Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels lived during a time of great social and economic transformations in Europe, including the rise of industrial capitalism. Marx was forced to leave Germany and later France due to his revolutionary political activities and writings. He collaborated closely with Engels, who provided financial support and had first-hand experience with the conditions of the working class in Manchester. Marx analyzed societies as progressing through modes of production, from feudalism to capitalism, and believed capitalism contained internal contradictions that would lead to its downfall and replacement with communism. He criticized other thinkers like Adam Smith for not recognizing the exploitative aspects of capitalism and its negative impacts on workers. Marx's theory of historical materialism held that economic factors, not ideas

1. Karl Marx (1818-
1883)
Lived at time of great
social transformations in
Europe
Active in 1840’s political
movement for expansion
of democratic liberties in
Germany forced to
leave Germany  went
to France  forced to
leave France after
revolutionary fervor of
1848  wound up in
London in 1851

2. Friedrich Engels (1820-
1895)
Marx’s chief moral,
financial, intellectual, and
emotional collaborator
Son of a mill owner in
Manchester (heart of
industrial revolution)
Had 2 things Marx lacked:
•money
•at times, superior
understanding of what
working class life was
really like

3. An overview of marxism
 Marx and Engels writing at time of industrial
revolution, transitions away from feudal past
 To understand Marx, must understand the
transitions he lived and predicted: feudalism
capitalism communism
 Marx talks about these systems as “modes of
production” ( a system by which society
determines who does what and who gets what)

4. What is the feudal mode of
production?
 Two classes: lords and serfs
 Lords control means of production (land); serfs
labor to produce agricultural products
 Serfs bound to land, not free
 Serfs not paid in wages, merely allowed to
subsist on lord’s land in exchange for tribute of
product (crops), labor, or money

5. What is the feudal mode of
production?
MON
Work for
subsisten
ce
TUES
Work for
subsisten
ce
WEDS
Work for
subsisten
ce
THURS
Work for
subsisten
ce
FRI
Work for
lord
SAT
Work for
lord
SURPLUS LABOR
• Serfs work land a certain number of days for own
subsistence, and a certain number of days for lord;
lord lives off serfs’ surplus labor

6. What is the feudal mode of
production?
 Under feudalism, surplus labor generated
by serf and given to lord is visible

7. What is the capitalist mode of
production?
 Two classes: bourgeoisie (capitalists) and
proletariat (workers)
 Bourgeoisie controls means of production
(factories); proletariat works in factories for
wages
 Workers free to work for different employers
 The value of the worker’s labor (what s/he
produces) is greater than the value of his wages
(what s/he is paid); this is the capitalist’s profit

8. What is the capitalist mode of
production?
 For example, if you work at McDonalds:
 You make $50/day
 You use $100 worth of raw ingredients and
overhead
 You make $300 worth of burgers
 The owner is paying you $50, but your labor
turned $100 of materials into $300 of sales
 So the owner (capitalist) extracted $150 of
profit or ‘surplus value’ from your labor

9. How is this vision different from
Adam Smith’s?
1. Questioned the narrative of capitalist “progress”
– were people really better off than in the past?
 Smith (and many others) had predicted that
industrialization  universal opulence and
greater human freedom
 By contrast, Marx and Engels saw industrialization
giving rise to universal squalor, except for a small
minority
 Marx and Engels also questioned whether workers
were really “free”: could change employers, but
were forced to work for a wage in order to survive;
not slaves to individual masters, but slaves to the
capitalist system

10. How is this vision different from
Adam Smith’s?
2. Said capitalism based on theft, not mutually
beneficial exchange
 Under capitalism, Marx and Engels said, surplus
labor is invisible, because worker never knows
exact value of his/her labor, works for hourly wage
but cannot tell how much of his/her labor is really
unpaid
 The capitalist system is inherently exploitative of
workers, because capitalists will always seek
greater profit by squeezing more and more surplus
labor out of workers  ever-increasing exploitation

11. How is this vision different from
Adam Smith’s?
3. Agreed that in capitalism, markets bound
to expand, but thought this would
eventually lead to its downfall
 the capitalist system sows the seeds of its
own destruction (Communist Manifesto)

12. Key concepts in Marxism:
historical materialism
 Hegel said humans uniquely able to
reason and reflect, and over time the
unfolding of the human spirit was leading
to ever-greater development of human
consciousness
 Marx, Engels criticized this celebration of
ideas unmatched by real, material
changes

13. Key concepts in Marxism:
historical materialism
 “The materialist conception of history starts from the
proposition that the production of the means to support
human life and, next to production, the exchange of
things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that
in every society that has appeared in history, the
manner in which wealth is distributed and society
divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is
produced, how it is produced, and how the products are
exchanged. From this point of view, the final causes of
all social changes and political revolutions are to be
sought, not in men's brains, not in men's better insights
into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the
modes of production and exchange.” From Socialism:
Utopian and Scientific (written entirely by Engels after
Marx’s death)

14. Key concepts in Marxism:
historical materialism
 Ideas always reflect a material basis
 For Marx and Engels, ideology is an
illusory set of ideas which dominate in
society
 For example: German ideology: illusory notion
that ideas make history, historical change is
propelled by new ideas

15. Key concepts in Marxism:
historical materialism
 Another way this concept is expressed is
through notion of base and
superstructure
 Social reality is grounded in an economic
base (who does what, who gets what);
built upon this is a legal and political
superstructure. This superstructure
reflects the realities of the base

16. Key concepts in Marxism:
commodity fetishism
 In capitalist societies, exchange of
commodities is an abstraction, concealing
the social relationships behind it
 Decisions appear to be made by the
market, rather than by society
 Commodities and markets seem to take on
lives of their own