Friedrich Engels

Heinrich Marx was born on 5 May 1818 in Germany, when Europe was going through rapid social changes after the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution. His interest in philosophy was greatly influenced by a German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, when he read about his works at University. Subsequently, he gained understanding from the materialistic ideas of Ludwig Feuerbach and further developed them into his own sociological theories. Marx discovered that the society was…

either not allow him citizenship or expel him from their territory because of his liberal writings. As he traveled from country to country, he wrote as a journalist to earn money, yet he never earned enough to live from and was largely supported by Engels. Examining his life, it becomes evident that Marx constantly struggled to conform to society and its values and system. While this is admirable in some cases, his unwillingness to provide for himself a steady job, and to become a productive…

The Upper Class vs. The Lower Class: A Marxist Reading of Comus In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto, which stems from Marxist ideas. John Milton published A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634 [Comus], in 1637; a mere 3 years after its first performance for the Earl of Bridgewater. Over 200 years pass after Milton’s publication of this court masque, until the emergence of Communism as a political platform. Although Marxism was invented several decades…

History Final The Communist Manifesto The Communist Manifesto is a pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and published on February 21, 1848. The Manifesto is a call to arms against capitalism and the bourgeoisie. They illustrate in simple terms so everyone can understand, that with the overthrow of unequal hierarchies of feudalism, came a split between classes because of capitalism. They state “Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps - the…

Both Antoine Nicolas de Condorcet and Karl Marx develop theories that include reducing or abolishing inequality. In fact, the two do share many similarities in regards to their beliefs in equality. With so many similarities, the two theories will be defined by their differences in comparison to one another. The main difference between Condorcet and Marx is that they do not share the same definition for equality nor the same intentions. Marxism strives for pure equality, in that everyone shares…

Adam Smith states that, “No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” Smith is meaning that not every society is fair; there will be people who are “flourishing and happy” and some of the people will be “poor and miserable.” It is very difficult to have a society in which every person is happy. There is a large gap between the rich and the poor in America. The rich makes up one percent of America’s population. That one…

First, we have Karl Marx’s Capital: Critique of Political Economy and The Communist Manifesto, where we encounter the proletariat, or the working-class people regarded collectively. In these two texts, the latter of which was co-authored by Frederick Engels,…

An Inspector Calls is a play written by Dramatist J.B Priestley in 1945. Priestley was a left-wing socialist and this was one of the factors which influenced him to write this play. Even though the play was written in 1945, it was actually set in 1912, right before the start of the First World War. It is set in the spring of 1912 at the Brumley home of the Birlings, a prosperous industrial family in the North Midlands, getting involved in the death of a woman named Eva Smith. The Inspector uses…

Different “Ways of Seeing” In the essay, “Ways of Seeing,” John Berger applies Marxism to art history. Marxism is the social, economic and political theory formed by Karl Marx. It deals with class struggle and the oppression of the lower classes by the upper classes. In the essay, Berger focuses on using Marxist methodology, when he analyzes and explains an artist named Frans Hal. Berger uses Hals paintings to demonstrate the structure of social classes, and their struggles to give an idea of…

Introduction Max Weber, born on April 21, 1864, was a German social scientist and the founder of modern sociological thought. Having a father who was an active lawyer in political life influenced him to attend Heidelberg University and to major in law, history, economics, as well as philosophy. After later continuing his studies at the Universities of Berlin and Göttingen, he managed to pass his bar examination in 1866 and he decided to practice law for a short period of time. In 1889, he…