Karl Marx

While most reformers wanted to fix what they considered problems with capitalism, some people wanted more extensive changes. Karl Marx (1818– 1883) was a German scholar and writer who argued for socialism. Unlike utopian socialists, whom he scorned because he thought they wanted to escape problems rather than confront them, he wanted to look at how the world actually operated. He called his approach to economics “scientific socialism.”

In 1848, Karl Marx and his wealthy supporter Friedrich Engels published a pamphlet (now called the Communist Manifesto) that summarized their critique of capitalism. According to Marx, capitalism was an advance on feudalism because it produced tremendous wealth, but that it also produced needless poverty and misery. This contradiction between wealth and poverty occurred because capitalism divided society into two basic classes.

• The proletariat was essentially the working class, working in factories and mines, often for little compensation.

• The bourgeoisie included the middle class and investors who owned machinery and factories where workers produced goods.

Marx said that market competition drove the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat for the sake of higher profits. Because the bourgeoisie owned the means of production, such as machines, factories, mines, and land, they received most of the wealth produced. The proletariat, who did the physical and dangerous work, received very little, just enough to survive. Marx exhorted the proletariat to recognize their shared interest as a class and take control of the means of production and share the wealth they created fairly.

For Marx, socialism would replace capitalism. It, then, would later be replaced by a final stage of economic development, communism, in which all class distinctions would end. (Connect: Create a chart comparing utopian and Marxist thought. See Topic 5.1.)