Sociologist Karl Heinrich Marx : Understanding Thought and Theory

Sociology Info - German sociologist Karl Heinrich Marx was known as a philosopher. He was an influential person in providing historical analysis of class conflict.  

Karl Marx believed in capitalism there was alienation of man from himself.  He argues that in classical economics, accepting the market regardless of personal wealth and the influence of market existence on humans.

Karl Heinrich Marx. Born in Trier, Germany, May 5, 1818. Marx died in London on 14 March 1883 at the age of 64. He was a philosopher, political economist, and societal theorist. 

Famous for its analysis of history, especially regarding class conflict that can be summarized as "The history of various communities to this day is basically the history of class conflict", as written can be the opening sentence of the Communist Manifesto book.

Born into a Jewish progressive family. His father, Herschel, a descendant of the rabbis, however, tended to be a deis, who later abandoned Jewishism and converted to the official religion of Prussia, a relatively liberal Protestant Lutheran school to become a teacher.

Herschel changed his name to Heinrich. Herschel's brother Samuel as well as his ancestors were chief rabbis at Trier. Marx's family was very liberal and Marx's home was frequented by scholars and artists of Karl Marx's early days.

Karl Marx was the founder of Communist Ideology and was a great theorist of capitalism, not just an economist, but also a philosopian, sociologist, and a revolutionary.  

He was also a professor of revolutionary ideas that inspired other thinkers. Marx and his close friend Friedrich Engles (1820-1895) wrote a book called "Das Kapital" which was more or less about how social or communist economies were organized. 

Then, followed by the book The Communist Manifesto (1884) which contains a short list of communist natural characters.

Where superstructure serves to maintain production relationships influenced by history (art, literature, music, philosophy, hokum, religion, and other forms of culture accepted by society). 

In 1849 Karl Marx moved to London and the arena of failure of his political revolution in 1848. He began to withdraw from revolutionary activities and then turned to more serious and detailed research into the work of the capitalist system. 

In 1852, He began his study of working conditions in capitalism at the British Museum. The study eventually resulted in three volumes of Capital's first volume published in 1867, the other two of which were published after his death.

He lived poorly during those years, and was barely able to survive with the least of his opinions from his writings and from the help of his friends. 

In his life, Marx was known as an elusive man. His ideas began to show a great influence in the development of workers soon after he died. 

This influence was boosted by the victory of the Marxist Bolsheviks in russia's October Revolution. Marxian ideas only came to world in the 20th century. 

Karl Marx believed in capitalism there was alienation of man from himself. Personal wealth and markets according to him do not give value and meaning to everything they feel so alienate people, people from themselves.

The result of the existence of the market, especially the labor market alienates the human ability to obtain true happiness, because he keeps away love and friendship. 

Marx argued that in classical economics, accepting markets regardless of personal wealth and the influence of market existence on humans. 

Therefore, it is very important to know the relationship between personal wealth, greed, separation of labor, capital, and land wealth between exchange with competition, human value and devaluation, monopoly, and competition.

The focus of his critique of classical economic issues is not to balance the production power will undermine the production relationship. The results of Karl Marx's historical theory on society include: 

-Society feudalism where the factors of production of some agricultural land are steamed by the landowner. 

-In times of capitalism the relationship between power and production relations will take place, but because there is an increase in ouput and economic activity, as feudalism also contains the seeds of its destruction, then capitalism will be destroyed and replaced with socialism society.

-The period of socialism in which production relations follow capitalism still contains remnants of capitalism.

-In times of communism man was not encouraged to work intensively with money or material. 

According to Karl Marx in commodities and classes can be divided into two classes, namely : 

-capitalists (bourgeois) who have the means of production 

-workers (proletariat) who do not have production tools, work spaces or production materials.

Conflict Theory. Karl Marx also pioneered the theory of conflict. Conflict theory is a theory that considers that social change does not occur through the process of adjusting values that result in compromises that are different from the original conditions. 

This theory is based on the ownership of production facilities as the main element of class separation in society. The theory of conflict arises as a reaction to the emergence of functional structure theory. 

The most influential thought or basis of this conflict theory is the thinking of Karl Marx. In the 1950s and 1960s, conflict theory began to spread. 

Conflict theory provides an alternative to functional structural theory. At that time Marx proposed a fundamental conception of class society and its struggles.

Marx did not define class at length, but he pointed out that in society, in the 19th century in the country where he lived, it consisted of the capital owner class (bourgeois) and the poor working class as the proletarian class. 

Both classes were in a hierarchical social structure, the bourgeois exploitation of the proletariat in the production process. This exploitation will continue as long as false consiusness in the proletariat, i.e. a sense of surrender, accepting the state as it is is maintained.

Strained relations between the proletariat and the bourgeois tally prompted the formation of a major social movement, namely the revolution. Such tensions occur when the proletariat is aware of the exploitation of the bourgeois tying against them.

This article has been published here : Just Click !