Karl Marx Mike Aboala

Marx was born in Trier, Prussia (now Germany), in He studied philosophy at universities in Bonn and Berlin, earning his doctorate in Jena at the age of twenty-three. His early radicalism, first as a member of the Young Hegelians, then as editor of a newspaper suppressed for its derisive social and political content, preempted any career aspirations in academia and forced him to flee to Paris in In 1849 Marx moved to London, where he continued to study and write, drawing heavily on works by David Ricardo and Adam Smith. Marx died in London in 1883 in somewhat impoverished surroundings. Most of his adult life, he relied on his friend Friedrich Engels for financial support (Kaidantzis ).

He was the oldest surviving boy in a family of nine children. Marx was a bourgeois Jew who died an atheist. He was a unique person. Shortly after his eighteenth birthday Marx was excused military service because of his weak chest. He was a co-president of the Trier Tavern Club (a drinking club) (Wheen).

Karl Marx believed that human thought or consciousness was rooted in human activity not the other way around. What this meant was the way we went about our business, the way we were organized in our daily life was reflected in the way we thought about things and the sort of world we created. The political system, the legal system, the family, the press, the education system were all rooted to the class nature of society, which in turn was a reflection of the economic base. Marx maintained that the economic base or infrastructure generated or had built upon it a superstructure that kept it functioning. The education system, as part of the superstructure, therefore, was a reflection of the economic base and served to reproduce it. This did not mean that education and teaching was a sinister plot by the ruling class to ensure that it kept its privileges and its domination over the rest of the population(Burke).

Karl Marx was the leader of the Communists. Marx published his ideas in 1848 in The Communist Manifesto, written with his friend Friedrich Engels, and later in Capital. In these works Marx wrote about the problems of the working people. He thought that people's ideas and lives were largely controlled by money. The capitalists, he said, were not concerned about workers' problems. Marx believed that private ownership of property and control of wealth caused this hardship. These problems could be solved only by replacing capitalism with Communism. Eventually, Marx thought, the workers would lead a revolution and overthrow the capitalists.(Britannica Elementary Library).

Burke, Barry “Karl Marx and education”. Infed. January 03, April and-education/ and-education/ Kaidantzis, Janet Beales “The Concise Encyclopedia Of Economics”. Library Economics Liberty. 2008, Liberty fund.4/26/13 ml ml