1.
Brighton
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Brighton /ˈbraɪtən/ is a seaside resort on the south coast of England. It is part of the county of East Sussex, within the historic county of Sussex. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the dates back to the Bronze Age, Roman. The ancient settlement of Brighthelmstone was documented in the Domesday Book, Brighton began to attract more visitors following improved road transport to London and becoming a boarding point for boats travelling to France. The town also developed in popularity as a resort for sea bathing as a purported cure for illnesses. Brighton continued to grow as a centre of tourism following the arrival of the railways in 1841. Many of the attractions were built in the Victorian era, including the Grand Hotel, the West Pier. Brighton attracted 7.5 million day visitors in 2015/16 and 4.9 million overnight visitors, Brighton has also been called the UKs hippest city, and the happiest place to live in the UK. Brightons earliest name was Bristelmestune, recorded in the Domesday Book, although more than 40 variations have been documented, Brighthelmstone was the standard rendering between the 14th and 18th centuries. Brighton was originally a shortened form, first seen in 1660, it gradually supplanted the longer name. Brighthelmstone was the official name until 1810, though. The name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, most scholars believe that it derives from Beorthelm + tūn—the homestead of Beorthelm, a common Old English name associated with villages elsewhere in England. The tūn element is common in Sussex, especially on the coast, an alternative etymology taken from the Old English words for stony valley is sometimes given but has less acceptance. Brighthelm gives its name to, among other things, a church, the town was originally split in half by the Wellesbourne, a winterbourne which was culverted and buried in the 18th century. Poet Horace Smith called it The Queen of Watering Places, which is widely used. Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray referred to Doctor Brighton, calling the one of the best of Physicians. London-by-Sea is well-known, reflecting Brightons popularity with Londoners as a resort, a commuter dormitory. The Queen of Slaughtering Places, a pun on Smiths description, the mid 19th-century nickname School Town referred to the remarkable number of boarding, charity and church schools in the town at the time
2.
Kingdom of Prussia
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It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1871 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the kings of Prussia were from the House of Hohenzollern. Prussia was a power from the time it became a kingdom, through its predecessor, Brandenburg-Prussia. Prussia continued its rise to power under the guidance of Frederick II, more known as Frederick the Great. After the might of Prussia was revealed it was considered as a power among the German states. Throughout the next hundred years Prussia went on to win many battles and it was because of its power that Prussia continuously tried to unify all the German states under its rule. Attempts at creation of a federation remained unsuccessful and the German Confederation collapsed in 1866 when war ensued between its two most powerful states, Prussia and Austria. The North German Confederation which lasted from 1867–1871, created a union between the Prussian-aligned states while Austria and most of Southern Germany remained independent. The North German Confederation was seen as more of an alliance of military strength in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War, the German Empire lasted from 1871–1918 with the successful unification of all the German states under Prussian hegemony. This was due to the defeat of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, in 1871, Germany unified into a single country, minus Austria and Switzerland, with Prussia the dominant power. Prussia is considered the predecessor of the unified German Reich. The Kingdom left a significant cultural legacy, today notably promoted by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, in 1415 a Hohenzollern Burgrave came from the south to the March of Brandenburg and took control of the area as elector. In 1417 the Hohenzollern was made an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, after the Polish wars, the newly established Baltic towns of the German states including Prussia, suffered many economic setbacks. Many of the Prussian towns could not even afford to attend political meetings outside of Prussia, the towns were poverty stricken, with even the largest town, Danzig, having to borrow money from elsewhere to pay for trade. Poverty in these towns was partly caused by Prussias neighbors, who had established and developed such a monopoly on trading that these new towns simply could not compete and these issues led to feuds, wars, trade competition and invasions. However, the fall of these gave rise to the nobility, separated the east and the west. It was clear in 1440 how different Brandenburg was from the other German territories, not only did it face partition from within but also the threat of its neighbors. It prevented the issue of partition by enacting the Dispositio Achillea which instilled the principle of primogeniture to both the Brandenburg and Franconian territories, the second issue was solved through expansion
3.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
4.
Humboldt University of Berlin
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The Humboldt university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities. In 1949, it changed its name to Humboldt-Universität in honour of both its founder Wilhelm and his brother, geographer Alexander von Humboldt. The first semester at the newly founded Berlin university occurred in 1810 with 256 students and 52 lecturers in faculties of law, medicine, theology, du Bois and European unifier Robert Schuman, as well as the influential surgeon Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach in the early half of the 1800s. The structure of German research-intensive universities, such as Humboldt, served as a model for institutions like Johns Hopkins University, Alexander von Humboldt, brother of the founder William, promoted the new learning. With the construction of research facilities in the second half of the 19th Century teaching of the natural sciences began. During this period of enlargement, Berlin University gradually expanded to other previously separate colleges in Berlin. An example would be the Charité, the Pépinière and the Collegium Medico-chirurgicum, in 1717, King Friedrich I had built a quarantine house for Plague at the city gates, which in 1727 was rechristened by the soldier king Friedrich Wilhelm, Es soll das Haus die Charité heißen. By 1829 the site became Berlin Universitys medical campus and remained so until 1927 when the more modern University Hospital was constructed, Berlin University started a natural history collection in 1810, which, by 1889 required a separate building and became the Museum für Naturkunde. The preexisting Tierarznei School, founded in 1790 and absorbed by the university, also the Landwirtschaftliche Hochschule Berlin, founded in 1881 was affiliated with the Agricultural Faculties of the University. After 1933, like all German universities, it was affected by the Nazi regime, the rector during this period was Eugen Fischer. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service resulted in 250 Jewish professors and employees being fired during 1933/1934, students and scholars and political opponents of Nazis were ejected from the university and often deported. During this time one third of all of the staff were fired by the Nazis. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany ordered the opening of the university in January 1946, the SMAD wanted a redesigned Berlin University based on the Soviet model, however they insisted on the phrasing newly opened and not re-opened for political reasons. The University of Berlin must effectively start again in almost every way and you have before you this image of the old university. What remains of that is nought but ruins, the teaching was limited to seven departments working in reopened, war-damaged buildings, with many of the teachers dead or missing. However, by the semester of 1946, the Economic. This program existed at Berlin University until 1962, the East-West conflict in post-war Germany led to a growing communist influence in the university. This was controversial, and incited strong protests within the student body, Soviet NKVD secret police arrested a number of students in March 1947 as a response
5.
The Condition of the Working Class in England
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The Condition of the Working Class in England is an 1845 book by the German philosopher Friedrich Engels, a study of the industrial working class in Victorian England. Engels first book, it was written in German as Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England. It was written during his 1842–44 stay in Manchester, the city at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, compiled from Engels own observations, in Condition, Engels argues that the Industrial Revolution made workers worse off. The overall death-rate in Manchester and Liverpool was significantly higher than the national average. Before the introduction of mills,1,006 out of 10,000 adults died before reaching 39 years old, Engels interpretation proved to be extremely influential with British historians of the Industrial Revolution. He focused on both the workers wages and their living conditions and he argued that the industrial workers had lower incomes than their pre-industrial peers and they lived in more unhealthy and unpleasant environments. This proved to be a very wide-ranging critique of industrialisation and one that was echoed by many of the Marxist historians who studied the industrial revolution in the 20th century. Originally addressed to a German audience, the book is considered by many to be an account of the universal condition of the industrial working class during its time. The eldest son of a successful German textile industrialist, Engels became involved in journalism in his youth. Sent to England, what he saw made him even more radical. About this time he formed his lifelong partnership with Karl Marx. French and German working class Communism are its direct, Fourierism and English Socialism, but proletarian conditions exist in their classical form, in their perfection, only in the British Empire, particularly in England proper. Besides, only in England has the necessary material been so completely collected and we Germans more than anybody else stand in need of a knowledge of the facts concerning this question. The root-causes whose effect in England has been the misery and oppression of the proletariat exist also in Germany, the book was translated into English in 1885 by an American, Florence Kelley. Authorised by Engels and with a newly written preface by him, it was published in 1887 in New York and these English editions had the qualification in 1844 added to the English title. The state of things described in this book belongs to-day, in respects, to the past. Accordingly, the most crying abuses described in this book have either disappeared or have made less conspicuous. But while England has thus outgrown the juvenile state of capitalist exploitation described by me, france, Germany and especially America, are the formidable competitors who, at this moment – as foreseen by me in 1844 – are more and more breaking up Englands industrial monopoly
6.
The German Ideology
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The German Ideology is a set of manuscripts written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels around April or early May 1846. Marx and Engels did not find a publisher, but the work was retrieved and published for the first time in 1932 by David Riazanov through the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow. The multi-part book consists of many satirically written polemics against Bruno Bauer, other Young Hegelians, part I, however, is a work of exposition giving the appearance of being the work for which the Theses on Feuerbach served as an outline. The work is a restatement of the theory of history Marx was beginning to call the materialist conception of history, the text itself was written by Marx and Engels in Brussels in 1845 and 1846 but it was not published until 1932. The Preface and some of the alterations and additions are in Marxs hand, the bulk of the manuscript is in Engels hand, except for Chapter V of Volume II and some passages of Chapter III of Volume I which are in Joseph Weydemeyers hand. Chapter V in Volume II was written by Moses Hess and edited by Marx, the text in German runs to around 700 pages. The nature of individuals depends on the conditions determining their production. How far the productive forces of a nation are developed is shown by the degree to which the division of labor has been carried, also, there is a direct link between division of labor and forms of ownership. The ruling class, in ruling the material force of society, is simultaneously the ruling force of society. They regulate the production and distribution of ideas of their age, as the ruling class changes with time, so too do the ideals and the new ruling class must instill upon its society its own ideas which will become universal. The ruling ideas are thought to be the universal interest, however, it is an illusion that the ideas of the ruling class are the communal interests. This system will remain in place so long as society is organized around the need for a ruling class. To illustrate this theoretical framework, Marx draws on his formulation of base, historical development is the reflection of changes in the economic and material relations of the base. When the base changes, a revolutionary class becomes the new ruling class that forms the superstructure, during revolution, the revolutionary class makes certain that its ideas appeal to humanity in general so that after a successful revolution these ideas appear natural and universal. These ideas, which the elements of society propagate, then become the governing ideology of the historical period. Furthermore, the governing ideology mystifies the economic relations of society and this approach allows us to cease understanding history as a collection of dead facts or an imagined activity of subjects
7.
19th-century philosophy
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Pressures for egalitarianism, and more rapid change culminated in a period of revolution and turbulence that would see philosophy change as well. With the tumultuous years of 1789–1815, European culture was transformed by revolution, war, by ending many of the social and cultural props of the previous century, the stage was set for dramatic economic and political change. European philosophy reflected on, participated in, and drove, many of these changes, Immanuel Kant is a name that most would mention as being among the most important of influences, as is Jean-Jacques Rousseau. While both of these philosophers were products of the 18th century and its assumptions, they pressed at the boundaries. In trying to explain the nature of the state and government, Rousseau would challenge the basis of government with his declaration that Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains. Kant, while attempting to preserve axiomic skepticism, was forced to argue that we do not see true reality, all we know of reality is appearances. Since all we can see of reality is appearances, which are subject to certain necessary and subjective forms of perceptions, Hegels distinction between the unknowable and the circumstantially unknown can be seen as the beginnings of Hegels rational system of the universe. Yet another philosopher of the late Enlightenment that was influential in the 19th century was Pierre-Simon Laplace and this is by no means an exhaustive list of all 19th-century philosophy. One of the first philosophers to attempt to grapple with Kants philosophy was Johann Gottlieb Fichte, in Wissenschaftslehre, Fichte argues that the self posits itself and is a self-producing and changing process. But it was another of Fichtes students, and former roommate of Schelling and his work revealed the increasing importance of historical thinking in German thought. Arthur Schopenhauer, rejecting Hegel and also materialism, called for a return to Kantian transcendentalism, at the same time adopting atheism and determinism, amongst others. His secular thought became popular in Europe in the second half of the 19th century. This trend of thought survived into the beginning of the century, influencing 20th century philosophical movements such as Neopositivism. One of the most famous opponents of idealism in the first half of the German 19th century was Ludwig Feuerbach, in early 19th century Britain, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill promoted the idea that actions are right as they maximize happiness, and happiness alone. Marx analysed history itself as the progression of dialectics in the form of class struggle, from this it is argued that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Marxism had a influence on the history of the 20th Century. Existentialism as a movement is properly a 20th-century movement, but its major antecedents, Søren Kierkegaard. In the 1840s, academic philosophy in Europe, following Hegel, was almost completely divorced from the concerns of human life
8.
Western philosophy
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Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. The word philosophy itself originated from the Hellenic, philosophia, literally, the scope of philosophy in the ancient understanding, and the writings of the ancient philosophers, were all intellectual endeavors. Western Philosophy is generally said to begin in the Greek cities of western Asia Minor with Thales of Miletus and his most noted students were respectively Anaximander and Anaximenes of Miletus. Pythagoras, from the island of Samos off the coast of Ionia, pythagoreans hold that all is number, giving formal accounts in contrast to the previous material of the Ionians. They also believe in metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls, or reincarnation, Socrates The key figure in Greek philosophy is Socrates. Socrates studied under several Sophists but transformed Greek philosophy into a unified, Socrates used a critical approach called the elenchus or Socratic method to examine peoples views. He aimed to study human things, the life, justice, beauty. Although Socrates wrote nothing himself, some of his many disciples wrote down his conversations and he was tried for corrupting the youth and impiety by the Greek democracy. He was found guilty and sentenced to death, although his friends offered to help him escape from prison, he chose to remain in Athens and abide by his principles. His execution consisting in drinking the poison hemlock and he died in 399 B. C, Plato Socrates most important student was Plato. Plato founded the Academy of Athens and wrote a number of dialogues, some central ideas of Platos dialogues are the immortality of the soul, the benefits of being just, that evil is ignorance, and the Theory of Forms. Forms are universal properties that constitute reality and contrast with the changeable material things he called becoming. Aristotle Platos most outstanding student was Aristotle, Aristotle was perhaps the first truly systematic philosopher and scientist. He wrote books on physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, politics, Aristotelian logic was the first type of logic to attempt to categorize every valid syllogism. Aristotelian philosophy exercised considerable influence on almost all western philosophers, including Greek, Roman, Christian, Jewish, the Neoplatonic and Christian philosophers of Late Antiquity. Early medieval philosophy was influenced by the likes of Stoicism, neo-Platonism, but, above all, the prominent figure of this period was St. Augustinianism was the preferred starting point for most philosophers up until the 13th century. The foundations of many northern European universities were built in the Middle Ages by waves of Irish, Scottish & English monks from the Celtic Church begun by Columba, see Celtic Christianity. Erigena is said to have been stabbed to death by his students with their pens and his theology would today be called pantheistic, in keeping with Celtic resolutions of pagan and Christian philosophy
9.
Marxism
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It originates from the mid-to-late 19th century works of German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As the contradiction becomes apparent to the proletariat through the alienation of labor, Marxism has since developed into different branches and schools of thought, and there is now no single definitive Marxist theory. Marxism has been adopted by a number of academics and theorists working in various disciplines. Critics have taken issue with particular Marxist claims or accused Marxism as a whole of being inconsistent, refuted based on new information. The Marxian analysis begins with an analysis of the material conditions, the economic system and these social relations form a base and superstructure. As forces of production, most notably technology, improve, existing forms of social organization become inefficient, from forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution and these inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in society in the form of class struggle. Under the capitalist mode of production, this struggle materializes between the minority who own the means of production, and the vast majority of the population who produce goods, the socialist system would succeed capitalism as humanitys mode of production through workers revolution. According to Marxism, especially arising from crisis theory, socialism is a historical necessity, in a socialist society private property, in the form of the means of production, would be replaced by co-operative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits, Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand. The historical materialist theory of history analyses the causes of societal development. All constituent features of a society are assumed to stem from economic activity, the base and superstructure metaphor portrays the totality of social relations by which humans produce and re-produce their social existence. According to Marx, The sum total of the forces of production accessible to men determines the condition of society and this relationship is reflexive, at first the base gives rise to the superstructure and remains the foundation of a form of social organization. As Friedrich Engels clarified, The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, accordingly, Marx designated human history as encompassing four stages of development in relations of production. Primitive Communism, as in tribal societies. Slave Society, a development of tribal to city-state, aristocracy is born, feudalism, aristocrats are the ruling class, merchants evolve into capitalists. Capitalism, capitalists are the class, who create and employ the proletariat. According to the Marxist theoretician and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, the content of Marxism was Marxs economic doctrine
10.
Political philosophy
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In a vernacular sense, the term political philosophy often refers to a general view, or specific ethic, political belief or attitude, about politics, synonymous to the term political ideology. Chinese political philosophy dates back to the Spring and Autumn period, Chinese political philosophy was developed as a response to the social and political breakdown of the country characteristic of the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. The major philosophies during the period, Confucianism, Legalism, Mohism, Agrarianism and Taoism, philosophers such as Confucius, Mencius, and Mozi, focused on political unity and political stability as the basis of their political philosophies. Confucianism advocated a hierarchical, meritocratic government based on empathy, loyalty, Legalism advocated a highly authoritarian government based on draconian punishments and laws. Mohism advocated a communal, decentralized government centered on frugality and ascetism, the Agrarians advocated a peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism. Legalism was the dominant political philosophy of the Qin Dynasty, but was replaced by State Confucianism in the Han Dynasty, prior to Chinas adoption of communism, State Confucianism remained the dominant political philosophy of China up to the 20th century. Western political philosophy originates in the philosophy of ancient Greece, where political philosophy dates back to at least Plato, ancient Greece was dominated by city-states, which experimented with various forms of political organization, grouped by Plato into four categories, timocracy, tyranny, democracy and oligarchy. One of the first, extremely important classical works of philosophy is Platos Republic. Roman political philosophy was influenced by the Stoics and the Roman statesman Cicero, Indian political philosophy evolved in ancient times and demarcated a clear distinction between nation and state religion and state. The constitutions of Hindu states evolved over time and were based on political and legal treatises, the institutions of state were broadly divided into governance, administration, defense, law and order. Mantranga, the governing body of these states, consisted of the King, Prime Minister, Commander in chief of army. The Prime Minister headed the committee of ministers along with head of executive, chanakya, 4th century BC Indian political philosopher. Another influential extant Indian treatise on philosophy is the Sukra Neeti. An example of a code of law in ancient India is the Manusmṛti or Laws of Manu, the early Christian philosophy of Augustine of Hippo was heavily influenced by Plato. Augustine also preached that one was not a member of his or her city, augustines City of God is an influential work of this period that attacked the thesis, held by many Christian Romans, that the Christian view could be realized on Earth. Thomas Aquinas meticulously dealt with the varieties of law, according to Aquinas, there are four kinds of law, Eternal law Divine positive law Natural law Human law Aquinas never discusses the nature or categorization of canon law. There is scholarly debate surrounding the place of law within the Thomistic jurisprudential framework. Aquinas was an influential thinker in the Natural Law tradition
11.
Class conflict
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The view that the class struggle provides the lever for radical social change for the majority is central to the work of Karl Marx and the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. In the past the term Class conflict was a term used mostly by socialists, from this point of view, the social control of production and labor is a contest between classes, and the division of these resources necessarily involves conflict and inflicts harm. It can involve ongoing low-level clashes, escalate into massive confrontations, however, in more contemporary times this term is striking chords and finding new definition amongst capitalistic societies in the United States and other Westernized countries. This was only a potential, and class struggle was, he argued, not always the only or decisive factor in society, by contrast, Marxists argue that class conflict always plays the decisive and pivotal role in the history of class-based hierarchical systems such as capitalism and feudalism. Marxists refer to its overt manifestations as class war, a struggle whose resolution in favor of the class is viewed by them as inevitable under plutocratic capitalism. Where societies are socially divided based on status, wealth, or control of production and distribution. It is well documented since at least European Classical Antiquity and the popular uprisings in late medieval Europe. One of the earliest analysis of these conflicts is Friedrich Engels The Peasant War in Germany, one of the earliest analyses of the development of class as the development of conflicts between emergent classes is available in Peter Kropotkins Mutual Aid. In this work, Kropotkin analyzes the disposal of goods after death in pre-class or hunter-gatherer societies, chris Hedges wrote a column for Truthdig called Lets Get This Class War Started, which was a play on Pinks song Lets Get This Party Started. And I think that can go on for so long without there being more and more outbreaks of what used to be called class struggle. The particular implementation of government programs which may seem purely humanitarian, such as disaster relief, in the USA class conflict is often noted in labor/management disputes. Although Thomas Jefferson led the United States as president from 1801–1809 and is considered one of the founding fathers, among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep and this is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention, do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves. In 2005 Buffet said to CNN, Its class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldnt be. In a November 2006 interview in The New York Times, Buffett stated that here’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the class, that’s making war. Later Warren gave away more than half of his fortune to charitable causes through a developed by himself
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Criticism of capitalism
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Criticism of capitalism ranges from expressing disagreement with the principles of capitalism in its entirety, to expressing disagreement with particular outcomes of capitalism. Some critics believe there are merits in capitalism, and wish to balance it with some form of social control and it is now well known that capitalist development leads to the concentration of capital, employment and power. It is somewhat less known that it leads to the almost complete destruction of economic freedom, activists argue that capitalism leads to a significant loss of political, democratic, and economic power for the vast majority of the global human population. As part of the left, activists against corporate power and influence support a decreased income gap. David Schweickart wrote that, in capitalist societies, ordinary people are deemed competent enough to select their political leaders-but not their bosses, thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of the United States, said I hope we shall crush. In its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. Franklin D. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, critics of capitalism view the system as inherently exploitative. In an economic sense, exploitation is often related to the expropriation of labor for profit, in Das Kapital, Karl Marx identified the commodity as the basic unit of capitalist organization. Marx described a common denominator between commodities, in particular that commodities are the product of labor and are related to other by an exchange value. However, due to the forces of industrial organization, laborers are seen as creating more exchange value during the course of the working day than the cost of their survival. Marxists argue that capitalists are able to pay for this cost of survival. Marxists further argue that due to inequality, the purchase of labor cannot occur under free conditions. Since capitalists control the means of production and workers control only their labor, critics argue that exploitation occurs even if the exploited consents, since the definition of exploitation is independent of consent. In essence, workers must allow their labor to be exploited or face starvation, since some degree of unemployment is typical in modern economies, Marxists argue that wages are naturally driven down in free market systems. Hence, even if a worker contests their wages, capitalists are able to find someone from the army of labor who is more desperate. Unions are the method for workers to have more bargaining power in the marketplace. The act of striking has historically been an action to withhold labor from capitalists. Some critics of capitalism, while acknowledging the necessity of trade unionism, believe that trade unions simply reform an already exploitative system, lysander Spooner argued that almost all fortunes are made out of the capital and labour of other men than those who realize them
13.
Marx's theory of alienation
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Karl Marxs theory of alienation describes the estrangement of people from aspects of their Gattungswesen as a consequence of living in a society of stratified social classes. The alienation from the self is a consequence of being a part of a social class. Karl Marx expressed the Entfremdung theory, of estrangement from the self, each of us would have, in two ways, affirmed himself, and the other person. Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature, in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx identified four types of alienation that occur to the worker labouring under a capitalist system of industrial production. The worker is alienated from the means of production via two forms, wage compulsion and the production content. The worker is bound to unwanted labour as a means of survival, labour is not voluntary, the worker is only able to reject wage compulsion at the expense of their life and that of their family. The distribution of property in the hands of wealth owners. In a capitalist world our means of survival is based on exchange, therefore we have no other choice than to sell our labour power. Does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body, the worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. Labor is external to the worker, it is not a part of their essential being, during work the worker is miserable, unhappy and drained of their energy, work mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The production content, direction and form are imposed by the capitalist and this means he cannot freely and spontaneously create according to his own directive, labors form and direction belong to someone else. The Gattungswesen, human nature of individuals is not discrete from their activity as a worker, as such, species-essence also comprises all of innate human potential as a person. The psychic value of a human consists in being able to conceive of the ends of their actions as purposeful ideas, which are distinct from the actions required to realize a given idea. That is, humans are able to objectify their intentions, by means of an idea of themselves, as the subject, and an idea of the thing that they produce, the object. In the course of history, to individual survival, societies have organized themselves into groups who have different. In a capitalist economy, the businesses who own the means of production establish a competitive labour-market meant to extract from the worker as much labour as possible, in Marxist theory, Entfremdung is a foundational proposition about mans progress towards self-actualisation. In the Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Ted Honderich described the influences of G. F. W, Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach upon Karl Marx, For Hegel, the unhappy consciousness is divided against itself, separated from its essence, which it has placed in a beyond. As used by the philosophers Hegel and Marx, the reflexive German verbs entäussern and entfremden indicate that the term alienation denotes self-alienation, in The Phenomenology of Spirit, G. F. W
14.
Exploitation of labour
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Exploitation refers to social relations where an actor or character of actors uses others for their own end because of a fundamentally asymmetric power relationship between them. When speaking about exploitation there is an affiliation with consumption in social theory. Traditionally, this would label exploitation as unfairly taking advantage of another person because of his or her inferior position, karl Marx, who is considered the most classical and influential theorist of exploitation, did not share the same traditional account of exploitation. Marxs theory explicitly rejects the moral framing characteristic of the notion of exploitation, in analyzing exploitation, many political economists are often stuck between the explanation of the exploitation of labour given by Marx and Adam Smith. Marxs exploitation theory is one of the major elements analyzed in Marxian economics, Marx credited the Scottish Enlightenment writers for originally propounding a materialist interpretation of history. Exploitation is when these two principles are not met, when the agents are not receiving according to their work or needs and this labour performed by a population over a certain time period is equal to the labour embodied to the goods that make up the net national product. The NNP is then parceled out to the members of the population in some way, the exploiters are the agents able to command goods, with revenue from their wages, that are embodied with more labour than the exploiters themselves have put forth. These agents often have class status and ownership of assets that aid the optimization of exploitation. The exploiters would typically be the bourgeoisie, meanwhile, the exploited are those who receive less than the average product he or she produces. If workers receive an amount equivalent to their product, there is no revenue left over. Thus, these workers cannot enjoy the fruits of their own labours, exploiters appropriate anothers surplus labour, which is the amount of labour exceeding what is necessary for the reproduction of a workers labour power and basic living conditions. In other terms, this entails the worker being able to maintain living conditions sufficient to be able to continue work. This comes from Marxs labour theory of value which claims that value is intrinsic in a product according to the amount of labour that has spent on producing the product. In a capitalist economy, workers are paid according to value and value is the source of all wealth. Value is determined by a goods particular utility for an actor, if the results from human activity it must be understood as a product of concrete labour. Capitalists are able to purchase power from the workers, who can only bring their own labour power in the market. Once capitalists are able to pay the worker less than the produced by their labour, surplus labour forms. This is what Marx meant by surplus value, which he saw as an expression for the degree of exploitation of labor-power by capital
15.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and an important figure of German idealism. He achieved wide renown in his day and, while primarily influential within the tradition of philosophy, has become increasingly influential in the analytic tradition as well. Although he remains a figure, his canonical stature within Western philosophy is universally recognized. His philosophy of spirit conceptually integrates psychology, the state, history, art, religion and his account of the master–slave dialectic has been highly influential, especially in 20th-century France. Hegel has been seen in the 20th century as the originator of the thesis, antithesis, synthesis triad, however, as an explicit phrase, Hegel has influenced many thinkers and writers whose own positions vary widely. Hegel was born on August 27,1770 in Stuttgart, in the Duchy of Württemberg in southwestern Germany, christened Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, he was known as Wilhelm to his close family. His father, Georg Ludwig, was Rentkammersekretär at the court of Karl Eugen, Hegels mother, Maria Magdalena Louisa, was the daughter of a lawyer at the High Court of Justice at the Württemberg court. She died of a fever when Hegel was thirteen. Hegel and his father caught the disease but narrowly survived. Hegel had a sister, Christiane Luise, and a brother, Georg Ludwig, at the age of three Hegel went to the German School. When he entered the Latin School two years later, he knew the first declension, having been taught it by his mother. In 1776, Hegel entered Stuttgarts gymnasium illustre, during his adolescence Hegel read voraciously, copying lengthy extracts in his diary. Authors he read include the poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and writers associated with the Enlightenment, such as Christian Garve, Hegels studies at the Gymnasium were concluded with his Abiturrede entitled The abortive state of art and scholarship in Turkey. At the age of eighteen Hegel entered the Tübinger Stift, where he had as roommates the poet Friedrich Hölderlin, sharing a dislike for what they regarded as the restrictive environment of the Seminary, the three became close friends and mutually influenced each others ideas. All greatly admired Hellenic civilization, and Hegel additionally steeped himself in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and they watched the unfolding of the French Revolution with shared enthusiasm. Schelling and Hölderlin immersed themselves in theoretical debates on Kantian philosophy, Hegel at this time envisaged his future as that of a Popularphilosoph, i. e. Having received his certificate from the Tübingen Seminary, Hegel became Hofmeister to an aristocratic family in Bern. During this period he composed the text which has known as the Life of Jesus
16.
Ludwig Feuerbach
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An associate of Left Hegelian circles, Feuerbach advocated liberalism, atheism, and materialism. Many of his philosophical writings offered an analysis of religion. His thought was influential in the development of historical materialism, where he is recognized as a bridge between Hegel and Marx. Feuerbach was the son of the eminent jurist Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach, brother of mathematician Karl Wilhelm Feuerbach. After 2 years, the Hegelian influence began to slacken, theology, he wrote to a friend, I can bring myself to study no more. I long to take nature to my heart, that nature before whose depth the faint-hearted theologian shrinks back and these words are a key to Feuerbachs development. He completed his education at Erlangen, at the University of Erlangen with the study of natural science and he earned his habilitation from Erlangen on 25 July 1828 with his thesis De ratione una, universali, infinita. His first book, published anonymously, Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit, contains an attack on personal immortality and these principles, combined with his embarrassed manner of public speaking, debarred him from academic advancement. His most important work, Das Wesen des Christentums, was translated by Mary Ann Evans into English as The Essence of Christianity. Feuerbachs theme was a derivation of Hegels speculative theology in which the Creation remains a part of the Creator, when the student Feuerbach presented his own theory to professor Hegel, Hegel refused to reply positively to it. In part I of his book Feuerbach developed what he calls the true or anthropological essence of religion, treating of God in his various aspects as a being of the understanding, as a moral being or law, as love and so on. Feuerbach talks of how humankind is equally a conscious being, more so than God because humans have placed upon God the ability of understanding, humans contemplate many things and in doing so they become acquainted with themselves. Feuerbach shows that in every aspect God corresponds to some feature or need of human nature, as he states, In the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious subject has for his object the infinity of his own nature. Instead, Feuerbach concludes, If man is to find contentment in God, he claims, thus God is nothing else than human, he is, so to speak, the outward projection of a humans inward nature. This projection is dubbed as a chimera by Feuerbach, that God and the idea of a higher being is dependent upon the aspect of benevolence. Feuerbach states that, “a God who is not benevolent, not just, not wise, is no God, ” and continues to say that qualities are not suddenly denoted as divine because of their godly association. The force of attraction to religion though, giving divinity to a figure like God, is explained by Feuerbach as God is a being that acts throughout humans in all forms. God, “is the principle of salvation, of good dispositions and actions, consequently own good principle and nature
17.
Max Stirner
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Johann Kaspar Schmidt, better known as Max Stirner, was a German philosopher. He is often seen as one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory, postmodernism, Stirners main work is The Ego and Its Own, also known as The Ego and His Own. This work was first published in 1845 in Leipzig, and has appeared in numerous editions and translations. Stirner was born in Bayreuth, Bavaria, Stirner was the only child of Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt and Sophia Elenora Reinlein. His father died of tuberculosis on April 19,1807 at the age of 37, in 1809 his mother remarried to Heinrich Ballerstedt, a pharmacist, and settled in West Prussian Kulm. When Stirner turned 20, he attended the University of Berlin, where he studied philology, philosophy and he attended the lectures of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who was to become a source of inspiration for his thinking. He attended Hegels lectures on the history of philosophy, the philosophy of religion, Stirner then moved to the University of Erlangen, which he attended at the same time as Ludwig Feuerbach. Stirner returned to Berlin and obtained a certificate, but was unable to obtain a full-time teaching post from the Prussian government. While in Berlin in 1841, Stirner participated in discussions with a group of young philosophers called Die Freien, and whom historians have subsequently categorized as the Young Hegelians. Some of the best known names in nineteenth century literature and philosophy were involved with this group, including Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Bruno Bauer, contrary to popular belief, Feuerbach was not a member of Die Freien, although he was heavily involved in Young Hegelian discourse. Feuerbach and Bauer led this charge, frequently the debates would take place at Hippels, a wine bar in Friedrichstraße, attended by, among others, Marx and Engels, who were both adherents of Feuerbach at the time. Stirner met with Engels many times, and Engels even recalled that they were great friends and it does not appear that Stirner contributed much to the discussions, but he was a faithful member of the club and an attentive listener. The most-often reproduced portrait of Stirner is a cartoon by Engels and it is highly likely that this and the group sketch of Die Freien at Hippels are the only firsthand images of Stirner. He resigned from his position in anticipation of controversy from this works publication in October 1844. His first wife was a servant, with whom he fell in love at an early age. She died from complications with pregnancy in 1838, soon after their marriage, in 1843 he married Marie Dähnhardt, an intellectual associated with Die Freien. The Ego and Its Own was dedicated to my sweetheart Marie Dähnhardt, Marie later converted to Catholicism and died in 1902 in London. Stirner planned and financed an attempt by some Young Hegelians to own and this enterprise failed partly because the dairy farmers were suspicious of these well-dressed intellectuals
18.
Adam Smith
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Adam Smith FRSA was a Scottish economist, philosopher, and author. He was a philosopher, a pioneer of political economy. He is best known for two works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and An Inquiry into the Nature. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and at Balliol College, Oxford, after graduating, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at Edinburgh, leading him to collaborate with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow teaching moral philosophy, and during this time he wrote, in his later life, he took a tutoring position that allowed him to travel throughout Europe, where he met other intellectual leaders of his day. Smith laid the foundations of free market economic theory. The Wealth of Nations was a precursor to the academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, he developed the concept of division of labour, Smith was controversial in his own day and his general approach and writing style were often satirised by Tory writers in the moralising tradition of William Hogarth and Jonathan Swift. In 2005, The Wealth of Nations was named among the 100 Best Scottish Books of all time, the minor planet 12838 Adamsmith was named in his memory. Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, in the County of Fife and his father, also Adam Smith, was a Scottish Writer to the Signet, advocate, and prosecutor and also served as comptroller of the Customs in Kirkcaldy. In 1720 he married Margaret Douglas, daughter of the landed Robert Douglas of Strathendry and his father died two months after he was born, leaving his mother a widow. The date of Smiths baptism into the Church of Scotland at Kirkcaldy was 5 June 1723, and this has often been treated as if it were also his date of birth, Smith was close to his mother, who probably encouraged him to pursue his scholarly ambitions. He attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy—characterised by Rae as one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period—from 1729 to 1737, he learned Latin, mathematics, history, Smith entered the University of Glasgow when he was fourteen and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson. Here, Smith developed his passion for liberty, reason, in 1740 Smith was the graduate scholar presented to undertake postgraduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford, under the Snell Exhibition. Adam Smith considered the teaching at Glasgow to be far superior to that at Oxford, according to William Robert Scott, The Oxford of time gave little if any help towards what was to be his lifework. Nevertheless, Smith took the opportunity while at Oxford to teach several subjects by reading many books from the shelves of the large Bodleian Library. When Smith was not studying on his own, his time at Oxford was not a happy one, near the end of his time there, Smith began suffering from shaking fits, probably the symptoms of a nervous breakdown
19.
David Ricardo
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David Ricardo was a British political economist. He was one of the most influential of the economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith. Born in London, England, Ricardo was the third of 17 children of a Sephardic Jewish family of Portuguese origin who had relocated from the Dutch Republic. His father, Abraham Ricardo, was a successful stockbroker and he began working with his father at the age of 14. At age 21, Ricardo eloped with a Quaker, Priscilla Anne Wilkinson and this religious difference resulted in estrangement from his family, and he was led to adopt a position of independence. His father disowned him and his mother never spoke to him again. Following this estrangement he went into business for himself with the support of Lubbocks and Forster and he made the bulk of his fortune as a result of speculation on the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo. Prior to the battle, Ricardo posted an observer to convey early results of the outcome and he then deliberately created the mistaken impression the French had won by initially openly selling British securities. Following this panic he moved to buy British securities at a steep discount, the Sunday Times reported in Ricardo’s obituary, published on 14 September 1823, that during the Battle of Waterloo Ricardo netted upwards of a million sterling, a huge sum at the time. He was appointed High Sheriff of Gloucestershire for 1818–19, in August 1818 he bought Lord Portarlington’s seat in Parliament for £4,000, as part of the terms of a loan of £25,000. His record in Parliament was that of an earnest reformer and he held the seat until his death four years later. Ricardo was a friend of James Mill. Other notable friends included Jeremy Bentham and Thomas Malthus, with whom Ricardo had a debate over such things as the role of landowners in a society. He also was a member of Malthus Political Economy Club, and he was one of the original members of The Geological Society. His sister was author Sarah Ricardo-Porter and he voted with opposition in support of the liberal movements in Naples,21 Feb. and Sicily,21 June, and for inquiry into the administration of justice in Tobago,6 June. He divided for repeal of the Blasphemous and Seditious Libels Act,8 May, inquiry into the Peterloo massacre,16 May and he adamantly supported the implementation of free trade. He voted against renewal of the duties,9 Feb. He voted silently for parliamentary reform,25 Apr.3 June and he again voted for criminal law reform,4 June
20.
Karl Marx
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Karl Marx was a Prussian-born philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Born in Trier to a family, he later studied political economy. His work has influenced subsequent intellectual, economic, and political history. These economic critiques were set out in works such as the three volumes, published between 1867 and 1894, that comprise Das Kapital. According to Marx, states are run in the interests of the class but are nonetheless represented as being in favor of the common interest of all. He predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, capitalism produced internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism. Marx actively fought for its implementation, arguing that the class should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and his work in economics laid the basis for much of the current understanding of labour and its relation to capital, and subsequent economic thought. Many intellectuals, labour unions, artists and political parties worldwide have been influenced by Marxs work, Marx is typically cited as one of the principal architects of modern sociology and social science. Karl Marx was born on 5 May 1818 to Heinrich Marx and he was born at Brückengasse 664 in Trier, a town then part of the Kingdom of Prussias Province of the Lower Rhine. Marx was ancestrally Jewish, his grandfather was a Dutch rabbi, while his paternal line had supplied Triers rabbis since 1723. Marx was also a cousin once removed of German Romantic poet Heinrich Heine, also born to a German Jewish family in the Rhineland. Largely non-religious, Heinrich was a man of the Enlightenment, interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant, a classical liberal, he took part in agitation for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, then governed by an absolute monarchy. In 1815 Heinrich Marx began work as an attorney, in 1819 moving his family to a property near the Porta Nigra. Her sister Sophie Pressburg, was Marxs aunt and was married to Lion Philips Marxs uncle through this marriage, Lion Philips was a wealthy Dutch tobacco manufacturer and industrialist, upon whom Karl and Jenny Marx would later often come to rely for loans while they were exiled in London. Little is known of Karl Marxs childhood, the third of nine children, he became the oldest son when his brother Moritz died in 1819. Young Karl was baptised into the Lutheran Church in August 1824 along with his siblings, Sophie, Hermann, Henriette, Louise, Emilie. Young Karl was privately educated, by Heinrich Marx, until 1830, by employing many liberal humanists as teachers, Wyttenbach incurred the anger of the local conservative government
21.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Francophone Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th century. His political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment in France and across Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution, Rousseaus novel Emile, or On Education is a treatise on the education of the whole person for citizenship. His sentimental novel Julie, or the New Heloise was of importance to the development of pre-romanticism and romanticism in fiction and his Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract are cornerstones in modern political and social thought. During the period of the French Revolution, Rousseau was the most popular of the philosophes among members of the Jacobin Club and he was interred as a national hero in the Panthéon in Paris, in 1794,16 years after his death. Rousseau was born in Geneva, which was at the time a city-state, since 1536, Geneva had been a Huguenot republic and the seat of Calvinism. Rousseau was proud that his family, of the order, had voting rights in the city. Throughout his life, he signed his books Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Geneva, in theory, was governed democratically by its male voting citizens, the citizens were a minority of the population when compared to the immigrants, referred to as inhabitants, whose descendants were called natives and continued to lack suffrage. There was much debate within Geneva, extending down to the tradespeople. Much discussion was over the idea of the sovereignty of the people, in 1707, a democratic reformer named Pierre Fatio protested this situation, saying a sovereign that never performs an act of sovereignty is an imaginary being. He was shot by order of the Little Council, Jean-Jacques Rousseaus father, Isaac, was not in the city at this time, but Jean-Jacquess grandfather supported Fatio and was penalized for it. The trade of watchmaking had become a tradition by the time of Rousseaus father. Isaac followed his grandfather, father and brothers into the business, Isaac, notwithstanding his artisan status, was well educated and a lover of music. A Genevan watchmaker, Rousseau wrote, is a man who can be introduced anywhere, in 1699, Isaac ran into political difficulty by entering a quarrel with visiting English officers, who in response drew their swords and threatened him. After local officials stepped in, it was Isaac who was punished, Rousseaus mother, Suzanne Bernard Rousseau, was from an upper-class family. She was raised by her uncle Samuel Bernard, a Calvinist preacher and he cared for Suzanne after her father Jacques died in his early thirties. In 1695, Suzanne had to answer charges that she had attended a street theater disguised as a peasant woman so she could gaze upon M. Vincent Sarrasin, after a hearing, she was ordered by the Genevan Consistory to never interact with him again. She married Rousseaus father at the age of 31, isaacs sister had married Suzannes brother eight years earlier, after she had become pregnant and they had been chastised by the Consistory
22.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters and he was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. He also contributed to the planning of Weimars botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace and his first major scientific work, the Metamorphosis of Plants, was published after he returned from a 1788 tour of Italy. During this period, Goethe published his novel, Wilhelm Meisters Apprenticeship, the verse epic Hermann and Dorothea, and, in 1808. Goethes comments and observations form the basis of several biographical works, Goethes father, Johann Caspar Goethe, lived with his family in a large house in Frankfurt, then an Imperial Free City of the Holy Roman Empire. Though he had studied law in Leipzig and had been appointed Imperial Councillor, Johann Caspar married Goethes mother, Catharina Elizabeth Textor at Frankfurt on 20 August 1748, when he was 38 and she was 17. All their children, with the exception of Johann Wolfgang and his sister, Cornelia Friederica Christiana and his father and private tutors gave Goethe lessons in all the common subjects of their time, especially languages. Goethe also received lessons in dancing, riding and fencing, Johann Caspar, feeling frustrated in his own ambitions, was determined that his children should have all those advantages that he had not. Although Goethes great passion was drawing, he became interested in literature, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. He also took pleasure in reading works on history and religion. He writes about this period, Goethe became also acquainted with Frankfurt actors, among early literary attempts, he was infatuated with Gretchen, who would later reappear in his Faust and the adventures with whom he would concisely describe in Dichtung und Wahrheit. He adored Caritas Meixner, a wealthy Worms traders daughter and friend of his sister, Goethe studied law at Leipzig University from 1765 to 1768. He detested learning age-old judicial rules by heart, preferring instead to attend the lessons of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. In Leipzig, Goethe fell in love with Anna Katharina Schönkopf, in 1770, he anonymously released Annette, his first collection of poems. His uncritical admiration for many contemporary poets vanished as he became interested in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, already at this time, Goethe wrote a good deal, but he threw away nearly all of these works, except for the comedy Die Mitschuldigen. The restaurant Auerbachs Keller and its legend of Fausts 1525 barrel ride impressed him so much that Auerbachs Keller became the real place in his closet drama Faust Part One. As his studies did not progress, Goethe was forced to return to Frankfurt at the close of August 1768, Goethe became severely ill in Frankfurt. During the year and a half that followed, because of several relapses, during convalescence, Goethe was nursed by his mother and sister
23.
Charles Fourier
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François Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher and an influential early socialist thinker later associated with utopian socialism. Some of Fouriers social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become mainstream thinking in modern society, Fourier is, for instance, credited with having originated the word feminism in 1837. Fouriers social views and proposals inspired a movement of intentional communities. Later Fourier inspired an array of revolutionary thinkers and writers. Fourier was born in Besançon, France on April 7,1772, the son of a small businessman, Fourier was more interested in architecture than in his fathers trade. He wanted to become an engineer, but the military engineering school accepted only sons of noblemen. Fourier later said he was grateful that he did not pursue engineering, because it would have consumed too much of his time, when his father died in 1781, Fourier received two-fifths of his fathers estate, valued at more than 200,000 francs. This inheritance enabled Fourier to travel throughout Europe at his leisure, in 1791 he moved from Besançon to Lyon, where he was employed by the merchant M. Bousquet. Fouriers travels also brought him to Paris, where he worked as the head of the Office of Statistics for a few months, from 1791 to 1816 Fourier was employed in Paris, Rouen, Lyon, Marseille, and Bordeaux. As a traveling salesman and correspondence clerk, his research and thought was time-limited, he complained of serving the knavery of merchants and he took up writing, and his first book was published in 1808. Fourier died in Paris in 1837, Fourier declared that concern and cooperation were the secrets of social success. He believed that a society that cooperated would see an improvement in their productivity levels. Workers would be recompensed for their labors according to their contribution, Fourier saw such cooperation occurring in communities he called phalanxes, based around structures called Phalanstères or grand hotels. These buildings were four-level apartment complexes where the richest had the uppermost apartments, wealth was determined by ones job, jobs were assigned based on the interests and desires of the individual. There were incentives, jobs people might not enjoy doing would receive higher pay, Fourier considered trade, which he associated with Jews, to be the source of all evil and advocated that Jews be forced to perform farm work in the phalansteries. Fourier characterized poverty as the cause of disorder in society. The transformation of labor into pleasure is the idea in Fouriers giant socialist utopia. He believed that there were twelve common passions which resulted in 810 types of character, one day there would be six million of these, loosely ruled by a world omniarch, or a World Congress of Phalanxes
24.
Moses Hess
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Moses Hess was a Jewish French philosopher and socialist, and one of the founders of Labor Zionism. Hess was born in Bonn, which was under French rule at the time, in his French-language birth certificate, his name is given as Moises, he was named after his maternal grandfather. Hess received a Jewish religious education from his grandfather, and later studied philosophy at the University of Bonn and he was an early proponent of socialism, and a precursor to what would later be called Zionism. His works included Holy History of Mankind, European Triarchy and Rome and Jerusalem and he married a Catholic working-class woman, Sibylle Pesch, in defiance of bourgeois values. In socialist literature the idea was propagated that she was a prostitute redeemed by Hess, as correspondent for the Rheinische Zeitung, a radical newspaper founded by liberal Rhenish businessmen, he lived in Paris. He was a friend and collaborator of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Hess introduced Engels, the future famous communist, to the communism of the early 1840s. But Marx and Engels would become known for their fickle. By the late 1840s, they had fallen out with Hess and they mocked him, first behind his back and later openly, and Engels had an affair with Hesss wife. The work of Hess was also criticized in part of The German Ideology by Marx, Hess fled to Belgium and Switzerland temporarily following the suppression of the 1848 commune. He would also go abroad during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, Hess became reluctant to base all history on economic causes and class struggle, and he came to see the struggle of races, or nationalities, as the prime factor of history. From 1861 to 1863 he lived in Germany, where he acquainted with the rising tide of German antisemitism. It was then that he reverted to his Jewish name Moses in protest against Jewish assimilation and he published Rome and Jerusalem in 1862. Hess interprets history as a circle of race and national struggles, Hesss Rome and Jerusalem, The Last National Question went unnoticed in his time, along with the rest of his writings. Most German Jews were bent on cultural assimilation and did not heed Hesss unfashionable warnings and his work did not stimulate any political activity or discussion. Hesss contribution, like Leon Pinskers Autoemancipation, became important only in retrospect, as the Zionist movement began to crystallize and to generate an audience in the late nineteenth century. Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky honored Hess in The Jewish Legion in the World War as one of people that made the Balfour declaration possible, together with Herzl, Rothschild. Hess died in Paris in 1875, as he requested, he was buried in the Jewish cemetery of Cologne. In 1961 he was re-interred in the Kinneret Cemetery in Israel along with other Socialist-Zionists such as Nachman Syrkin, Ber Borochov, the moshav Kfar Hess was named in his honour
25.
Lewis H. Morgan
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Lewis Henry Morgan was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evolution, interested in what holds societies together, he proposed the concept that the earliest human domestic institution was the matrilineal clan, not the patriarchal family. Morgan is the only American social theorist to be cited by such scholars as Marx, Charles Darwin. Elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Morgan served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1879. Morgan was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly in 1861, various sources record that the three sons of William Morgan of Llandaff, Glamorganshire, took passage for Boston in 1636. From there Miles went to Springfield, James to New London, Connecticut, Lloyd writes, From these two brothers all the Morgans prominent in the annals of New York and New England are believed to be descended. The Morgans to which he played a critical part in the foundation of the colonies. During the American Revolutionary War, they were Continentals, immediately after the war, the Connecticut line, along with many other land-hungry Yankees, migrated into New York State. Following the United States victory against the British, the new government forced the latters Iroquois allies to cede most of their lands in New York. New York made 5 million of acres available for public sale, in addition, the US government granted some plots in western New York to Revolutionary veterans as compensation for their service in the war. Lewis grandfather, Thomas Morgan of Connecticut, had been a Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War. Afterward he and his family migrated west to New Yorks Finger Lakes region and he and his wife already had three sons, including Jedediah, the future father of Lewis, and a daughter. In 1797, Jedediah Morgan married Amanda Stanton, settling on a 100-acre gift of land from his father, after she had five children and died, Jedediah married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight children, including Lewis. As an adult, he adopted the middle initial H. Lewis later decided that this H, if anything, a multi-skilled Yankee, Jedediah Morgan invented a plow and formed a business partnership to manufacture parts for it, he built a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to a son, after joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. Elected a state senator, Morgan supported the construction of the Erie Canal, at his death in 1826, Jedediah left 500 acres with herds and flocks in trust for the support of his family. This provided for education as well, Lewis studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy, Latin, Greek, rhetoric and mathematics
26.
Heraclitus
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Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, and a native of the city of Ephesus, then part of the Persian Empire. Little is known about his life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught. Heraclitus was famous for his insistence on ever-present change as being the essence of the universe, as stated in the famous saying. This position was complemented by his commitment to a unity of opposites in the world, stating that the path up and down are one. Through these doctrines Heraclitus characterized all existing entities by pairs of contrary properties and this, along with his cryptic utterance that all entities come to be in accordance with this Logos has been the subject of numerous interpretations. Diogenes said that Heraclitus flourished in the 69th Olympiad, 504–501 BC, All the rest of the evidence — the people Heraclitus is said to have known, or the people who were familiar with his work — confirms the floruit. His dates of birth and death are based on a span of 60 years. Heraclitus was born to a family in Ephesus, in the Persian Empire, in what is now called present-day Efes. His father was named either Blosôn or Herakôn, how much power the king had is another question. Ephesus had been part of the Persian Empire since 547 and was ruled by a satrap, two extant letters between Heraclitus and Darius I, quoted by Diogenes, are undoubtedly later forgeries. With regard to education, Diogenes says that Heraclitus was wondrous from childhood, Diogenes relates that Sotion said he was a hearer of Xenophanes, which contradicts Heraclitus statement that he had taught himself by questioning himself. Burnet states in any case that, Xenophanes left Ionia before Herakleitos was born. Diogenes relates that as a boy Heraclitus had said he knew nothing and his statement that he heard no one but questioned himself, can be placed alongside his statement that the things that can be seen, heard and learned are what I prize the most. Diogenes relates that Heraclitus had an opinion of human affairs. He believed that Hesiod and Pythagoras lacked understanding though learned and that Homer, laws needed to be defended as though they were city walls. Timon is said to have called him a mob-reviler, Heraclitus hated the Athenians and his fellow Ephesians, wishing the latter wealth in punishment for their wicked ways. Says Diogenes, Finally, he became a hater of his kind, making his diet of grass and herbs. Heraclitus life as a philosopher was interrupted by dropsy, the physicians he consulted were unable to prescribe a cure
27.
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
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Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 are a series of notes written between April and August 1844 by Karl Marx. Not published by Marx during his lifetime, they were first released in 1927 by researchers in the Soviet Union, the notebooks are an early expression of Marxs analysis of economics, chiefly Adam Smith, and critique of the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel. The notebooks cover a range of topics including private property, communism. They are best known for their expression of Marxs argument that the conditions of modern industrial societies result in the estrangement of wage-workers from their own life activity/work. The young Marx had been ignored until recently, because his early works were considered more philosophical and by some as not scientific enough. However, Marxist humanists regard this book as one of the most important texts by Marx and crucial for understanding his entire thought, and Marxians also refer to it. In the first manuscript in which there are extensive quotes on economics from Adam Smith, Marx exposes his theory of alienation and he explains how, under capitalism, more and more people rely on labour to live. That is, before people could rely in part on Nature itself for its needs, in modern society, if one wants to eat, one must work. He thereby owes it the possibility to exist first as a worker, in other words, the worker relies on labour to gain money to be able to live, but he doesnt live, he only survives, as a worker. Labour is only used to more wealth, instead of achieving the fulfillment of human nature. ‘Excerpt notes of 1844’ also called the ‘Paris manuscripts’ are known as some of Karl Marx’s earliest writings on philosophy plus economics, however, they were only published in the 1930s after the Soviet Revolution of 1917 had already taken place. Money was invented only to overcome difficulties exchanging goods, since it was, hence money, as the empiricist John Stuart Mill says, is just the medium of exchange to be more flexible. For Marx, the problem with money consists of the fact that from being a substitute money becomes a good and it does not represent the value of a certain or several goods, instead, the value of those goods is represented by a certain amount of money. Therefore, due to its flexibility, money could purchase everything, as did Aristotle, Marx argues that the market system does not serve a mere desire of exchange, but the aim of profit. To gain profits, money is to be invested and thereby becomes capital resulting in capitalism, Marx defines capital as “accumulated labour”. The fetishism of money is born, men are evaluated in terms of their materialistic creditability. This also becomes an economic judgement of their morality, the consequence is that human individuality and morality becomes a vehicle for money. The main objective of men moves towards earning as much money as possible and this enhances the formation and size of gaps between the capitalist and the labourer, and gives power to those who are wealthy
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Theses on Feuerbach
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The Theses on Feuerbach are eleven short philosophical notes written by Karl Marx as a basic outline for the first chapter of the book The German Ideology in 1845. Like the book for which they were written, the theses were never published in Marxs lifetime, the document is best remembered for the epigrammatic 11th thesis and final line, Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it. In February 1845 Karl Marx was deported from France at the behest of minister of foreign affairs François Guizot, Marx found sanctuary in Brussels, where he was joined for a number of months by his political compatriot Frederick Engels beginning in April of that same year. Marx began work upon a book detailing his new philosophy of history and these theses were initially written as a raw outline for the first chapter of The German Ideology, and most of these were developed at greater length in that work. The Theses identify political action as the truth of philosophy, famously concluding, Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways. While the text wishes to retain the stance of German critical idealism. Despite their best efforts to find a publisher, The German Ideology was not published during the lifetime of either Karl Marx or Frederick Engels. The polemical work was published in full only in 1932 by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party in Moscow. Nor did Marx publish the Theses on Feuerbach during his lifetime and this material was instead later edited by Friedrich Engels and published in February 1888 as a supplement to his pamphlet Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Marxs original unedited text was published only in 1924 in German and Russian translation as part of Marx-Engels Archives, Book I, the Eleventh Thesis is engraved in the entryway of Humboldt University on Unter den Linden in Berlin. The Socialist Unity Party of Germany ordered this in 1953 as part of reconstruction following World War II. The Eleventh Thesis is also Marxs epitaph, engraved on his tombstone in Highgate Cemetery in London, along with the line of the Communist Manifesto, Workers of All Lands
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The Communist Manifesto
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The Communist Manifesto is an 1848 political pamphlet by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It presents an approach to the class struggle and the problems of capitalism. It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism, the Communist Manifesto is divided into a preamble and four sections, the last of these a short conclusion. The introduction begins by proclaiming A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism, All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre. Subsequently, the introduction exhorts Communists to openly publish their views and aims, the first section of the Manifesto, Bourgeois and Proletarians, elucidates the materialist conception of history, that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Societies have always taken the form of a majority living under the thumb of an oppressive minority. In capitalism, the working class, or proletariat, engage in class struggle against the owners of the means of production. As before, this struggle will end in a revolution that restructures society, the bourgeoisie constantly exploits the proletariat for its labour power, creating profit for themselves and accumulating capital. Proletarians and Communists, the section, starts by stating the relationship of conscious communists to the rest of the working class. While the degree of reproach toward rival perspectives varies, all are dismissed for advocating reformism and it ends by declaring an alliance with the social democrats, boldly supporting other communist revolutions, and calling for united international proletarian action—Working Men of All Countries, Unite. In spring 1847 Marx and Engels joined the League of the Just, at its First Congress in 2–9 June, the League tasked Engels with drafting a profession of faith, but such a document was later deemed inappropriate for an open, non-confrontational organisation. Engels nevertheless wrote the Draft of the Communist Confession of Faith, a few months later, in October, Engels arrived at the Leagues Paris branch to find that Moses Hess had written an inadequate manifesto for the group, now called the League of Communists. In Hesss absence, Engels severely criticised this manifesto, and convinced the rest of the League to entrust him with drafting a new one and this became the draft Principles of Communism, described as less of a credo and more of an exam paper. On the 28th, Marx and Engels met at Ostend in Belgium, the League thus unanimously adopted a far more combative resolution than that at the First Congress in June. Marx and Engels were subsequently commissioned to draw up a manifesto for the League, upon returning to Brussels, Marx engaged in ceaseless procrastination, according to his biographer Francis Wheen. Following this, he spent a week in Ghent to establish a branch of the Democratic Association there. This imposition spurred Marx on, who struggled to work without a deadline, in all, the Manifesto was written over 6–7 weeks. Although Engels is credited as co-writer, the draft was penned exclusively by Marx
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The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon
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Later English editions, such as an 1869 Hamburg edition, were entitled The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. The essay discusses the French coup of 1851 in which Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte assumed dictatorial powers and it shows Marx in his form as a social and political historian, treating actual historical events from the viewpoint of his materialist conception of history. Along with Marxs contemporary writings on English politics, the Eighteenth Brumaire is a source for understanding Marxs theory of the capitalist state. The title refers to the Coup of 18 Brumaire in which Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in revolutionary France, the traditions of all the dead generations burden, like a nightmare, the minds of the living. Marxs interpretation of Louis Bonapartes rise and rule is of interest to scholars studying the nature. Many Marxist scholars regard the coup as a forerunner of the phenomenon of 20th-century fascism and he forgot to add, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, and the same caricature occurs in the circumstances of the second edition of the Eighteenth Brumaire. Marxs sentiment echoed an observation made by Friedrich Engels at exactly the same time Marx began work on this book, in a letter to Marx of 3 December 1851, Engels wrote from Manchester. Thus the 18th Brumaire would already be upon us, yet this motif appeared even earlier, in Marxs 1837 unpublished novel Scorpion and Felix, this time with a comparison between the first Napoleon and King Louis Philippe, Every giant. Presupposes a dwarf, every genius a hidebound philistine, the first are too great for this world, and so they are thrown out. But the latter strike root in it and remain, caesar the hero leaves behind him the play-acting Octavianus, Emperor Napoleon the bourgeois king Louis Philippe. Marxist philosophy Historical materialism The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon Preface to the Second Edition The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Charles H. Kerr, the Eighteenth Brumaire Of Louis Bonaparte, International Publishers, New York City,1963
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Grundrisse
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The Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie is a lengthy, unfinished manuscript by the German philosopher Karl Marx. Left aside by Marx in 1858, it remained unpublished until 1939, the Grundrisse is very wide-ranging in subject matter and covers all six sections of Marxs economics. It is often described as the draft of Das Kapital. Due to its breadth and its incorporation of themes from Marxs earlier writings, the Grundrisse is central to Marxs body of work. Towards the end of his life, Marx, according to Nicolaus, viewed the latter “with a scepticism bordering on rejection. ”The Grundrisse, on the hand, was one of the few texts which Marx spoke of “with a tone of achievement. French philosopher Louis Althusser believed that Marxs thought had been misunderstood, Althusser believed these errors to result from the notion that Marxs entire body of work forms a coherent whole. Althusser proffered a radical break in Marxs thought, which can be seen by comparing the unpublished Grundrisse. The Grundrisse became available in different languages over a period of time, the translation of the Grundrisse into English in 1973 had a profound effect on the then-emerging field of cultural studies. These seminars culminated in the publication of a paper titled “Marx’s Notes on Method. The Economics of Marx’s Grundrisse, an Annotated Summary, new York, St. Martins Press,1989. The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx,1843 to Capital, new York, Monthly Review Press,1970. Marx Beyond Marx, Lessons on the Grundrisse, time, Labor, and Social Domination, A Reinterpretation of Marxs Critical Theory. Terrell Carber, ed. London, Routledge,2015, complete text, Marxists Internet Archive, www. marxists. org/
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Capital: Critique of Political Economy
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Capital, Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx is a foundational theoretical text in communist philosophy, economics and politics. In Capital, Critique of Political Economy, Marx proposes that the force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labour. The owner of the means of production is able to claim the right to this value because he or she is legally protected by the ruling regime. In producing capital, the workers continually reproduce the conditions by which they labour. The critique of the economy of capitalism proposes that, Wage-labour is the basic cell-form of a capitalist society. After two decades of study and preparatory work the first volume appeared in 1867, The production process of capital. These three volumes are known as Das Kapital. The first of three volumes of Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie was published on 14 September 1867, dedicated to Wilhelm Wolff, and was the sole volume published in Marx’s lifetime. Capital, Volume II, subtitled The Process of Circulation of Capital, was prepared by Friedrich Engels from notes left by Karl Marx and published in 1885. It is divided into three parts, The Metamorphoses of Capital and Their Circuits, The Turnover of Capital, in Volume II, the main ideas behind the marketplace are to be found, how value and surplus-value are realized. Its dramatis personae, not so much the worker and the industrialist, but rather the money owner, the merchant, the trader. Moreover, workers appear in Volume II, essentially as buyers of goods and, therefore. Reading Volume II is of significance to understanding the theoretical construction of Marxs whole argument. Marx himself quite precisely clarified this place, in a letter sent to Engels on 30 April 1868, In Book 1. But now we investigate the conditions under which elements are found at hand, namely the social intertwining of the different capitals, of the component parts of capital. Volume II of Capital has indeed been not only a sealed book, to a large extent, it remains so to this very day. Part 3 is the point of departure for a topic given its Marxist treatment later in detail by, among others, Rosa Luxemburg. Capital, Volume III, subtitled The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole, was prepared by Friedrich Engels from notes left by Karl Marx, transformation of Surplus-Profit into Ground Rent
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Dialectics of Nature
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Dialectics of Nature is an unfinished 1883 work by Friedrich Engels that applies Marxist ideas – particularly those of dialectical materialism – to science. In his 1939 preface to the work, the biologist J. B. S. Haldane states most of the manuscript seems to have written between 1872 and 1882, that is to say it refers to the science of that era. Hence it is hard to follow if one does not know the history of the scientific practice of that time. The idea of what is now called the conservation of energy was beginning to permeate physics, chemistry and biology, but it was still very incompletely realised, words such as force, motion, and vis viva were used where we should now speak of energy. Some then controversial topics of Engels day, pertaining to incomplete or faulty theories, are now settled and their interest lies not so much in their detailed criticism of theories, but in showing how Engels grappled with intellectual problems. One law proposed in the Dialectics of Nature is the law of the transformation of quantity into quality, probably the most commonly cited example of this is the change of water from a liquid to a gas, by increasing its temperature. In contemporary science, this process is known as a phase transition, there has also been an effort to apply this mechanism to social phenomena, whereby population increases result in changes in social structure. Dialectics and its study was derived from the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, engelss work develops from the comments he had made about science in Anti-Dühring. It includes the famous The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, Engels argues that the hand and brain grew together, an idea supported by later fossil discoveries. Most of the work is fragmentary, but it has points of interest, a quotation from its biology, Full text on-line. Also available as pdf Michael Kosok, Essay on Dialectics of Nature Dialectics and Chaos
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Marxist philosophy
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Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marxs materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. The key characteristics of Marxism in philosophy are its materialism and its commitment to practice as the end goal of all thought. The philosopher Étienne Balibar wrote in 1996 that there is no Marxist philosophy and there never will be, on the other hand, so even the existence of Marxist philosophy is debatable. Many critics, both philosophers outside Marxism and some Marxist philosophers, feel that this is too quick a dismissal of the philosophical tradition. Much sophisticated and important thought has taken place after the writing of Marx and Engels, much or perhaps all of it has been influenced, subtly or overtly. Simply dismissing all philosophy as sophistry might condemn Marxism to a simplistic empiricism or economism, crippling it in practice, nonetheless, the force of Marxs opposition to Hegelian idealism and to any philosophy divorced from political practice remains powerful even to a contemporary reader. Such problems might include a too-simple economic determinism, a theory of ideology as false consciousness. So Marxist philosophy must continue to account of advances in the theory of politics developed after Marx. Marxism had proper signification only insofar as it was the theory of the tendency towards communism, however, Althusser never ceased to put in question the images of communism that Marxist theory and ideology carried on, but he did it in the name of communism itself. There are endless interpretations of the philosophy of Marx, from the interior of the Marxist movement as well as in its exterior. Both after the defeat of the French socialist movement during Louis Napoleon Bonapartes 1851 coup and then after the crushing of the 1871 Paris Commune, Marxs thought transformed itself. Marxisms philosophical roots were commonly explained as derived from three sources, English political economy, French republicanism and radicalism, and German idealist philosophy. Although this three sources model is an oversimplification, it still has some measure of truth, vulgar Marxism was seen as little other than a variety of economic determinism, with the alleged determination of the ideological superstructure by the economical infrastructure. Of particular importance is Hegels appropriation of Aristotles organicist and essentialist categories in the light of Kants transcendental turn, Marx builds on four contributions Hegel makes to our philosophical understanding. Aristotelian Organicism and Essentialism Hegel adopts the position that chance is not the basis of phenomena, some have falsely attributed to Hegel the position that phenomena are governed by transcendent, supersensible ideas that ground them. On the contrary, Hegel argues for the unity between universal and particular. Particulars are not mere token types of universals, rather, they relate to other as a part relates to a whole. This latter has import for Marxs own conception of law and necessity and this means that if we want to know the principle governing something, we have to observe its typical life-process and figure out its characteristic behavior
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Capital (economics)
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In economics, capital goods, real capital, or capital assets are already-produced, durable goods or any non-financial asset that is used in production of goods or services. Adam Smith defines capital as That part of a stock which he expects to afford him revenue. The term stock is derived from the Old English word for stump or tree trunk and it has been used to refer to all the moveable property of a farm since at least 1510. In Middle Ages France contracted leases and loans bearing interest specified payment, how a capital good is maintained or returned to its pre-production state varies with the type of capital involved. In most cases capital is replaced after a period as newer forms of capital make continued use of current capital non profitable. It is also possible that advances make a form of capital practical again. Capital is distinct from land in that capital can be increased by human labor, at any given moment in time, total physical capital may be referred to as the capital stock. Capital is an input in the production function, homes and personal autos are not usually defined as capital but as durable goods because they are not used in a production of saleable goods and services. In Marxist political economy, capital is used to buy something only in order to sell it again to realize a financial profit. In more contemporary schools of economics, this form of capital is referred to as financial capital and is distinguished from capital goods. Classical and neoclassical economics regard capital as one of the factors of production, all other inputs to production are called intangibles in classical economics. This includes organization, entrepreneurship, knowledge, goodwill, or management and this is what makes it a factor of production, The good is not used up immediately in the process of production unlike raw materials or intermediate goods. The good can be produced or increased and these distinctions of convenience have carried over to contemporary economic theory. There was the clarification that capital is a stock. As such, its value can be estimated at a point in time, by contrast, investment, as production to be added to the capital stock, is described as taking place over time, thus a flow. Since at least the 1960s economists have increasingly focused on forms of capital. These terms lead to questions and controversies discussed in those articles. It is in the form of assets, traded in financial markets
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Capital accumulation
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The process of capital accumulation forms the basis of capitalism, and is one of the defining characteristics of a capitalist economic system. In a more broad sense, capital accumulation may refer to the gathering or amassing of any objects of value as judged by ones perceived reproductive interest group. The definition of capital accumulation is subject to controversy and ambiguities, because it could refer to, most often, capital accumulation involves both a net addition and a redistribution of wealth, which may raise the question of who really benefits from it most. If more wealth is produced there was before, a society becomes richer. But if some accumulate capital only at the expense of others and it is also possible that some accumulate capital much faster than others. In principle, it is possible that a few people or organisations accumulate capital and grow richer, in economics and accounting capital accumulation is often equated with investment of profit income or savings, especially in real capital goods. The concentration and centralisation of capital are two of the results of such accumulation, Capital accumulation refers ordinarily to, real investment in tangible means of production, such as acquisitions, research and development, etc. that can increase the capital flow. Investment in financial assets represented on paper, yielding profit, interest, rent, investment in non-productive physical assets such as residential real estate or works of art that appreciate in value. And by extension to, human capital, i. e. new education, social capital, i. e. the wealth and productive capacity that the people in a society hold in common, rather than as individuals or corporations. Both non-financial and financial capital accumulation is usually needed for economic growth, smarter and more productive organization of production can also increase production without increased capital. Capital can be created without increased investment by inventions or improved organization that increase productivity, discoveries of new assets, the term is occasionally used in national accounts. Accumulation can be measured as the value of investments, the amount of income that is reinvested. Usually the Reserve Banks and the Treasury provide interpretations and analysis of this data, standard indicators include Capital formation, Gross fixed capital formation, fixed capital, household asset wealth, and foreign direct investment. Organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, UNCTAD, the World Bank Group, the OECD, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Eurostat and the Japan Statistical Office provide data on the USA, Europe and Japan respectively. A reputable scientific journal is the Review of Income & Wealth, in the case of the USA, the Analytical Perspectives document provides useful wealth and capital estimates applying to the whole country. The rate of growth of the stock of fixed capital is. If the capital-output ratio or capital coefficient is constant, the rate of growth of Y is equal to the rate of growth of K and this is determined by s and k. A country might for example save and invest 12% of its national income, however, as Keynesian economics points out, savings do not automatically mean investment
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