http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/KarlMarx

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

—The call-to-arms in The Communist Manifesto "Workers of the world, unite!" (alternatively "Working men of all countries, unite!")

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Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German-born writer, very polarizing to this day, who is known best for writing about and advocating socialism and communism. Marx is one of the most important men to have ever lived, though how much of his influence is good or bad depends heavily on your own beliefs. His influence is so widespread that some people have said that the entire twentieth century is his legacy. His best known and proverbial works are The Communist Manifesto (1848), a short pamphlet co-written with Friedrich Engels, in response to a series of revolutions across Europe that year and the Doorstopper that is Capital. Both works are bywords for socialism and communism, but neither was the first work about socialism — it was already a common word by the time it was published, and socialist thought was grounded in some of the more left-wing ideologues of The Enlightenment (which Marx cited as his main influence).

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The Communist Manifesto condenses Marx's ideas that history is "a history of class struggle" and that the new capitalist societies of the 19th century, while originally revolutionary (in that they toppled the corrupt aristocracy during The French Revolution and the later wars of reunification in Italy and Germany), led in turn to a new ruling class (labelled the "bourgeoisie"note It originally meant people who lived in bourg or burg, i.e. city-dwellers. Marx used it as a metonym for "the ruling class"; his intellectual successors would describe it as a pejorative for stuffy middle-class values of property and family. Marx used it to name the owners of capital, i.e. the very 1% of industrialists — as opposed to the lower-middle classes of professionals (lawyers, teachers, doctors) and salarymen, and later stockholders, who had not yet become an economically significant bracket in Marx's lifetime.) that comprised those who owned capital and means of production that nonetheless functioned on exploitation of the vast majority of workers who did most of the work for little pay, no protection and in deplorable conditions. In the same way that the aristocrats created the bourgeoisie who replaced them as the ruling class, the bourgeoisie will in turn be succeeded and replaced by the newly emergent working class who, in sharp contrast to the ignorant, bonded peasantry of feudalism, was urban and educated (necessary for them to work the machines and other tools), organized into labouring units that brought them into contact with workers from other parts of the capitalist nation, leading to the development of a new identity. To Marx, they constituted a new revolutionary class, nurtured in the conditions of the capitalist state. They will become more intelligent as society advances, until the workers had it with their oppression under the class system and set to pave the way for a revolt and the creation of a new socialist society. This would start a lengthy process that would lead, initially to a society governed directly by the working class (i.e. the dictatorship of the proletariatnote Dictatorship in the pre-Caesar Roman sense, e.g. George Washington's hero Cincinnatus. This is one of the most notorious misconceptions about him, as Marx envisioned it to resemble Athenian direct democracy.) but gradually guide it to scientific communism, a global, classless, stateless technological society.note Although this vision looks and sounds very like science fiction to modern people, it was grounded in Marx's views of the mechanization of labour in the Industrial Revolution, which he expected to lead to workers being replaced by machines. In Marx's view, this would liberate them to do other kinds of work which they wanted to do. However, capitalism forced them to do jobs they hated for next to no pay merely to survive and escape unemployment, and the rise of capitalism, inequality, and progressive mechanization mean that this would increase as time went on, as owners keep seeking newer and cheaper labour. In a purely communist society, machines such as A.I. would do all the menial labour, thus providing people the freedom and security to Pursue the Dream Job.

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His social, economic, political, and philosophical views are collectively known as Marxism: a Genre-Busting philosophy that combines historical inquiry, statistical analysis, journalism and philosophy that subsequently influenced nearly all left-wing revolutions and movements since the mid-19th century, and later expanded into fields of humanities, social sciences, linguistics, art, and psychology. For instance, many literary theorists used Marxist ideas to look at literature and culture (film, theatre, opera) in social and historical contexts, resulting in many Alternative Character Interpretations and revivals in the fortune of hitherto neglected works, in addition to his influence on many artists such as Bertolt Brecht, Sergei Eisenstein, and Jean-Luc Godard.

Despite his reputation as a prophet, with his rhetoric and habit of making visionary predictions not helping his case, Marx's theories about revolutionary practice succeeded contemporary radical events (Revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune) rather than anticipate them. They are indeed analytical think pieces about ongoing events and journalistic in character, and Marx used his regular paying job at the New York Herald Tribune's foreign desk to report on various events as and when they happened. The fact that Marx engaged with such political journalism is itself a radical departure from his background as an academic philosopher, and would later provide the model for the philosophe engagé codified by Jean-Paul Sartre. This stance was criticized by later writers (mostly, but not exclusively, grounded in analytical philosophy) since it put into question to what degree Marx's ideas and practices are, respectively, carefully developed theories versus instinctual reactions and gut analyses of faraway events that Marx only knew by third hand. This blurring of lines meant that many of Marx's ideas, shaped by the context of the middle of the 19th century, provided an impression of a more coherent and complete view than was actually formulated. In their view, this allowed many 20th-century revolutionaries to claim Marx based on selective interpretation. Vladimir Lenin spearheaded the first successful Marxist revolution in the Russian Empire, and Marx's legacy is to a large extent tied to the fortunes of that event, and its highly ambiguous outcomes across the 20th century.note Indeed, Lenin altered Marxism greatly to persuade fellow Bolsheviks and fence-sitting Mensheviks like Leon Trotsky, and other international observers, how a feudal nation without a strong bourgeoisie would provide the ground for Communist revolution. Marxism effectively split, with Orthodox Marxists criticizing Lenin for not letting industrial capitalism destroy itself and Leninists criticizing Orthodox Marxists with the claim that capitalism was getting stronger, not weaker, and that Marx's theories needed revising. The Orthodox Marxists were largely based in Europe, where they would be effectively crippled and radicalized by the rise of fascism, while Leninism gained a foothold in the colonies of the European Empires (and the unofficial American one), which were not very industrialized but had a pressing need to repel the (capitalist) imperialists from their borders. This gave rise to other self-avowed Marxist states, including the People's Republic of China, North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam. As you may have noticed, most of these countries were poor, backward, and lacked the Required Secondary Powers prescribed by Marx (heavy industrialization, a developed middle class, and strong urban population with many working classes) as preconditions for a communist revolution, and the governments that formed were repressive dictatorships that resorted to violence and aggressive land reform to institute the urbanization and industrialization that Marx said should have been done before they went to phase three.

Marx himself resided in London and analysed the changes in 19th-century England at the height of The British Empire and most of his works analyse Capitalism far more than they prescribe Socialism. During this era, corporations were allowed to do almost anything they wanted and there were no laws which protected workers. Child labor was the rule rather than the exception, all women and nearly all men could not vote, no laws existed to guarantee safe working conditions, most of the many, many poor had barely enough money to live, and there was no financial safety net protecting people from horrific poverty. It's also worth noting that during his age, the legacy of feudalism was still strong on the Continent, and most of the wealth was controlled by rich families who had possessed it for generations. Economic conditions and inequality were far worse back then, and the Empires of Europe were now inflicting it globally, seeping into cultures like India, China, Algeria, Egypt, and many nations in Africa and South America. It is no coincidence that Marx's ideas had a far stronger influence, and maintains a more positive and/or neutral legacy, in these colonial outposts than in their respective metropoles. This also led Marx, a German exile, to formulate an internationalist post-national outlook to counter the rise of what would now be described as globalization.

Marx's influence in the Western liberal nations (what is now called the "First World") would be of a subtler, more intellectual nature.note Marx's influence played a role in the more favorable reception of Internal Reformist mainstream economists such as J. M. Keynes (who was an anti-Marxist) convincing governments in many capitalist countries to accept some form of social welfare to pre-empt Communist ideas from taking root, while Thomas Piketty in the 21st century would make a case for progressive tax on the wealthy and checks on inherited wealth, points articulated by Marx in the Communist Manifesto. The backlash to Keynesianism and the rise of the neoliberal consensus coincided with the decline and fall of the USSR, which led many to see such social welfare policies, justified as a reform and bulwark against Communism, as having outlived its political utility, leading to the rise of Third Way liberalism in The '90s that departed from Cold War Labour, Democratic, and companion parties' commitments to welfare. Marx is considered to be one of the founders of modern social sciences, along with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber. Unlike many other philosophers and intellectuals of his time, he insisted that social theories must be examined through a scientific method and direct on-the-ground empirical research of statistical records and figures. His philosophy of historical materialism was the first major case against the "Great Man" view of history of kings, emperors, and popes, and shifted attention to the largely neglected and relegated-to-a-footnote masses in history, paving the way for Annales historians such as Fernand Braudel. As an economist, Marx remains heterodox, and nearly all modern economic institutions reject his work as scientifically incorrect. Nevertheless, Marxist economics retains a significant following and continues to be used as the foundation of socialist economic ideology.

Many later historians argue that Marx's key political influence came via indirectly promoting reform in many liberal nations, many of them intended to co-opt the thunder of radical movements. This assertion is dubious since advocates of reform existed before Marx, and he himself was opposed to steady and gradual reforms since he noted that it was akin to hoping that the existing order would "reform itself out of existence".note The threat of a revolution convinced many politicians to push through reforms, especially in Marx's Germany (whose citizenship he finally rejected). Otto von Bismarck, a conservative preserver of traditions, nonetheless introduced welfare and expanded voting franchise basically to bribe the working class; he also allowed other parties to exist and their representatives to serve in the Reichstag. Those that didn't change, such as Tsarist Russia, fell to Social-Democratic revolutionaries (partially) inspired by Marxism. In the case of America, the New Deal was largely shaped to co-opt class angst and the disrepute of capitalism brought into question by the (then) international and intellectual prestige of Communism (which owed itself to its grounding on Marx's ideas). The American Communists, who were in the margins during The '30s, nonetheless promoted racial equality and organized African Americans in the Deep South during the '30s, which ultimately bore fruit in the Civil Rights Movement, which mainstream liberals and some conservatives accepted at last to counter the internationalist appeal of Communism. To quote W. E. B. Du Bois, Marx "put his finger squarely upon our difficulties." Marx himself fluctuated in his attitudes to reform. When the monarchies of Europe started to give way to democracy, he did say that peacefully reforming capitalism was possible in such nations as Britain and the United States, but he argued that nations such as Germany and France had far too deeply entrenched conservative influences for any changes to take root peacefully and argued the same for other nations.note His prophecy in terms of the power of conservative forces in Germany at least was to prove prophetic. He held the short-lived Paris Commune of 1871 as the model for all future communist societies and spoke glowingly of how democratic it was, but after the conservative French Army's wholesale slaughter of the Communards, many followers of his took Marx's comments about the Communards needing more discipline to heart and moved Marxism to a more centrally commanded direction, which his critics (of whom he had many even in his lifetime) regarded as tending to authoritarianism.

He actually spent much of his life outside of his homeland. Due to his open, enthusiastic association with all the most radical people of the day, Marx essentially had no chance of ever becoming a professional academic and the Kingdom of Prussia eventually exiled him. He moved to Paris in 1843 and was expelled from France in 1849. From then on, he mostly lived in London. Nevertheless, Marx is still an icon in much of Germany. A nationwide poll in 2003 saw that Germans voted him as the third-greatest German of all time, behind only West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. To put this in perspective, Marx ranked above all the country's great classical composers, Albert Einstein, and Otto von Bismarck. In fact, the only place where Marx has a poor reputation is the United States. While some people there, even several of his critics, are willing to admit that he was a smart guy who accomplished a lot, most Americans usually associate him with their old enemy the Soviet Union and their satellite nations they fought in Proxy Wars during the Cold War. In any case, by taking the stances that Marx did, he is certain to remain controversial and contentious for future generations and since he never wrote for academic and mainstream respectability in the first place, he might well take heart that his ideas are still outside the mainstream establishment more than 130 years after his death.

Not to be confused with The Marx Brothers, or the final boss from Kirby Super Star. Also not to be confused with Karl May, another German Karl M of the 19th century who wrote books sold by the millions. The trope Karl Marx Hates Your Guts is named after him. Also, yes, he kinda does look a lot like a grumpy version of Santa Claus, naturally inviting facetious comparisons between his prescriptions for allocating resources and Santa's giving of gifts.

Please, please, PLEASE remember the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment with this guy.

Notable works by Marx include:

On the Jewish Question (1843): A response to a fellow philosopher who suggested that the only way Jews could receive political emancipation in much of Europe was to abandon their religion. This work was then seen as a major study of how secular countries actually work, with Marx claiming that even countries without a state religion will see religious forces try to take power. Today, people usually consider it anti-Semitic, though it should be noted that Marx was himself (ethnically) Jewish (he was of course an atheist in terms of actual religious beliefs). note Both his grandfathers were rabbis, while his father, born Herschel Mordechai, Germanized his name to Heinrich Marx and converted to the Evangelical Lutheran Church to qualify as a lawyer in the Kingdom of Prussia. May have been intended as a Stealth Parody — the jury is still out.

May have been intended as a Stealth Parody — the jury is still out. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1844): Not published during his own lifetime. One of his earliest works revealing his communist sympathies.

The Holy Book (1844): A damning critique of a then-popular group of philosophers known as the Young Hegelians.

The German Ideology (1846): His first collaboration with Engels. A study/critique of what German culture was like at the time. Today valued as the fullest example of his materialist theory of history.

Wage Labour and Capital (1847): One of his most important studies of how capitalism really works for those on the bottom.

The Communist Manifesto (1848): Written with Engels. His most famous work. Written in response to the Revolutions of 1848. Needs no description.

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852). Essential for understanding the Marxist view of history, it starts with the famous line, "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." (Despite much searching, no such remark from Hegel has been found.) He spends much of the essay comparing the coup d'état of Napoleon I on the 18th Brumaire An VIII (9 November 1799) with an 1851 coup by his nephew Napoleon III. It ends with an almost as famous line, "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past." about Marx's view of the place of the individual in history. In the 20th century, this book gained renewed currency for its analysis about failure in democracy leading to an autocratic-military government with broad popular support with appeals to a romanticized past glory.

Grundrisse (1858): Unfinished. An examination of a wide variety of topics, namely ones tying to economics. Basically a dry run for Capital, although some Marx scholars hold that there's stuff in this book that Marx left undeveloped.

Theories of Surplus Value (1863): A very strong critique of the idea that more material creates more wealth. For Marx, it only means more wealth for the wealthy.

Capital: Critique of Political Economy, also known as Das Kapital (Volume 1, 1867; Volumes 2 and 3 released posthumously). He set out basically to contain all his thoughts about economics and society in these books. Since Marx kept putting off finishing the thing for several years, he died before the second and third volumes were fully completed. Engels edited them after Marx's death and published them. It's massive, so much so that many modern Communist and Marxist movements advise not reading it out of necessity. The hardest parts to understand are the opening chapters of Volume 1, which consist of Marx's abstract theories about labour and value. This is a pity, because many readers never make it to the later chapters, which contain vivid and harrowing accounts of industrial conditions in 19th-century England, with extensive quotations from government reports on the subject.

The Civil War in France (1871): Notable for being an examination of the infamous Paris Commune of 1871, the most significant socialist revolution within his own lifetime.

Many of his writings are in the public domain and any interested person can read them at Marxists Internet Archive .

Karl Marx and his works provide examples of: