Summary of Karl Marx's Theories?
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For Karl Marx, the basic determining factor of human history is economics. According to him, humans — even from their earliest beginnings — are not motivated by grand ideas but instead by material concerns, like the need to eat and survive. This is the basic premise of a materialist view of history. At the beginning, people worked together in unity and it wasn’t so bad. \n\nBut eventually, humans developed agriculture and the concept of private property. These two facts created a division of labor and a separation of classes based upon power and wealth. This, in turn, created the social conflict which drives society. \n\nAll of this is made worse by capitalism which only increases the disparity between the wealthy classes and the labor classes. Confrontation between them is unavoidable because those classes are driven by historical forces beyond anyone’s control.
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click on the below link, and choose any one of the results. I would advise reading at least 3 of them to get a feel for theory before choosing one of the walkthroughs.\n\nBest of luck to you!
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Karl Marx, a 19th century German socialist philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary. Marx, often in collaboration with Friedrich Engels, drew on G.W.F. Hegel's philosophy, the political economy of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and theorists of 19th century French socialism, to develop a critique of society which he claimed was both scientific and revolutionary. This critique achieved its most systematic (albeit unfinished) expression in his most famous work, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, more commonly known as Das Kapital. Since its inception and up to the present day, Marxism has been situated largely outside the political mainstream, although it has played a major role in history. Today, Marxist political parties of widely different sizes survive in most countries around the world.\n\n Marxist philosophy and Hegelianism \nMarx's rich and varied politico-theoretical preoccupations were initially influenced by his contact with Hegelian philosophy and its philosophical conception of history, but latter became mixed with very practical and material questions concerning the rising workers' movement of the 19th century. Marxism's philosophical roots were thus commonly explained as derived from three sources: English political economy, French socialism, and German idealist philosophy. Although this "three sources" model is an oversimplification, it still has some measure of truth. On the other hand, Costanzo Preve (1990) has assigned four "masters" to Marx: Epicurus (to whom he dedicated his thesis, Difference of natural philosophy between Democritus and Epicurus, 1841) for his materialism and theory of clinamen which opened up a realm of liberty; Jean-Jacques Rousseau, from which come his idea of egalitarian democracy; Adam Smith, from whom came the idea that the grounds of property is labour; and finally Hegel. Although some have separated Marx's works between a "young Marx" and a "mature Marx" or also by separating it into purely philosophical works, economics works and political and historical interventions, Etienne Balibar (1991) has pointed out that Marx's works can't be divided into "economical works" (Das Kapital, 1867), "philosophical works" and "historical works" (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, the 1871 Civil War in France which concerned the Paris Commune and acclaimed it as the first "dictatorship of the proletariat", etc.) Marx's philosophy is thus inextricably linked to his critique of political economy and to his historical interventions in the workers' movement, such as the 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program or the The Communist Manifesto, written with Engels a year before the Revolutions of 1848\nvisit  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism    for more details.
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Socialist thought grew out of alarm at the new institution of wage labor which came along with industrialization (in the craftsman era, workers controlled the means of production and were not subordinate to owners).  Early socialist thought focuses on replacing wage labor with either workers cooperatives (most early socialist thinkers) or nationalization (a few).\n\nKarl Marx found early socialist thought to be politically naive and with a shallow understanding of capitalism and the larger forces of history.  He declared his own analysis to be "scientific".\n\nEconomically, Marx argued that politics is the struggle of classes to design rules and institutions that serve their economic interests and that as an economy modernizes old institutional relations become barriers to further development.  In the more technical parts of Das Kapital, he tried to explain the process of wage determination (via the now antiquated and discredited labor theory of value), the price system, structural change in the economy, the process of capital accumulation and growth, the effects of technological change, the business cycle and periodic and supposedly intensifying crises of overproduction.  He argued that capitalism would polarize wealth and tend towards monopoly (or oligopoly).\n\nPolitically, Marx advocated that trade unions merge into large units and serve as the basis for a labor-based political party, that this party should seek to win control of parliaments democratically (Marx wrongly assumed this would be easy, even automatic given their numbers and the false assumption of homogeniety of interest), and begin socializing the means of production,with markets present for long to come.  In early writings, Marx called for gradual nationalization of firms (through peaceful buyouts if possible), but later in his life he instead preferred the establishment of networks of worker's cooperatives, which he assumed would prosper under a labor government.  \n\nContrary to widespread misinformation, Marx did not believe a country NECESSARILY had to develop a mature capitalist economy before making a transition to socialism.  Given the situation in various countries, the process could start very early if a labor or even peasant party could control the parliament.  Freedoms of speech and organization were regarded as the lifeblood of labor parties' rise.\n\nIn short, Marx's political ideas were very far removed from the reactionary positions of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc, which is not to say he was right, just not properly associated with that political tradition.
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Yes Marx was on to something but some of his ideas were a little far fetched.\n\nalso Darwin's views have been twisted to be racist. he did not write the origin of species to relate to people. the man is talking about animals.
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points to the self-organizing character of economies which are not centrally-planned by government. Many, such as Adam Smith, point to what is believed to be the value of individuals pursuing their self-interest as opposed to altruistically working to serve the "common good." Karl Polanyi, a seminal figure in the field of economic anthropology, argued that at the time Smith was primarily describing a period of organization of production along commercial lines. For Polanyi, capitalism is distinguishable from earlier mercantilist and commercial eras by the commodification of land, labour-power,and money. It appeared in mature form as a result of the problems raised when an industrial factory system requiring long-term investment and entailing corresponding risks was introduced into an internationalized commercial framework. Historically speaking, the most pressing needs of this new system were an assured supply of the elements of industry- land, elaborate machinery, and labour, and these imperatives led to the afforementioned commodification; not through a process of self-organizing activity, but rather as a result of deliberate, often forceful, state intervention. (see Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation)\n\nMany of these theories call attention to various economic practices that became institutionalized in Europe between the 16th and 19th centuries, especially involving the right of individuals and groups of individuals acting as "legal persons" (or corporations) to buy and sell capital goods, as well as land, labor, and money (see finance and credit), in a free market (see trade), and relying on the state for the enforcement of private property rights rather than on a system of feudal protection and obligations.
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this url gives a synopsis of a political economy analysis - which should help you get an idea of what is required when writing a typical one\n\nhttp://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=1225
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DAS KAPITAL by  Karl Marx. And the Red book by Mao Xe Dong.
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this link will be of help to u...go thru it .. u will understand...\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Capitalist_theory
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Read about it here:\n\nhttp://www.mises.org/rothbard/ethics/three.asp\n\nhttp://www.natreformassn.org/statesman/04/clsnatvsmod.html
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Wow!  There are lots of theories.  \n\nYou should find these links quite helpful.  Sorry this answer may be a bit late for you but I hope it is helpful.\n\nHere are some good links.
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Most theories of what has come to be called capitalism developed in the 18th century, 19th century and 20th century, for instance in the context of the industrial revolution and European imperialism (e.g. Chydenius, Smith, Ricardo, Marx), The Great Depression (e.g.Keynes) and the Cold war (e.g. Hayek, Friedman).\n\nIn his 1765 book The National Gain, Anders Chydenius, a Finnish parliamentarian, became the first to propose freedom of trade and industry and the principles of liberalism, 11 years before Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776).\n\nCriticisms of capitalism:\n\n1. Unequal distribution of wealth and income\n\n2. Excessive inequality\n\n3. Employment/unemployment\n\nMarxist critique of capitalism: \n\nMarxists define capital as "a social, economic relation" between people (rather than between people and things). In this sense they seek to abolish capital. They believe that private ownership of the means of production enriches capitalists (owners of capital) at the expense of workers ("the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer"), and that this is the cause of social ills.
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Research Communism, start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
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Someone who believes in the socialist ideologies put forth by the philosopher Karl Marx, though he was once quoted as saying "I am not a Marxist" which goes to show that the term really took on a life of its own historically.  The basic concept is that all members of society make roughly equal contributions and receive roughly equal benefits, as opposed to capitalism where people compete for a greater share of society's benefits.  The theory is very in-depth, and scholars still debate over what exactly is implied by the term Marxism, or if or how it differs from socialism or communism.\n\nI think socialism focuses more on social equality and pooling of resources.  Communism focuses on the economic and political constructs of a government that commands the economy and the major industries.
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First of all, Communism has never truly been achieved.  Communism is Karl Marx's idea on how to control the masses which he wrote about in his book "Communist Manifesto".  It involves everybody working for everybody, no religion, and an overall unified society.  Socialism is what was seen in the Former Soviet Union, in China now.  It involves ideas of everybody working for the whole, but is a very far cry from Communism.  To Compare to the United States: liberals and extreme leftists are socialists.
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Christianity and jewish thoughts certainly conditioned the thoughts of Karl Marx and the Crusades that lasted from 1090s till 1260s had certainly influenced his conclusions on the general nature of organised religions in Europe. But apart from that there is nothing that warrants any comparison between the two.\n\nMarxism minus proletarian dictatorship is not Christianity, nor if Marxism starts believing in God it becomes Christianity.
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This book is a classic enthnographic text that needs to be read by all those who are interested in revealling the social forces that shapes our lives as a people living under this last state of Capitalism, that others call a Globalised world. Even though Paul Willis was looking at Working class kids in England, I have found the application of his methodology applicable even in the context of a post Apartheid state like South Africa where we talk of the "historically disadvantaged learner" as an eupermism for the same phenomenon that Willis has studies.\n\nNice light reading matter there.