Karl Marx in a nutshell: the fundamental points of his philosophy and thought, from the criticism of capitalism to that of private property.
Karl Marx was one of the greatest German philosophers. Born in Trier in 1818, Marx cultivated from a young age a strong passion not only for philosophy, but also for journalism, sociology and economics. His thought contributed to the birth of communism and socialism. His philosophy is easy to understand and in some ways also very fascinating. In this guide we will see the philosophy of Karl Marx in pills.
Abolition of private property
First of all, it is important to say that Marx’s thought is a critical thought aimed at capitalist society, economy, politics and culture. As a cornerstone of his philosophy, Marx believed that private property should be abolished and that all goods and services should be accessible to the entire population.
It is precisely private property and the privatization of goods that causes individuals of a higher economic class to exploit individuals of a lower economic class, often in an inhuman manner. Private property according to Marx makes relationships between individuals more denaturalized and transforms the creativity of work into slavery . For Marx, history is not animated by ideas, but is animated solely by the evolution of the economic system.
Critique of Capitalism
According to Marx , capitalist society will be overcome because it is bankrupt. The capitalist, in fact, must invest more and more in men and machinery, but the machinery has considerable maintenance costs and the goods can wear out or be damaged.
Precisely for this reason, at a certain point, expenses will be greater than profits. To overcome this problem, the capitalist exploits his workers in an inhuman way and tries to have workers willing to work with disadvantageous contracts in exchange for very low wages. Furthermore, the capitalist tries to make the work of his workers much more productive and buys low-cost raw materials abroad, often produced by people who are also exploited.
The result of all this is that capitalism will run into real crises of overproduction and underproduction, these crises will eliminate all the weaker capitalists and leave only the strongest ones. Because of all this there will be an equal number of capitalists and an immense number of poor people. This according to Marx will cause all the wealth, goods and services to be solely in the hands of a very few capitalists.
