The Political Thought of Karl Marx

Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) is considered the primary founder of two mass movements: democratic socialism and revolutionary communism. Marx studied law and philosophy, and obtained a doctorate in philosophy in 1841. He suffered from various diseases, including respiratory ailments, as well as depression, lack of motivation, and inability to work. These conditions made him a dependent person and contributed to shaping his ideas about collective work, collective ownership, and concepts of justice and equality.

Marx’s contributions included numerous articles and books, the most important of which were: The Communist Manifesto in 1848, co-authored with his friend Friedrich Engels, and the four-volume work Capital, in which Engels also played a role.

Marx and Engels believed that matter is the foundation of everything, the essence of all thought and morality, and that the economy is the crucial factor in economic, social, political, and cultural life. For Marx, matter encompasses everything that exists, and the various manifestations of existence result from the continuous development of material forces. The growth of individual, social, and civilized human life is measured by the degree of material forces. Moreover, matter and production are the conditions for the development of social, political, and intellectual life in general.

Marx said: Hegel sees the movement of the idea (the idea) as the god of reality, but I see the opposite: the movement of thought is merely a reflection of the movement of matter, transferred to the human brain and transformed within it. Marx believed that Hegel’s philosophy dealt with the development of the mind and ideas, and thus it was idealistic, making the development of nature, humans, and social relations a result of the development of the mind.

Marx retained Hegel’s concept of dialectics and constant development, but he rejected the preconceived idealistic perspective. He noted that based on life, it is not the development of the mind that explains the development of nature, but rather the opposite is true: the origin of the mind comes from nature. In this context, Marx coined his famous phrase: I found Hegel’s dialectic standing on its head, so I put it on its feet.

The book “Capital” is considered the constitution of Marxism, and it can be summarized in the following four points:

• The true value of every commodity equals the amount of labor realized in it, and the worker is the sole source of this value.
• The capitalist system deprives the worker of a part of the value of their labor, and this part is the increase in the value of the capitalist’s profit. This profit continues to accumulate, making capital a continuous theft of the workers’ effort.
• The mechanized industry (dependence on machines) reveals greed and avarice, leading to the dominance of large capitalists over their weaker competitors, forming strong companies that eliminate weaker capitalists. The middle class disappears as its members join the working class, resulting in only two classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This not only applies to industrial workers but is even worse for agricultural workers, as their dispersion over large areas weakens their resistance compared to factories and urban work. Therefore, the progress of capitalist agriculture is a progress in the art of plundering workers and plundering the land.
• The working class, possessing the right, numbers, and strength, will inevitably triumph over the capitalists, seizing ownership and making wealth and facilities collective property among all members of society. The proletariat is educated by capitalism itself and the struggle against the bourgeoisie becomes inevitable and political, aiming to seize political power by what is known as the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Marxist Materialism

Materialism is a philosophical term used in contrast to another term, idealism, and it describes philosophical tendencies that share the belief that the origin of existence is matter, not the spirit, mind, or consciousness.

Marxist materialist philosophy consists of two aspects:

1- Dialectical Materialism: Marx’s dialectical materialism is based on three laws:

A- The law of unity and struggle of opposites: Marx believed that everything is natural, and every phenomenon contains two opposing sides. These sides cannot remain in peace, and conflict between them is inevitable. This conflict does not eliminate the unity of the thing or phenomenon but leads to the triumph of the side representing progress over the other, resulting in transformation. This is the path to development. Applying this to political reality, we find that the capitalist society consists of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and despite their opposition, they form the unity of the capitalist system.

B- The law of transition from quantitative change to qualitative change: This law explains the course of development, as quantitative change occurs in terms of quantity, while qualitative change occurs through transformation in quality or characteristics. Marx believed that when quantitative changes accumulate and increase, qualitative change inevitably occurs. He also believed that if capitalist ownership, the fundamental quality of the capitalist system, disappears and is replaced by socialist ownership, a new system will replace the capitalist system, namely the socialist system. While the transition from capitalism to socialism occurs suddenly, through a sudden revolutionary overthrow, the transition from socialism to communism does not occur suddenly but through continuous, gradual change.

C- The law of negation of negation: This law reveals the general direction of development in the material world, as the history of human society consists of cycles of negation or new systems negating old systems. The slave society eliminated primitive communism, the feudal society eliminated the slave society, and capitalism eliminated the feudal society. Then, according to Marx, the socialist society will eliminate the capitalist society. Every system contains within itself inherent principles that cause its demise. In reality, negation for Marx does not mean that the new completely replaces the old, but rather that it preserves the best of the old, integrating it into the new and elevating it.

2- Historical Materialism: Marx believed that material production is the basis of societal development, and that labor is the foundation of existence. He believed that the historical study of human societies revealed five consecutive forms of production methods, and that societies pass through the following five stages:

• Primitive communism – Slave society – Feudal society – Capitalist society – Socialist society, and according to Marx, this last society will eventually lead to communism, a society without classes or disparities. Marx believed that historical materialism demonstrates that human society, which began with the communist system, must inevitably end with the communist system, according to the law of negation of negation.

A significant criticism can be directed at Marx’s idea, as the sudden halt of dialectics at the communist society lacks justification, considering that the movement, according to Marx’s own principle, is in a state of continuous progression. Therefore, it would have been more appropriate for him to conclude that the sequence he presented would inevitably repeat, or that dialectics would continuously reveal new stages beyond the communist society.

Marx notably focused on the idea of class struggle and economic determinism, the characteristic that shows that the economic system of a society shapes its social, political, and religious institutions