Karl Marx stood as nineteenth century philosopher, with ideas that served as a influence during the twentieth century. He analyzed that different social classes caused conflict in society, and that the severe depressive capitalist economy has influenced further generations. Many can say that accumulated capital started from slavery, genocide, natural resources, and conquest. Most people who were against Karl Marx’s at the time would call him a radical, but I believe that many people would have these same ideas as him but just didn’t express them in the same manner. Marx believed that the overthrow of capitalism would serve as something that will eventually turn into communism. He stood responsible for creating communism, and believed that with this would achieve a lot. During this time these ideas were ones that believed shouldn’t have been talked about, which than led him to being banished from both his native land of Germany and then France...before finally settling in England. Karl believed that with communism the government should own everything such as means of production, factories, utilities...and anything else that people needed to survived. The reason for this is because he thought that if the government owned everything and distributed it to everyone..than a reason to vote would no longer be needed. Every section of the government would basically make sure that everyone was living well. If a person could not get a job, therefore the government would provide for them financially. This also meant that children would have to go to school for free instead of working in factories, and education would serve a lot of people well and a lot of issues in the society wouldn’t exist anymore. I believe that this idea served as something positive to many people who couldn’t work or were unable to find jobs, but from a different perspective it can be taken advantage of. Individuals would think “Why should I have to work, when the government would provide me with whatever I needed.”
On another note, during that time period, the human race was moving along fast but the working class were suffering. People who worked received low wages and during the time where capital accumulation was improving, the pay given to the laborers didn’t show any economic well being. The economic state of things, determines society according to Marx. He believes that the basic structure is based on the expropriation of the wage workers by the capitalist. Capitalism was something Marks didn’t agree with. He believed that it would just cause a downfall. In a way it showed the labor theory of value is where workers is not paid equivalent to work produced. This situation happens a lot, because its known that the bosses who take full advantage of workers (paying them low wages and collecting more money) will be the ones who benefit in the end. This is because their income is increasing, while the pay of the workers are either decreasing or staying constant. This can be an example of vampirization, where the businesses are the vampires while the workers would be the people who the vampires sucked blood from. This starts off a on going process because in order for the capitalist to continue making money, they have to keep exploiting workers. (Immiseration..capitalist become richer, while workers become poorer). This was something that could have caused a general strike according to Marx’s, because he believed there would be a time where workers would take a stand. Workers were also hurting each other because capitalist knew that there would always be a worker who was willing to take low wages, if ever someone complained about low pay. This stood as something that never slowed down capitalism but only kept it going.
The educational aspect of Marks ideas relate to the way life is today. Free education for all children in public schools shaped the way we live today because being in a school such where this idea is practiced, it shows that Marx’s ideas had value. Also Marx’s theory of alienation is something that many go through today but don’t really notice it. Most peoples definition of alienation is leaving something. Ex: When you take a art class you like because of your love for it, but sooner or later the love starts to die because now you are forced to do it for a passing grade. According to Marx’s is a separation of things that naturally belong together. Such as when one loves to sew, they get a job sewing things in order to make money. After a while the person will lose love for sewing because now it is seen as something that they have to do. This situation takes places a lot because many people love to do the jobs that they have, but once they realize that its something they must do...the love for the job slowly disappears.
