Brief History of Marx.

The first 200 words of this essay...

Brief History of Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher, economist, and social theorist whose account of change through conflict is known as historical, or dialectical materialism. His manuscript, Das Kapital, is the fundamental text of Marxist economics and his systematic theses on class struggle, history and the importance of economic factors in politics have exercised an enormous influence on later thinkers and political activists.

Alienation

Marxism began in a critique of religion, as a young man, Marx had learned from various German philosophers that God did not exist, that 'God' was in fact a name given by men to human nature which had been abstracted and set over them as an alien power. 'God' was an illusion, a projection of human power at the expense of human well being.

"The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that for man the supreme being is man, and thus with the categorical imperative to overthrow all conditions in which man is a debased, enslaved, neglected, and contemptible human being." (1)

That is what is at the heart of Marxism, that nothing is above man, neither nature nor God. Marx extended this critique of religion