Karl Marx Essay Research Paper 1Karl Marx

Karl Marx Essay, Research Paper

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Karl Marx : The Man Behind Communism

Were Karl Marx ideas on communism moral. It is quite obvious that some societies do or did believe that communism was a good way of life. Even though there are many drawbacks to communism there are still some advantages. Karl Marx is a man of intrigue he only did what he wanted to and not what others wanted him to do. Upon completion of my research I feel that Marx was a very bright man. His ideas may not be all together but a man that can introduce communism to the world and actually get people to follow Marx ideas is powerful to me. In my research paper I would like to tell you a little about the life and times of Karl Marx, and how is ideas effect the economy today.

Karl Marx was born at 2 am on May 5, 1818. Marx was one of eight children he had two brothers and five sisters. His mother Henriette Prockmon called Karl, Gluckskind meaning child of fortune. She loved Karl and his sibling all the same and felt fortunate to have children. But Karl’s father thought that Marx was “possessed by a demon” (Padover 22) it was probably since Karl always never did what his father expected of him. Karl’s siblings even saw him as a tyrant he would use his siblings as a horse and ridicule them all for being slow intellectually since he was gifted at learning compared to them. Marx’s childhood was not all peachy he had two brothers and one sister die of tuberculosis, which ran in the family and kept Marx out of military service (Padover 38). Karl was raised as a Jewish man but in 1824 a Prussian government decree conformed a long-

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standing practice that Non-Christians could not attend schools. So in August 1824 he was baptized in the Trier Evangelical church. Therefore he had his road to college paved for him by being able to go to school for lower education. Marx started college at Bonn University where his father wanted him to learn law and continue the family business. Marx on the other hand wanted to go for philosophy. He switched to Berlin University after his first year so that he could get a better education. Marx disappointed his father by not studying law and told his father “I did not read works on jurisprudence primarily to become a lawyer, but rather to find metaphysical answers.” (Padover 49). Marx got a doctorate in philosophy from Berlin with financial help from his mom whom was not well off financially and lived in a lower-middle class neighborhood. In 1842 Karl Marx started writing for a liberal democratic newspaper called Rheinische Zietung in Cologne, and at the end of 1842 Marx became the editor for the paper (Padover 29). In the beginning of 1843 Marx was told by the ministry that at the end of the quarter the paper must cease publication, causing Karl to resign immediately. The summer of 1843 before heading to Paris to devote his time to studying political economy and the history of the great French Revolution, he married the daughter of Privey Councillor Von Westphalen in trier named Jenny Von Westphalen. Marx liked to speak his mind in writings, which caused him to be expelled from France by Guizot in 1845 (Carver 208) . Upon leaving France he went to Brussels and stayed there, pursuing the same studies, until the outbreak of the February Revolution. Marx still could not keep his ideas to himself and was asked to leave Brussels, He was asked to return to France by the French Provisional

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Government to help with the uprising there (Appelbaum 119). Marx lived a poor life; his long time friend Fredrick Engles asked Marx and his family to move to London where he was. By doing so Engles helped Marx with food and shelter for him and his family. While in London Marx and Engles worked on papers and books together, Marx wrote article for the New York Times at that time also. Even with all of the writings that Marx did he still never made a lot of money. In Karl Marx’s later years he was always sick with different ailments causing him not to write much so he had no extra money to pay to see a doctor (Padover 323). Marx died March 14 1883 but his ideas are still alive today in different countries to day. Marx’s most famous writings include The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital for major works. He was well known for his time and his name still pops up in today’s society. Karl Marx was a very smart man in history even though his views may not have been the right road.

The times of Karl Marx were nothing to brag about either. Imagine living in his time there was no advanced medicine and living without the technology that we have today. To some it may not be to bad but you still had to eat, provide shelter for your family and medical help for your family when they need. Since the medical care for Marx was to expensive and not as advanced as today he lost a lot of people dear to him that he would not have lost today. When Marx was a child he lost a sister and a brother to tuberculosis, in today’s society. Marx was also the support for revolutions. He would put his ideas on paper and let the public read them. A lot of times what he spoke of was truth that would lead to a revolution (Cameron 421). In 1840 the industrial revolution began in England

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and France had brought into being a new social force that was pressed for widespread change in society. This force was the industrial working class, a class of wage labourer