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The Beginning of a Lifetime
May 5, 1818 a man by the name of Karl Marx had been born into this world in the city of Trier, Germany. He came up in a middle-class family that all strived for succes. Even before reaching age 17, he was already one of the most respected lawyrers in Trier. When 17, he enrolled in the Faculty of Law at the University of Bonn. While at this campus Karl met his wife, Jenny von Westphalen. -
Getting Serious With His Work
In the following years Marx's father moved him into a more serious college. The University of Berlin, where he stayed for four years. at which time he abandoned his romanticism for the Hegelianism which ruled in Berlin at the time. -
Becoming The Realist
Karl had became a member of the Young Helegian movement. He eventually moved into journalism and became an editor in Cologne. As power as his words were, Marx's articles pushed the Prussian government to shut down the paper. He then moved to France. -
Another Movement
In the process of Marx moving again, he immediately made contact with a very organized group of emirge German workers and French socialists who led him in the right way for success. In this short amount of time he even edited Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher, a book that was meant to branch off French socialism and the Germans radical Helegians. -
His Communist Days Begin
After the first couple months in Paris, Marx became a communist. He explained his ideas in a series of books called Economic and Philosophical Manuscipts, the book that had remained unpublished until the 1930s. Throught the series Karl talked about the humanist conception of communism. Influenced by the philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach. It was also in Paris when Karl started his friendship with Friedrich Engels. -
Kickoff To A New Start
In the beginning of the year 1845, Karl Marx and partner Engels had been expelled from Paris and immediatley moved to Brussels where he would remain for the next 3 years. While in Brussels Marx did alot of studying on history and studied the materialist conception of history. Which had then lead him to publishing another book known as "The German Ideology" which was mainly about the nature of individuals depends on the material conditions determining their production. -
History In The Making
This was an organization of German émigré workers with its center in London of which Marx and Engels became the major theoreticians. At a conference of the League in London at the end of 1847 Marx and Engels were commissioned to write a succinct declaration of their position. Scarcely was The Communist Manifesto published than the 1848 wave of revolutions broke out in Europe. -
Back To Where He Started
Karl Marx now made his was back to Paris. He gave his main energies to its editorship since the Communist League had been disbanned. Marx's paper was ended he sought refuge in London in May 1849. -
Settlting In London
After settling down in London, Marx continued with his writing and then went to write to pamphlets about the 1848 revolutuion in France. These two pamphlets went by the names of "The Class Struggles in France" and "The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. -
Tragedies
Marx and his family had been through a lot in the years but thus definetly was the worst. For the first half of the 1850s Karl and his family had lived in poverty in the Soho parts of London. Jenny & him had already had four children with two more on the way. Of them, only three survived. His only way of income was through his bestfriend Friedrich who was steadily building the income from the family business he has in Manchester. -
Hitting The Spotlight
Most of Marx's politcal economy work didn't make much progress but when 1857 had hit, he had produced a 800 page manuscript on capital, landed property, wage labor, the state, foreign trade and the world market. -
Time Off
In this year Marx had took time to create three volumes. One of them being "Theories of Surplus Value", which was about Adam Smith and David Ricardo, theoreticians of political economy. It was not until 1867 that Marx was able to publish the first results of his work in volume 1 of Capital. In Capital, Marx elaborated his idea of the labor theory value and his idea of surplus value and exploitation which would lead to a falling rate of profit in the decrease of industrial capitalism. -
Focusing On The Big Picture
In 1864 Marx had put most of his time into The First International, which he was elected at its inception. -
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Health Decline
In Karl Marx last years, his health started to fall downhill. He was not able to keep a sustained effort that powered him to do his work. He did manage to comment on contemporary politics, particularly in Germany and Russia but his health did not improve. He traveled to European spas in search of recuperation. The deaths of his eldest daughter and his wife clouded the last years of his life. Marx died March 14, 1883 and was buried at Highgate Cemetery in North London.
