​Meet Karl Marx

 

It would be hard to find a historical figure more controversial and more misunderstood than Karl Marx. His writing inspired revolutions that changed the world, led to some of the most brutal dictatorships of the 20th century, and created the ultimate show-down between Capitalism and Communism in a little global contest known as the Cold War. By the 1960s, half of the world’s population was ruled by governments- from China to Cuba- whose leaders were inspired by Marx.

 

This was the Industrial Age. Enlightenment thinkers were asking  why so few held so much wealth while the masses lived in abject poverty. Their homes were in rat infested hovels without running water, and often were little more than fire traps. The laws of the 19th century favored the rich and powerful. Strikes and Labor Unions were often broken up using police force. The workers had few rights to protest their condition. Those who did were fired and blacklisted, which meant that their name was spread around to other employers as being trouble makers. Workers who got sick or were injured on the job could, and often were, fired without compensation. There are more than a few stories of some poor worker who got her hand caught in the gears of the machine. She would never work again, was given no compensation, hardly even an apology.

 

One group of people who spoke out against the abuses of this capitalist system, were the socialists. Throughout Europe there were many groups who followed the call of socialism but not all socialists shared the same ideas. Some believed in creating a Utopian community where all property was shared. These people chose to live on communes separate from the rest of society. Others like Marx thought that for socialism to succeed it had to be revolutionary, sweeping across the entire world, not just on some isolated farm. Marx, working as editor of various magazines, used his position to call for revolutionary change. He slammed capitalism and the Robber Barons who grew enormously wealthy at the expense of the millions of poor masses.

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​The Communist Manifesto

 

Karl may not have invented socialism or communism, but alongside Frederick Engels he would become its most famous cheerleader. Marx spent most of his adult life writing, and debating- which didn’t pay very well- which is why he always bumming money from Engels- whose family was loaded. Marx and Engels wrote a lot of political pamphlets, essays, and books. Their most famous work was The Communist Manifesto, which laid out the workings of Marx’s vision for a future communist revolution.

 

The Communist Manifesto is written like a drama where the proletariats are the heroes and the bourgeois are the villains. The Manifesto starts back in the Middle Ages when feudalism produced only two classes: the nobles and everyone else. Over the years, the Bourgeois came into being replacing the old feudal system with a new capitalist system where money- not noble birth- determined your status. Marx claimed that the Bourgeois used their wealth and power to keep the poor down.

 

The Bourgeois were guilty of four crimes. The first is that they spread their cheap manufactured goods around the globe destroying local industries. The second crime is that all of these cheap products were destroying local cultures. The third crime was that capitalism kept the rural areas in poverty by drawing away people from farming to work in those horrible factories. The last crime of the Bourgeois was that all of these cheap goods was trashing the environment. If all of these arguments sound familiar, that’s because they are. People who in the 21st century are fighting against globalization are using the same arguments (whether they realize it or not) that Marx used 150 years ago! You might call him the original “Buy American” spokesman, except that he wasn’t living in America.