Karl Marx

A Brief Biographical Note:

Karl Marx was born right in the middle of the Industrial Revolution in 1818 into a middle class
family in Trier in Germany. The Industrial Revolution is popularly attributed to huge socio-
economic changes brought by inventions and transformation to new methods of production and it
lasted for a long period from around 1760 to 1870, and brought sweeping changes in the Western
world. It was primarily fueled by technological leaps that humanity was making in several
spheres. The coming of power loom increased output of worker by several times, the cotton gin
increased productivity of cotton production, spinning became easier 1. There were advancements
in steam engines that enabled them to be used for industrial purposes and transportation. James
Watts changes in steam engine brought radical improvements that increased efficiency of the
steam engine. By 1783, the Watt engine had been fully developed. Also, using coke in place of
charcoal facilitated larger blasts that resulted in economies of scale 2. These changes however first
took place in United Kingdom and Germany (or Prussia as it was called in nineteenth century)
saw the beginning of Industrial Revolution many decades after it had begun in Britain.
Industrialisation in Germany lagged behind that in France and Britain. However, beginnings had
been made with the textile industry in 1834. Then came the railroad revolution in 1840s which
gave rise to new markets for local products and increased the demand for engineers, architects
and investments in coal and iron. After 1815, entrepreneurs in Ruhr Valley in Prussia (which was
rich in mineral resources) took advantage of new tariff policy instituted by the Prussian
government. This became center for the development of iron and steel industry and mining. The
speeding up of Industrial Revolution in the country however took place during Otto Von
Bismarcks reign after 1871.

Karl Marx was born in a well off family; his father Heinrich Marx was an attorney and his
mother Henrietta Pressburg was from a prosperous Jewish family that founded the Philips

1 Lewis Paul got the patent for spinning frame and flyer and bobbin system for
drawing wool to greater thickness. They also patented the carding machine which
was later used in cotton spinning mill. James Hargreaves invented the spinning
jenny which had multiple spindles(1764).

2
Electronics. Therefore, he was well off enough to learn about the philosophical and political
trends of his time. From 1830s to 1840s, he was engaged in his research Ph.D. work and was part
of a society of group called Young Hegelians and came into contact with ideas of Ludwig
Feuerbach who questioned the metaphysical assumptions in Hegels thoughts. In 1843, he got
married to Jenny von Westphalen, an aristocrat who was baroness from Prussian ruling family.
By that time, he had started his journalistic activities which were critical of right wing
governments in Europe and defied the censorship laws in Prussia. The censorship led him to
Paris where he became co-editor of a radical leftist Parisian newspaper. The most significant
event in his life during this time was his first meeting with Friedrich Engels in 1844, the person
he would form the closest bond with both as a friend and as a collaborator. Engels was also a
Prussian and had been born into a wealthy German cotton textile manufacturer family. Like
Marx, he had also developed atheistic thoughts. He showed Marx his recently published The
Condition of Working Class in England which described the oppressive conditions in which
workers worked in the then industrial. It is believed that this played an important role in shaping
Marxs thoughts on alienation. His viewpoint found expression in the Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, which remained unpublished till 1930. The EPM of 1844
was followed by his Theses on Feuerbach that provided a criticism of materialism espoused by
Feuerbach, the philosopher who first inspired him. The major work was in turn followed by exile
to another place, this time Brussels as Paris expelled Marx. Engels joined him soon after that.
The stay in Brussels was very brief and they headed to England to support and collaborate with
British socialists. It was during this period that Marx wrote The German Ideology which
espouses his concept of historical materialism. The German Ideology was written from 1845 and
1846 and remained unpublished till 1932 much like EPM of 1844. It is the later phase of his
intellectual and political life that he wrote Das Capital which deals with economics of capitalism.
Marxs focus in his initial phase was more on the essentialist ideas. His idea of alienation is
regarded as largely essentialist owning to the essence of human nature that he puts at the core of
his argument. He attacks capitalism by holding it responsible for causing alienation of workers in
various ways.
 Early Marx Literature Later Marx Literature
Theses on Feuerbach, Economic This is the literature written by
and Philosophical Manuscripts of after 1846. Focuses largely on
Marx
1844, German Ideology. economics of capitalism. Das
Capital and Communist Manifesto
The Early Marx Literature deals with
written during this phase. The
Marxs criticism of Hegels
works during this phase were
Dialectical Idealism, Feuerbachs
marked by extensive collaboration
materialism, attack on capitalism
with friend Friedrich Engels.
for causing alienation from human
essence.

Alienation

Marx has used the term Entasern in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (from
now would be referred to as EPM of 1844) which translates into English meaning to separate
from ones own thing which nevertheless continues to exist. The worker according to Marx
suffers from five kinds of alienation- alienation from ones product, from the production process,
from ones species being, from society and from oneself. According to him, there is an inverse
relationship between condition of worker and the wealth and product that he produces. This
produces alienation from the product. In this regard, he has written:

The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production
increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more
commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct
proportion the devaluation of the men. Labor produces not only commodities: it produces itself
and the worker as a commodity-and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities
generally.

So, the worker produces himself as a commodity and his own produce confronts him as
something alien exerting a power on him. The worker loses his own object. There is loss of the
object. The object belongs not to him but to someone else. But at the same time, the worker is in
bondage to the product for the commodity that he has become. Therefore, there is object
bondage. Marx has called this the objectification of the labour. So much is this objectification
that the worker loses not only the product but also the objects most necessary to produce it. He in
the process of this alienation comes under the power of the capital which is nothing but the result
of his own produce and this power is alien to him. The more he produces and greater his product
becomes, the lesser he becomes. The alienation from the product is complete.

The second alienation is alienation from the production process, i.e. alienation from the
production activity. By this alienation, Marx means that production activity is outside him. He
does not affirm himself but denies himself in it. Due to this, he feels alienated from the activity
that he does for his means of life. The worker does not feel content. His labour work mortifies
his body and mind. He feels himself when he is not working and it is just the opposite when he is
working. This means that labour is not voluntary. The production activity leads to loss of self and
the worker feels himself only in his animal functions of eating, drinking, procreating, dwelling
etc. So, Marx says: What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal.

The third kind of alienation is alienation from ones species being. Every species has some life
activity. The life activity that distinguishes Man from other species is the conscious life activity.
This means that his life activity is the object of his will and his consciousness. This also implies
that his existence as a species being is because he exists only, because of his life activity. But in
the production process, he makes his existence, his essential being as a means to life. So, as
Marx says: Life itself becomes means of life. When Man is alienated from his product and the
production process, he is alienated from his human free activity. So, his conscious life activity
becomes a means to his physical existence. He is separated from his consciousness, the
characteristic that defines human essence.

The estrangement or alienation of the above three are reflected in fourth kind of estrangement
which is alienation from other men. This is because if the product that he produces does not
belong to him, then it belongs to someone else-the capitalist. So, Marx writes: If the workers
activity is a torment to him, to another it must be delight and his lifes joy. So, man is alienated
from another man. Mans relation to himself is realized in his remaining under the dominion
and coercion of another man. And the alienation of all these result in estrangement from oneself-
from ones product, from ones productive activity, from ones conscious human essence and
from another man. Alienation as a concept was a direct attack on the dehumanizing conditions
that capitalism had produced. It meant that capitalism had extinguished the creativity that came
out of human consciousness of the workers and had reduced them to a condition no better than
those of animals.

Crisis Theory and Class Antagonism

Class antagonism has been explained in the later Marx literature written in collaboration with
friend Friedrich Engels. This means a clear cut opposing interests between two classes in
capitalism- the capitalists and the proletariat (the worker class). Class antagonism in Marxs
scheme is the cause that would ultimately result in overthrow of capitalist system. For this, it is
essential for this antagonism to reach its peak. Das Capital (in English, The Capital) explains
what has been now popularly called the Crises theory. In order to understand crises theory, it is
essential to understand the following:

1. The total capital (C) is equal to organic or constant capital (c) and the variable capital (v).
This means C= c+v
2. Constant capital is called so because Marx assumes that it remains constant unless acted
upon by variable capital (which is a human capital). It is also called organic because it
can produce something only when in interaction with the human beings (which is the
variable capital).
3. Labour (or the variable capital, v) is the only productive capital, which means only labour
is capable of adding value.
4. Labour creates surplus value (s), leading to accumulation of capital.
i. .C=c+v
ii. ..C=c+v+s, where s is the surplus value created only by the v
5. The accumulation of s leads to increase in capital which has to be reinvested in an
environment which Marx has described as highly competitive in which capital cannot be
allowed to remain idle. The more this is reinvested in organic capital (in machinery and
 technology for ), the lesser becomes the rate of surplus value because the share of
variable capital that can produce s falls. There is therefore a tendency for the rate of
profit to fall, resulting in capital remaining idle, overproduction due to already produced
goods and ultimately cycle of recessions.

The repeated cycles of recessions are likely to further push some people into the privation of
proletariat. When the society is then clearly divided into two classes- workers and capitalists,
with the former suffering from deprivations and poverty, the class antagonism reaches its
peak resulting in class struggle.

Marxs Materialist Conception

Out of Mind and Matter, Matter held the key to change in society and Mind (i.e. ideas,
notions, morality, education, laws, sense of right and wrong, norms, consciousness) was
determined by Matter (the material conditions of life, the economic strata to which one
belonged, the work that one performed, the means of production and the mode of
production ). This he termed as substructure (Matter) and superstructure (Mind). This is
called materialist conception of Marx on the basis of which he explains development of
society or change.
Superstruct
ure

Substructure