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Essay on Karl Marx's Importance to the World
Although Marx’s influence was not great during his life, after his death his works grew with the strength of the working class. His ideas and theories became known as Marxism, and have been used to shape the ideas of most European and Asian countries. The strength of the Proletariat has been due to the work of Marx. His ideals formed government known as communism. Although he was never a rich man, his knowledge has been rich in importance for the struggle of the working class.
To understand the scope and importance of Marx, we must look to his childhood and to the political situation of his time. Marx grew up in a learned family that prized education. In fact, he came from a long line of rabbis on both sides of the family. In 1835, at the age of 17, Marx went to the University of Bonn to study law. However, Marx's father felt his son should go to a more serious school so, a year later, Marx was sent to the University of Berlin where he studied for four years.
For Marx, reality was material, not spiritual. He rejected Hegel's interpretation of history in favor of a more practical doctrine, which came to be known as Dialectical Materialism. According to Marx, all progress takes place because of a "struggle of opposites", a naturally occurring process that cannot be influenced by individuals. People make social decisions solely in response to their economic needs and, thus, over time, the characteristics of a society are determined by its economic structure. Within a particular culture, classes arise based on people's relationships to the means of production. (For example, there are owners, managers, workers, and so on.)
These ideas served as the basis of a complex political doctrine that came to be called Marxism. Briefly, Marxism holds that the history of society is best-understood as "the history of class struggle"....
