the worker and his product and the employer. Marx is saying that the worker will receive a salary of the amount of goods produced and the difference between the cost of labor and the price which the product was sold will be the profit.…

    • 1112 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When the people mass moved into the cities, the bourgeois gain more and more power over the proletariats, whom were middle class citizens until their jobs in trade and handy work were…

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    How have perceptions of communism in Russian society changed over time? What were the factors leading to these changes? Karl Marx was a German philosopher and economist, who published the Communist Manifesto in 1848. He was an influential writer and in his writing he conveys the idea of communism and how the proletariat will ultimately gain political power. That the abolition of private property will result in a society with no classes, hence no class antagonism.…

    • 1571 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Contrastingly, Marx believes that not all humans are free. Although he is against the class system, he believed that it remained an issue in society and that “there was a strain in all societies because the social organization never kept pace with the development of the means of production” (W.B.E.190b). Marx believed that while the ruling class had freedom the Proletariat did not. They were controlled by their employers and thus, did not have the freedom that the employers, or production owners, had. For example, while the owners of any privately owned means of production could decide to take a day off for whatever reason, the working class beneath them could not.…

    • 1634 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For Marx, history develops out of the conflict between the classes. By which That is a continuous conflict between the oppressor and the oppressed such as the freeman and slave, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman. The conflict always ends in the revolutionary reconstitution of society or the classes’ common ruin. Until The final conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The Bourgeoisie is known as the ruling class.…

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Marx Vs Durkheim

    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages

    However, Marx focuses mainly on the conflicts between the Proletariats and the Bourgeoises. The Bourgeoises were “in charge” of the Proletariats in a sense according to Marx as they owned the “means to production”. He believed that this system was wrong and had to be changed, and a revolution was required. In comparison, while one theory emphasized change was required (Marx), the other one would adjust or change to meet the requirements for the system as a whole to change, which didn’t always benefit every group when a change was required. In Marx’s eyes, a change was needed regardless of what needed to be done in order to ensure that the lower class individuals or workers (Proletariats) were given the respect and proper treatment that they had been longing for in a capitalist society.…

    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When Marx moved to Brussels, belgium He was introduced to socialism, which caused him to depart from his previous philosophical affiliations. Marx found this new perspective so appealing that from then on, his work was exclusively focused on disprove antisocialist theorist such as capitalism.…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Marxism in The Hunger Games If there is any perfect representation of Marxism in film it is in The Hunger Games. For this case study, I will be focusing on the first movie of the trilogy. This paper will overview the way Marxism is shown in The Hunger Games using a few examples from the movie. In this paper, I argue that The Hunger Games’ plot line has Marxism theories extremely exposed and almost blatantly exposed. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed Marxism in the early 1900s.…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays