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about Karl Marx:
Karl Marx
Karl Marx's writings
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Karl Marx was a
German philosopher in the mid 1800's whose political ideas had an
outstanding impact on the twentieth century. After being exiled from
several countries for his radical ideas, Marx along with his partner
and friend Friedrich Engels joined a newly formed group of German
exiles called The Communist League. When asked to write a statement
about the group's beliefs, Marx and Engel produced the Communist
Manifesto, which began with a now famous warning:
"A spectre is
haunting Europe-the spectre of communism" (Marx, p.1).
During Marx's time, capitalism was
an extremely harsh system. Marx believed that capitalism produced
"riches for few and poverty for everyone else" (Sowell, p.22). He saw
that through capitalism, wealth was unevenly distributed. The working
class, who produced the wealth, received nothing, while the
controllers of the working class reaped all the benefits by receiving
the wealth. To solve this problem, Marx created what is now known as
Marxism. He believed that the working class would revolt against the
upper class, and soon society as a whole would be equal. The main flaw
with his plan, however, was that Marx did not worry about corruption
in his new society. He believed that corruption was a "product of
oppression" (Kort, p. 27). As history proved, it is impossible for
Marx to have believed in a society where people get along so well that
all work is done voluntarily and there is no need for prisons, judges,
or governors, as Marx would have liked to have happened. As a result
of his false perception of human nature, no Marxist society ever
avoided massive abuses of power by those in control.
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