In a recent Prager U video, you hear it said that Karl Marx was wrong and is not to be taken seriously. In this essay, I will present the underlying case as to why Marx is significant.
In Marx’s time, he saw the real horrors that capitalism brought first-hand. He came from a reasonably well-off family, but he saw terrible factory conditions in Germany, Britain, and France throughout his life. Because of his political work, Marx had to remain in poor conditions because governments did not like his work. Eventually, after being kicked out of and relocated to numerous countries, he found refuge in London and was forced to live out the rest of his life in severe conditions.
Marx focused on everything including history, economics, and philosophy. Everything in his work, however, focused on the working class and its future.
Marx proposed a dialectical approach to the question of the future of capitalism. He knew that within society, just as Hagel said, was full of contradictions to be resolved. He said that the contradiction between the capitalist class and the working class would only be fixed if the proletariat seized political power and control of the economy.
Marx knew that all of history is the history of class struggle, from primitive communism came agrarian slave society, ruled by slave owners, which gave birth to feudalism, ruled by the aristocracy, which gave birth to capitalism ruled by the bourgeoisie. Capitalism is full of contradictions and oppresses the working people just like systems before it, therefore, it is not the end of class struggle because it does not resolve class contradiction contrary to what defenders of capitalism would have you believe.
Contrary to the belief of almost every other political ideology, Marx saw the state as not an abstract thing that represents all people, but an instrument of class oppression. Marx believed that instead of the rich owning the state, the workers would one day seize the state and use it as an instrument of struggle against the ruling class.
Despite Marx’s theories having to be adjusted as new conditions devloped and were discovered, his theories are applicable today and have as much significance as they did then. His dialectical approach to society changed how we think about history, politics, and economics.
Marx has influenced numerous socialist societies and independence movements around the world. Even among capitalist academia, he is still regarded as one of the founders of political economy. As said before, his approach to Hagel’s dialects to society changed how we analyze our society and history. Marx was not wrong, and it can be argued, he was correct about most things.
Sources:
Pragr U video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhEkJ4noN68
Some Marx works:
Marx, Karl, Critique of Hegel’s ‘philosophy of Right’. Progress Publishers, 1959
Marx, Karl, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Progress Publishers, 1959
Voices Of The Revolution 