MATERIALISM

CONTENT:

1.Karl Marx
2.Dialectical Materialism
3.Communism
 Karl Marx
As a materialist arguing that matter is reality, Marx agreed with
Hegel that the dialectical process takes place in nature and in history. He disagreed
with Hegel’s idealism that the dialectic is the
process of the Absolute Spirit. Hegel’s pyramid is upside down, said Marx, and he
wanted to turn it over on its “material base.”
That is why philosophers say Marx turned Hegel on his head. What makes us human,
said Marx, is that we produce. Through productive activities such as fishing, farming,
and building, we develop a society that in turn shapes us. Hegel had said that spirit
determines our existence. Marx took the opposite view:

The mode of production of material life conditions

the general process of social, political, and intellectual life.
It is not the consciousness of men that determines
their existence, but their social existence that determines
their consciousness.
 Life and work Karl Marx
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
• Born in Prussia of Jewish family
converted to Christianity
• Influenced by the philosopher Hegel
• Much of his work in London in
collaboration with Friedrich Engels
-concept of dialectical materialism
-The Communist Manifesto
 Karl was highly intelligent and was
influenced by his father’s intelligence and
his concern for others. Another influence
in his life was a neighbor and well-
known government official, Ludwig von
Westphalen, who later became his father-
in-law. Westphalen introduced him to the
works of the Greek poets as well as to
At age 17, Marx enrolled in the University of
those of Dante and Shakespeare.
Bonn to study law. Law took a backseat to his partying,
however, and to the love letters he wrote to Jenny von
Westphalen. When his father discovered what was going
on, he transferred Marx to the University of Berlin.
There, Marx was so impressed with Hegel that he gave
up law to study philosophy. He also became a member of
 At 23, Marx received his doctoral degree from the University of Jena, but after
graduation, no university would hire him. The young Hegelians had become radical
leftists, and they publicly criticized the New Testament Gospels. About this time, Marx’s
father died, leaving only enough money to support Marx’s mother and family. Marx was
not only on his own but out of a job.

Finally, a Hegelian publisher of a liberal

newspaper, the Rhenish Gazette, based in Cologne,
Germany, hired Marx as editor. His editorials, however,
caused such uproars that the government suppressed the
paper and Marx was again out of a job. He went to
Paris, found a job as coeditor of a German - French
journal, and married Jenny. Yet, the journal soon closed,
and he was again jobless. For a short period, a
 For the next 20 years, Marx and his family lived in
London. Because he mismanaged funds, they lived in poverty,
and for the rest of his life, most of his income consisted of gifts
from Engels. Isolating himself to study and write, Marx worked
long hours to produce his philosophy. In his last work, Das
Kapital, he looked forward to a revolution that would crush
capitalism.
During his final years, Marx developed a liver disorder.
His wife, Jenny, became ill and his six-year-old son died. In
1881, Jenny died, and Marx’s oldest daughter died in 1883.
Two years later, Marx died at age 65.
 Marx’s Marriage
• Marx married his childhood sweetheart Jenny
von Westphalen, shortly after the closing of the
Rheinische Zeitung.
• Jenny came from a wealthy, politically
connected family. Her family made it clear
that she would be cut off if she married him.
• Bored with her princess like life, she left
everything behind and married Karl, a man
who was almost penniless at the time.
• Together they left Prussia and went to Paris,
the revolutionary center of Europe.
Dialectical Materialism
Hegel had argued that Absolute Spirit is the
driving force of the world. Marx took exactly the
opposite view, claiming that the driving force of
the world is economics, not spirit.
For Marx, the material factors in society, such
as the economy and production, determine the way
we think and behave.
 Using Hegel’s thesis, antithesis, and synthesis method, Marx
proposed “five epochs of history”:
(1)the primitive, or communal;
(2)slave;
(3)feudal;
(4)capitalist;
(5)socialist or communist.
The tension between the bourgeoisie, or ruling
class, and the proletariat, or oppressed working class, creates
the conflict between the rulers and the exploited. The basis
for each historical epoch, said Marx, is its economic structure
(its production).
 Karl Marx argued that religion
was a force that stopped society from
changing because the ruling class
used it to keep the working class
under control. By focusing on the joys
in the afterlife and distracting itself
from conditions in the present life,
the working class used religion to
comfort itself in its oppressed state.
 Production. According to Marx, we are social animals
with physical needs, and we satisfy those needs by the “means
of production.” The production of goods such as clothes,
computers, television, and food products, determines the type of
political, social, and religious life of every society in history.

Because the needs of each society differ, people in those

societies think differently. A cotton farmer will have different
production needs than a hotel owner, and each will think
according to his or her needs. Economic production shapes our
ideas.
 For Marx, the economic structure controls the outlook of
every human being in society. We might think our ideas control
the economy, but it is actually economic production that shapes
our ideas.
Based on his idea of the dialectic, the forces of production develop
until they conflict with existing social relationships.
Marx believed, for example, that religion or belief in God is an opiate,
or drug, of the people. Once we straighten out our society by evolving from
capitalism to communism, the need for such a God in the sky will simply
vanish.
 Man makes religion; religion does not make
man. “Religion is indeed man’s self-consciousness
and self-awareness so long as he has not found
himself or has lost himself again.”
 Alienation
Hegel had argued that Absolute Spirit produced nature out of
itself, which then caused a thesis/antithesis relationship between
humans and nature. Marx saw alienation differently. For him, alienation
is the separation of individual workers from the product of their labor. In
mankind’s early history, when primitive people lived in tribes, everyone
helped to produce what the community needed. There was no
separation between an individual and the product of his labor.

As communities evolved and grew larger, so did production needs, and a

division of labor began. When the basket weaver started exchanging baskets
for products made by other people, the basket became an object of trade.
Individuals became known as specialists in their fields—basket weaver,
farmer, baker, and barber. Workers became alienated from the products of
their labor. When workers only make products for market value, oppression
is born.
 Capitalism, said Marx, is the major oppressor. In a capitalist society, the workers are slaves
for another social class, transferring their labor and their lives to the capitalist. In return, they receive
meager wages. This dehumanizes workers into beasts of burden. During the early part of the
Industrial Revolution, for example, there was no solidarity among workers.
Workers might work 12 hours a day in a freezing cold factory. They competed against each
other for jobs. Such competition not only alienated workers from their product and their employer but
also from each other.

Alienated labor leads to ownership, private

property, and human perversion. The rich got
richer, the poor got poorer. Such exploitation
infuriated Marx. He said the need for money
becomes the lust for money, and greed keeps the
process alive. Devotion to money becomes a kind
of religion.
 Communism
Capitalism, insisted Marx, would
continue until “all workers of the world
unite” and become a revolutionary class.
Capitalism cannot survive the socialization
of production, and capitalism will fail.
Overproduction will result in economic
crises. Then, when the working class wakes
up to its conditions, it will overthrow
capitalism. Communism will follow in its
wake.
 Communism is a classless society made up of workers
guided by the communist motto, “From each according to
his abilities, to each according to his needs!”
In the classless society, the economic struggle between
the capitalist and working classes will stop as all merge into
the working class. There will be no private property.
 A classless society would replace the proletariat, and the people
would own the means of production. Labor would belong to the
workers themselves, and capitalism would come to an end. Marx
viewed communism as a classless and godless society.
Marx’s philosophy later influenced the Russian revolutionary
Vladimir Ilich Lenin and Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung who both
agreed there could be no progress without physical violence.
Although Marx thought his philosophy would bring an end to
capitalism, it had less effect on Western capitalism than on
underdeveloped countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.