Nineteenth century ideologies emerged concurrently with the ongoing entrenchment of secular values and the principles of scientific inquiry. With empirical methods at the fore, philosophers and social scientists also grounded their theories in the prevailing political themes and realities of their time. The industrial revolution had a profound impact on political ideology and practice throughout Europe.[footnoteRef:1] When Karl Marx developed the theories that would inform his most influential works like Das Capital and the Communist Manifesto, his theories blended the methodologies used in history and political theory with those used in social sciences, most notably economics. Marx’s scientific socialism reflected the shift from an economic and political model dominated by feudalism and tight authoritarian political control towards one that reflected the tenets of independence, self-governance, and human rights. [1: Joshua Cole and Carol Symes., Western Civilizations: Their History & Their Culture, Brief 4th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2017) v. 2, p. 625.]
Scientific socialism also parallels the principles, methods, and theories outlined by Charles Darwin. Darwin’s concept of biological evolution remarkably makes its way into Marx’s scientific socialism: particularly in the way Marx demonstrates how societies have evolved throughout history. Capitalism became the natural outgrowth of a free market economy, one in which the pursuit of profit subsumed other elements of the social order such as religion or monarchy. With capitalists as the hub of power in the society, the masses were only bound to revolt, especially as the people shifted towards self-empowerment in the aftermath of both the French and American Revolutions. Scientific socialism shows how societies have become increasingly supportive of individual rights and freedoms, and that while capitalism may be superior to slavery and feudalism, it is inferior to the tenets of socialism. Capitalism has exploitative elements built into its economic structure, and those elements cause conflict, antagonism, and discontent. Marx bases his theories not just on ethics but on a scientific understanding and observation of human behavior.
Bibliography
Cole, Joshua & Symes, Carol. Western Civilizations: Their History & Their Culture. Brief 4th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2017, v. 2
Marx Historical Context Classical sociological and economic theories like those of Karl Marx emerged in Western Europe when it was experiencing the Enlightenment, the emergence of scientific method, a growing sense of individual autonomy over one's life conditions, the emergence of private property, urban growth, and a total shattering of the social balance of relations among peoples that had been in place for centuries if not millennia. Christianity and other traditional
Geology was one of the sources of Marx's views about social system and it's structure (the idea of formation). Among the biological discoveries that influenced on Marx's sociological views were the discovery of cell, cell theory of the organism's structure and the most important was evolutionary teaching of Darwin that was stated in work "The origins of species." Marx saw biological analogue of his theories in Darwin's work and
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