German-born philosopher, sociologist, journalist and leading classical economist. Born in Trier, the son of a prosperous lawyer, he was educated at the University of Bonn (briefly) and at the University of Berlin where he received a doctorate in 1841 for his research into post-Aristotelian Greek philosophy His interest in socialism was first aroused by conversations with Baron von Westphalen, whose daughter Jenny he was later to marry; his taste for metaphysics was stimulated by involvement in the Young Hegelian Group from 1837. His career as a journalist began with his editing of the liberal paper Rheinsche Zeitung from October 1842; his interest in economics dates from his residence in Paris in 1844 where he had migrated to study contemporary French socialism. It was to SMITH, RICARDO and JAMES MILL that he turned to obtain an analytical training to tackle what was to be his life-long research project, CAPITALISM. Fortunately, in Paris he met Friedrich ENGELS who was to be until death his collaborator and, on many occasions, financial supporter. After a three-year sojourn in Brussels he visited England to see at first hand the most advanced industrial country. Apart from short periods in Paris and Cologne in 1848–9 to participate in the socialist movements which sprang up at the time of the 1848 European revolutions, he spent the rest of his life in London financially precarious and incessantly acquiring in the British Museum Reading Room the masses of knowledge which fuelled his analysis of history and society.
His contribution to economics appears in Grundrisse (1857–8), Das Kapital (1867, 1885 and 1894) and Theories of Surplus Value (1905–10). Although many of the ideas in his works had long been discussed by classical economists, e.g.
value in use and value in exchange, the decline in the rate of profit and labour as a basis of value, he was able to form them into a powerful new synthesis. This consisted of the TURGOT-SMITH stages theory, an analysis of the circulation of money and of commodities and his examination of the determinants of SURPLUS VALUE to expose the defects of capitalism in a way unparalleled in economics. But he has not been without his critics, particularly because many of his prophecies were unfulfilled with respect to the collapse of capitalism and the increasing IMMISERATION of the working class. Marx realized that the TRANSFORMATION PROBLEM was a major challenge to his value and price theories: devotees since his death have tried to solve it but their proposed solutions usually require so many restrictive assumptions as to make their results trivial. Whatever may have been his defects as an economic theorist, his influence has been massive with thousands of academic disciples throughout the world determined to study economics in a sociological and ideological context.
References
Elster, J. (ed.) (1986) Karl Marx: A Reader, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Freedman, R. (ed.) (1962) Marx on Economics, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Junankar, P.N. (1982) Marx’s Economics, Oxford: Philip Allan.
McLellan, D. (1973) Karl Marx: His Life and Thought, London: Macmillan.
Wheen, F. (2000) Karl Marx, London: Fourth Estate.
This is the complete article, containing 504 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
