Marxism By Freddie Mulligan

Basic info Born: 1818 Died: 1883 Nationality: German Main interests: Politics Economics History

Marxism Karl Marx is the co-founder of Marxism with another man called Friedrich Engels. In 1848 Karl Marx and Engels produced The Communist Manifesto, The book contains Marx and Engels' Marxist theories about the nature of society and politics. It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism, and then eventually become communism.

Das Kapital Later on Friedrich Engels supported Marx financially to do research and write the book, Das Kapital. Which he explained how he thought that capitalism would fall given his thoughts and explanations to how it would be done and why it would happen.

Class struggle According to Marx, society has always been divided into two parts and these two classes have always fought each other. High class: Bourgeois that would equal 1% of the population Low class: Proletariat which was the other 99% of the population. All history is exploitation so when the Bourgeois owned a company and the proletariat worked for them and when they made money the Bourgeoris would take all of the money, (exploitation)

Surplus Value Marx believed that the bourgeoisie basically brought the products of the laborers at the cheap price and then sold those same products back to them at a high price. In effect stealing the surplus value as their own profits

Inevitability of Socialism Marx argued that over time, capital (money) would concentrate in the hands of a small number of capitals. Classless society Finally the lower class would rise up, and overthrow the capitals, and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat

Trotskyism vs stalinism They both were part of Marxism but the two had different ideas of what it was. Stalin believed: that if you oppose socialism in the state you shall be killed and The withering away of the state can be achieved through socialist dictatorship and A newly created socialist state can only survive if it strengthens its internal security. Trotsky believed: that you Encourage those who oppose socialism to support socialism and The withering away of a stat can be achieved through socialist democracy and A newly created socialist state can only survive if the world abandons capitalism.

Pictures of Karl Marx

sources http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/ http://www.marxists.org/glossary/ http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article287 http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html