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Karl Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a German-born philosopher, economist, political theorist, historian, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His best-known works are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto (with Friedrich Engels) and the three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1894); the latter employs his critical approach of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism and is the culmination of his intellectual efforts. Marx’s ideas and theories and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism, have exerted enormous influence on modern intellectual, economic, and political history.
Born in Trier in the Kingdom of Prussia, Marx studied at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena, and received a doctorate in philosophy from the latter in 1841. A Young Hegelian, he was influenced by the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and both critiqued and developed Hegel’s ideas in works such as The German Ideology (written 1846) and the Grundrisse (written 1857–1858). While in Paris in 1844, Marx wrote his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts and met Engels, a lifelong friend and collaborator. After moving to Brussels in 1845, they were active in the Communist League, and in 1848 wrote The Communist Manifesto, which expresses Marx’s ideas and lays out a program for revolution. Marx was expelled from Belgium and Germany, and in 1849 moved to London, where he wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) and Das Kapital. In 1864, Marx helped found the International Workingmen’s Association (First International), in which he sought to fight the influence of anarchists led by Mikhail Bakunin. In his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Marx wrote on revolution, the state, and the transition to communism. He died stateless in 1883 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.
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