MARX, KARL. - Materialist philosopher, originator with Engels of so-called scientific socialism, b. at Trier on 5 May 1818 to Jewish parents (later his father had himself baptized along with the whole family, to avoid the harassment to which Jews were subjected), d. 14 March 1883 in London.
As a boy M. was influenced by his father's Enlightenment views and by the Romanticism of Baron von Westphalen, a family friend, whose daughter Jenny he married in 1843. From 1830 to 1835 he attended the "Friedrich-Wilhelm" gymnasium at Trier, sympathizing with the teachers of rationalist and liberal tendencies. In 1835 he enrolled at the University of Bonn and in 1836 at that of Berlin. At first anti-Hegelian, in the spring of 1837 he joined a circle of young left-wing Hegelians, the Doktorclub.
Having subsequently enrolled in the faculty of law at his father's wish, after the latter's death (10 May 1838) he decided to take his degree in philosophy. At the University of Jena he defended the thesis Differenz der demokratischen und epikureischen Naturphilosophie, in which, under the influence of the Hegelian left
(Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, A. Ruge, etc.), he adopted clearly anti-religious positions.
Having moved to Bonn, M. turned toward practical activity. He wrote in the Deutsche Jahrbücher, founded by A. Ruge in 1837, then in the Rheinische Zeitung, of which, after moving to Cologne, he took over the editorship in the autumn of 1842, fighting for the proletariat and for freedom of the press against the government (which threatened to suppress the paper). M. took advantage of this to leave its editorship on 17 March 1843 and withdrew to study political economy, in which he had noticed his lack of preparation. From these studies would be born the materialist conception of history and the theory of "surplus value." At the invitation of A. Ruge, M. went to Paris to found the journal Deutsch-französische Jahrbücher, which after two issues ceased, owing to its failure and to the enmity between M. and Ruge. In Paris M. surrounded himself with "left-wing" intellectuals; he formed a friendship with E. Heine and with G. Proudhon; the latter then, because of a difference of ideas, became his adversary and wrote against him La philosophie de la misère (1846), to which M. replied with La misère de la philosophie (1846). In Paris, in the summer of 1844, M. formed a friendship with Friedrich Engels (v.) whom he had met at the editorial office of the Rheinische Zeitung. In 1845, under pressure from the Prussian government, France expelled M., who went to Brussels; and here, in the spring of 1845, Engels joined him to discuss together the materialist conception of history they had arrived at, which M. had pondered in Paris. The fruit of these discussions was the work Die heilige Familie, directed against the "degeneration" of Hegelian idealism in Bruno Bauer and his friends. Together they also composed "The German Ideology: a critique of post-Hegelian philosophy as represented by Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer and Stirner, as well as of German socialism according to its various prophets." This work was not printed at the time (discovered in 1920, it was published in 1926, in the Marx-Engels-Archiv and then in the Works edited by Rjazanov). The German Ideology is the first exposition of historical materialism: it denies the primacy of the idea in history, replacing it with the economic fact; material activity or praxis is the foundation of history and of all human activities—politics, religion, morality, etc. With this M. and Engels definitively opposed every form of "petty-bourgeois" socialism, setting the social ideology on the "new" materialist conception. They took over the Deutsche Brüsselle Zeitung, acted in the Association démocratique of Brussels and founded the Deutsche Arbeiterverein, made up of German refugees.
At the end of 1847, on the commission of the "Communist League," M., using a draft by Engels, composed the celebrated Manifest der kommunistischen Partei, published a few days before the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 (v. COMUNISMO). Expelled from Belgium, M. went to Paris and with Engels fomented revolution in Germany. He then moved on to Cologne, where, in June 1848, he took over the editorship of the revolutionary Neue Rheinische Zeitung, to which Engels, Lassalle and others contributed. On 19 March 1849 the paper ceased publication: M. returned to Paris and, threatened by the government, fled to London.
In London M. suffered family misfortunes and especially great poverty, alleviated in part by the help of friends and by writing articles for various newspapers, always poorly paid; only Engels's generosity raised him from destitution. He was in continual polemics with the London refugees because of differences of ideas and also because of his irascible and strange character. In London M. applied himself to many studies and particularly to political economy; the fruit of this is the Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie (1859), regarded by M. as an introduction to Das Kapital, of which he had the first volume printed in 1867. The fundamental idea is the theory of "surplus value"; that is, the capitalist buys the worker's labor, congealed in the commodity, and resells it at an excess price; the excess is the "surplus value," which ought to go to the worker and is instead pocketed by the capitalist, with an increase of his own capital. Posthumously, edited by Engels, the second and third volumes appeared in 1885 and 1889 respectively, and from 1905 to 1910, edited by Engels, E. Bibbins Aveling, P. Lafargue, K. Kautsky, the fourth appeared: all composed of scattered notes and manuscripts of M. On 28 Sept. 1864 M. attended the international workers' meeting in St Martin's Hall, where the founding of the "International Workingmen's Association" was decided. M. joined enthusiastically, made his ideas prevail, collaborated actively in the organization, sustained continual polemics with M. Bakunin and other tendencies (anarchism in Spain and Italy, Mazzinianism in Italy, Lassallism in Germany). Owing to struggles from abroad, intensified after the Paris Commune, and especially to internal struggles, M. let the first International (v.) die, transferring its general council to New York in 1873. From then on M., although he had great influence on European socialism, withdrew from agitation. Besides, work had ruined his health. Generously helped by Engels, he journeyed to famous health resorts, but in vain. On 2 Dec. 1881 his wife died and in Jan. 1883 his daughter Jenny; a month later he too passed away. He was buried in Highgate cemetery in London.
For a thorough examination of Marxist philosophical conceptions v. MATERIALISMO DIALETTICO; MATERIALISMO STORICO; for the theory of surplus value, v. VALORE; for M.'s influence in socialism, international, communism, Bolshevism, v. the relevant entries.