ASSIGNMENT

Assignment

Assignment

Introduction

"The history of society is the history of struggles between social classes (Rader, M. 145)." This quote from Karl Max is an introduction to his philosophy of government and economics. Karl Marx was German political philosopher and revolutionist, and one of the most influential people in the history of the world. His theories on economics and government have had immense effects on the world. Revolutions, wars, and other struggles have been fought over his theories and concepts.

Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818 and died on March 14, 1883, In Germany. He formed the basis of the body of ideas known as Marxism (Ollman, B. 467). In his youth he was deeply affected by the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel, and joined a rebel group called the Young Hegelians, which contributed ideas towards the movement against organized religion and the Prussian Autocracy. Karl Marx was educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena in Germany. Here he began developing his writing and in 1842, he contributed his first article to the Cologne newspaper Rheinische Zeitung (Ollman, B. 469). Within a short time Marx became editor of the paper. In his writings Marx, criticized political and social conditions. This caused controversy with the authorities, and in 1843 Marx was forced to resign his, and soon afterward the Rheinische Zeitung was forced to discontinue publication and Marx went to Paris (Ollman, B. 469).

In Paris, Marx extended his studies in philosophy, history, and political science, and this is where Marx adopted his adopted communist beliefs (Rader, M. 132). In Paris he met a man who shared his same views and they began collaboration to clarify systematically the theoretical principles of communism and to organize an international working-class movement dedicated to those principles. This man was Fredrich Englels. Marx was later ordered to leave Paris because of revolutionary activities and settled in Brussels. This collaboration leads to the writing on the Communist Manifesto (Rader, M. 134). This writing leads too many Marxist revolutions throughout Europe.

Economic Theories

Marx's economic theories mainly deal with the comparison and contrast between Marxism and Capitalism. Karl Marx had many theories that dealt with many different aspects of society. In this paper, I will discuss the theories that deal with Economics. Karl Marx had one main subject for his theories which dealt with the value of labor. This concept deals with the exploitation of workers and the components involved in production.

The first part of Marx's value of labor theory deals with commodities. Commodities are defined as an object outside of us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another (Miliband, R. 243). These commodities have different values and according to Marx every commodity has two values: exchange value and use value. The use value of a commodity refers to the fact that is has some sort of use; it serves some purpose or meets some want. Every commodity must have a use or it has no value and is not a ...