14. Karl Marx was born into a Jewish family in the city of Trier in the southern Rhineland area.

13. Revolutionary, sociologist, historian, and economist Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto, the most celebrated pamphlet in the history of socialism.

12. Marx studied law at Bonn and Berlin, but became interested in philosophy and took a Ph.D. degree at Jena (1841).

11. Although he was largely ignored by scholars in his own lifetime, his social, economic and political ideas gained rapid acceptance in the socialist movement after his death in 1883.

10. After schooling in Trier (1830-35), Marx entered Bonn University to study law. At university he spent much of his time socialising and running up large debts.

9. First published on February 21, 1848, The Communist Manifesto is a seminal work in communist theory. The manuscript was written primarily (and some say exclusively) by Marx and co-authored by Friedrich Engels.

8. Born into a wealthy middle class family in Trier, formerly in Prussian Rhineland now called Rhineland-Palatinate, Marx studied at both the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians.

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7. Karl Marx founded the Communist League in 1847.

6. He also was the author of the movement’s most important book, Das Kapital. These writings and others by Marx and Engels form the basis of the body of thought and belief known as Marxism.

5. He early rejected the idealism of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and turned toward materialism, partly through the influence of Ludwig Feuerbach and Moses Hess.

4. At Bonn he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, the daughter of Baron von Westphalen , a prominent member of Trier society, and man responsible for interesting Marx in Romantic literature and Saint-Simonian politics.

3. Marx came under the influence of one of his lecturers, Bruno Bauer, who introduced Marx to the writings of G. W. F. Hegel, who had been the professor of philosophy at Berlin until his death in 1831. Marx was especially impressed by Hegel’s theory that a thing or thought could not be separated from its opposite. For example, the slave could not exist without the master, and vice versa.

2. Referred to as “The Father Of Communism.”

1. Died March 14, 1883 in London.

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Hmmmmmmmmm

Chapter one

What determines a man?

 Successful man is not determined by his wealth of money but by his wealth of wisdom. Who we are and the best we can be is in different perspective what ensure our success and what we can give back to the society that makes us further plunge us into a situation we regarded as circumstances beyond our control; because sometime the environment we find ourselves determine who we are and what we are, for instance a young bright teenager born and bread in the suburb of a third world country from the realist angle the probability of that teenage girl to succeed is one per cent compare to her peer group in a more conducive environment. But with good faith and perseverance there natural nature will expose itself whether negatively or positively the fact still remain there nature will reveal itself. Nature is something we can not hide no matter how we try to avoid it, like the popular saying goes you can take the man out of the ghetto but you can not take the ghetto out of the man. We all must realize this fact, the same god that took time to create someone who is a pauper in a less attractive area is the same omniscient god that create those millionaire in high brow area, however the deterministic feature that present itself to us is obviously incompatible which makes one to wonder why such inequality of life, for the Marxism this is expected in every aspect of life. It is very evident that in the modern capitalism there exists tremendous antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat because of there different in class of societies where the bourgeoisie control virtually all means of production, for the proletariat they are left at the mercy of the bourgeoisie, as time went by the bourgeoisie and the working class challenge themselves like a guerrilla warfare, where the insurgent attack when they have the advantage. Nevertheless the proletariat like Lenin makes us to realize that the overthrow of the bourgeoisie by the dictatorship of the proletariat is not the end of the class struggle but is continuation in new form1. This statement by Lenin reminds one of the logical processes of thesis and antitheses which are unified in the synthesis that in turn take new forms of processes. In other words the effort of the proletariat to enthrone a classless society is impracticable not because is not possible but for the fact that the bourgeoisie will not sit back and allow the working class to continue to control the economy. Just as is impossible to introduce classless society is also impracticable to expect all man to think reasonably or rationally. Though Aristotle says man is a rational animal2 but not all man with the prevalent level of intelligential amongst men one can not but doubt human faculty of reasoning this is not to doubt scholar that agree that man is indeed the most intelligent creature in the cosmic environment but to prove that there are certain unforeseen circumstances that affect our reasoning may be due to brain damage from birth or there are some disturbing infection in our deterministic potential that make one man to think reasonably and other unreasonably. But if indeed there some hidden circumstances that caused us (man) to think unreasonably then there is a metaphysical explanation to that view which will be discuss extensively in chapter two of this book but before that we should ask ourselves these question, is it our lack of metaphysic that makes us to think irrationally? Or are we born by nature perhaps to be daft or retarded? Definitely it has to be one of these two, by nature yes some are born blind, deaf, cripple and what have you. So is also possible that some are born to be absolutely irrational not by there own doing of course but beyond there own status that somehow makes such men not to notice that they are actually different from their fellow human being.

                    In the past it was reported that the German pope, pope Benedict the xvi claim that scientist cannot explain the world without God, if many agree with this statement and there is no attempt to refute it then the pope we can construe is right not on the bases of this universal statement but because scientist themselves are human being whose opinion and ideas and fact also differs. for instance some scientist erroneously believe that black people don’t have there own history some even went further to claim that black emanate from  gorilla and monkeys, other also wonder why is it only majority of blacks athlete win  long distance races some of the scientist attribute this to genes that is only found in black peoples blood, we all must agree that this is false believe on the part of the scientist, the African black athletes that win long distance races did so because of practice and long distance walk they are use to doing in there child days. So going by the words of the pope scientist indeed needs the help of religious people to explain the universe. We can then deduce that God undeniably is one of the numerous deterministic trend in man, since god create man he has the control over man and his environment, and how did God carry out this control, through religion, Karl Marx figuratively describe religion as the opium of the people, his absolutely right, metaphorically of course, human being now found hope in there various religion because that seem to bring them closer to God. How ever viewing it from another angle we can not wait until thy kingdom come for god to explain what transpire between him and the universe, what we can best do is to gather ourselves, the philosophers, scientist, archeologist, historians, black and white to form a team and unravel this mystery question, what determines a man?

References

1.   F.N. Ndubuisi, Man and State, Lagos, Foresight press, 2008. p,83

2.   J.I. Omoregbe, Ethics: a systematic and historical study, third edition    ikeja, joja press Ltd, 1993. P, 124.

EXPLANATION OF SOCIAL CLASS MARXIST THEORY

Marx’s theory of social class is based on a model of two social classes defined by whether or not they own the means of production.The bourgeoisie (the owning class) is a ruling class which exploits the proletariat (the non-owning class).This expoitation gives rise to class conflict between these two major classes.The proletariat will eventually overthrow the bourgeoisie in the socialist revolution,and create an equal,classless society called communism.

FUNCTIONALIST APPROACH ON SOCIAL CLASS.

Functionalists see society as similar to a human body.Each part of society performs a fuction to keep the society “alive”, just as each part of the body has its role to play.It is clearly said that some parts of the body are more important than others.For example, the heart is much more important than the little finger.

In society there are certain jobs that are more important for society than other.Functonalist would claim that doctors are more important, for example, than a car sales man.

Social Inequality? (Photo credit: quinn.anya)

Functionalists see little conflict among classes.

Criticisms of functionalists approach.

The explanation has been criticis it seem a justification by the better paid for there heigher incomes.Although some jobs are clearly more important than others, it is extrimely difficult to grad most job.

            While having a hard time in life, Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital. According to Das Kapital, a capitalistic society of perfect competition will eventually lead to destruction. In this free market, every product sells for the exact price, which in turn is determined by the amount of labor that is put into creating that product. The workers want to earn their wages, while the capitalist wants to make a profit by selling the product. In a capitalist society, it seems impossible for the capitalist to make that profit since the products sell for an exact value.

            Income distribution in a capitalist society is in favor of the capitalists. There will be no problem making profits if there are monopolies that sets extreme prices, but capitalism does not allow those extreme prices, which eventually leads to the destruction of capitalism. As a solution to this problem, Marx identifies that profit can be traced back to labor. The amount of wages the workers receive reflects the price of the product directly; the less they receive, the cheaper the product, the more they receive, the more expensive the product. Therefore, if the labor forces are paid less and the price is kept the same, the capitalist will make more profit. In other words, the capitalist “steals” the workers’ wages by allowing the workers to keep their jobs only if they work a certain number of hours every day. For example, if a regular work day is 8 hours, the capitalist can force the laborers to work for 10 hours with the same pay as what they would receive as 8 hours. This way, the capitalist gains a profit of 2 hours worth of wages and creates a surplus value.

            Surplus value is affected by the rise and fall of capitalism. When a company wants to make profit, it expands its production, which raises capitalism. As companies hire more laborers, surplus value increases. However, because the market is a perfect competition, other companies also try to increase their surplus value. Workers will want to work at a company that offers the highest wages, causing companies to raise the wages. Consequently, profit and surplus value decreases. Eventually, technology gets involved and companies replace laborers with machines. This way, labor increases and the wage decreases. As capitalism rises, surplus value decreases, and as capitalism falls, surplus value increases. However, companies do not receive surplus value from the machines. Yet, in order to keep in pace with the other companies, the capitalist must keep modernizing, which in turn decreases profit to a point where the company gets bankrupt. As workers lose their jobs, wages are forced to accept cuts in wages. Companies hire workers with the low wages, causing the surplus value to return and the cycle repeats itself again, until the capitalist gets swallowed by the bigger capitalists.

Portraits of Auguste Comte.

1842: The term sociology as a branch of Social Sciences was first coined by the French scientist, named August Comte in 1842 and became known as the father of sociology. [Citation needed] Sociology as the study of people born in Europe because of European scientists in the 19th century began recognized the need to specifically study the conditions and social change. [citation needed] The scientists then tried to build a social theory based on the intrinsic characteristics of society at every stage of human civilization. [citation needed] Comte distinguish between static sociology, which focused attention on the law static-law is the basis of a dynamic society and sociology in which attention is focused on the development of society in the sense of development. Comte pilot was welcomed warmly by the public, it appears from the appearance of a large number of scientists in the field of sociology. [Citation needed] They include Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Ferdinand Tonnies, Georg Simmel, Max Weber, and Pitirim Sorokin (all from of Europe). [citation needed] Each of the large contribution of different approaches to studying community contributed very useful for the development of sociology. [citation needed]

Émile Durkheim – French social scientists – managed to institutionalize sociology as an academic discipline. [Citation needed] Emile introduces functionalist approach that seeks to explore the function of various social elements as well as custodians of social order binders.

1876: Herbert Spencer published in England and introduce approaches Sosiology organic analogy, which understands society as the human body, as an organization made up of parts that are dependent on each other.

Karl Marx introduced the approach of dialectical materialism, which considers the conflict between social classes into the essence of change and development of society.

Max Weber introduced the approach Verstehen (understanding), which seeks to explore values, beliefs, goals, and attitudes to guide human behavior.

In the United Lester F. Dynamic publishing Sosiology Ward.

A portrait of Karl Marx. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chinese Economic System: The populous Chinese nation is one of the very few countries which still by and large practice communism. In China, the means of production are almost entirely in government hands and government plays a very prominent role even today.

                                    But after globalization the Chinese economic system has been changed. China has introduced various reforms to develop in the world.

                                    Before the introduction of policies of reforms and opening up to the outside world, China had a unitary public ownership economy, which lacked vitality. But since putting into practice of the reform, the individual and private economies have developed rapidly.

                                      By the end of 1997, the registered industrial and commercial enterprises of individual and private ownership amounted 29.47 million.

                                      At the same time the control of the public ownership economy has been further strengthened.

                                 The Chinese economic system is designed on the philosophy of Karl Marx. Hence it is known as communist socio economic system. According to the Marxist, centralized planning with public ownership of  the means of production leads to an ideal economic  system.   

                               China had adopted communism but now to improve its economic system, china has introduced various economic reforms. Now China has opened and increased the share of the capital of foreign investors. 

Young Vladimir was deeply affected by this. He became involved in revolutionary activities and began to use the name Lenin to keep the czar’s police from learning his real identity. He was arrested in 1895 and sent to prison for 14 months. After that, he was exiled to Siberia for three years.

Lenin’s revolutionary ideas were greatly influenced by the writings of Karl Marx, a German Communist. Marx believed that the capitalist system, in which rich people owned the industries, was wrong.

He wrote that the poor workers would revolt and take over the industries. He believed this would result in Communism, a system in which all the people would belong to the same social class. Lenin thought that Marx was right and that Russia would be better off under Communism.

      Karl Marx lived at a time when the conditions of the working class were hideously inhumane.  Not only were adults exploited, but children were as well.  Because of their small size, young children were made to work in mines and other industries. 

     Marx befriended Frederick Engles, who wrote The Condition of the Working Classes in England.  Together they paired up to write…The Communist Manifesto.

So what exactly did Marx believe?  

     The way Marx saw it, there was a natural course that was taking place.  He saw it like this…

     First comes Feudalism, then Capitalism and finally Socialism.  This (according to Marx) is the natural course the “material forces of production” takes.  Of course, different countries haven’t followed this outline as laid out by Marx, and we have witnessed their demise (e.g. Russia).

     It is interesting to note the course the United States of America is on.  Only time will tell if Marx had it right.