Wheen (1999), in his biography of Marx's life, argued that Engels had greater knowledge and understanding of capitalism and its dynamics than Marx, thereby making the very concept of alienation as an idea that originated from and was put forth by Engels, and was only expounded upon theoretically by Marx (75):
Though he had already decided that abstract idealism was so much hot air, and that the engine of history was driven by economic and social forces, Marx's practical knowledge of capitalism was nil. He had been so engaged by his dialectical tussle with German philosophers that the condition of England -- the first industrialised country, the birthplace of the proletariat -- had escaped his notice. Engels, from his vantage point in the cotton mills of Lancashire, was well placed to enlighten him.
In the preceding passage, Wheen brought into light how, despite Marx's authority on the issues of oppression and alienation, the ideology of socialism emerged out of Engels's discourses. This discovery was not at all surprising, considering that "Communist Manifesto" was actually based on a draft on political economy created and authored by Engels. From Wheen's point-of-view, Engels's exposure to the realities of capitalism during the 19th century helped him become the authority on Socialist ideas.
Carver (1984) echoed Wheen's assumption in his analysis of the political discourses of Marx and Engels. While Wheen asserted that the important concepts of oppression and alienation originated from Engels, Carver went so far as to argue that the deterministic approach adopted by Marx and Engels in developing "Communist Manifesto" was influenced by latter, rather than the former. It was Engels's experiences engaging in a capitalist society, developing Socialist ideas, and knowledge of economy that allowed him to have a firmer concept of Socialism as an ideology. Once Engels's ideas took shape, Marx developed it further to create a political theory, which gave him...
This does not suggest that one assimilate the ideas of another without having first contemplated those ideas at length, rounded them with individual ideas, expectations, experiences and theories before adopting those ideas and holding the originator of the ideas as a source of ideological guidance. Engels is described by social researcher Dudley Knowles (2002) as a "Hegelian (20)." As mentioned earlier, Engels took a position in favor of Hegel when
Marx and Engels Marx, Engels, and Industrialization It is widely known that the philosophies of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels influentially spurred forth the creation of The Communist Manifesto, a manuscript solely detailing the purposes of communist thought and the problems of capitalistic society. Marx and Engels discuss the problems of society that hinges on class, and predicts a more potentially positive outcome in a classless world. Yet their arguments toward the
Marx and Historical Materialism Karl Marx rejected the philosophical Idealism of Hegel and the utopianism of the early socialists in favor of a theory of history thoroughly grounded in materialism. For Marx, ideas, cultures, political systems were all part of the superstructure of society while economics and the social relations of classes represented the base that truly drove history forward. Economic forces were the motor of history, not ideas, philosophies or
Karl Marx on the German Ideology: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels collaborated to produce The German Ideology, which was one of the classic texts generated by the two. Even though The German Ideology stands our as one of the major texts produced by the two, it was never published during Marx's lifetime. This was a clear expression of the theory of history by Marx and its associated materialist metaphysics. One of
Notwithstanding his militant stances against capitalism -- and given the "Occupy" movement in the Western societies, some of what he railed against is evident in the market today -- and his archaic promotion of communism, his theories have an important place in educational scholarship. Good debates require diametrically opposed positions, and Marx provides plenty of ammunition for the side of the argument that adopts an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, anti-globalization position. Works
Karl Marx is one of the most interesting philosophers of the 19th century, and his teaching have contributed immensely to the discussion of political organization for the past 150 years. The social conditions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were of the utmost significance to the development of sociology. The chaos and social disorder that resulted from the series of political revolutions ushered in by the French Revolution in
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