Karl Marx
Articles by and about Karl Marx, pioneering socialist thinker.
Karl Marx on alienated labour
An extract from Marx's 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts on the process of alienation of the worker from their work.
... We now have to grasp the essential connection between private property, greed, the separation of labor, capital and landed property, exchange and competition, value and the devaluation of man, monopoly, and competition, etc. -- the connection between this entire system of estrangement and the money system.
Marx on the piss; a London pub crawl with Karl Marx in the late 1850s - Wilhelm Liebknecht
An account by Liebknecht of a smashing drunken evening in London town, written some 40 years after the event...
One evening, Edgar Bauer, acquainted with Marx from their Berlin time and then not yet his personal enemy […], had come to town from his hermitage in Highgate for the purpose of “making a beer trip.” The problem was to “take something” in every saloon between Oxford Street and Hampstead Road – making the something a very difficult task, even by confining yourself to a minimum, considering the enor
Robert Stern's Commentary and Synopsis of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
Need help with the impossible Phenomenology of Spirit?
Read the Phenomenology of Spirit to understand it's relationship to Marx, Marcuse, Adorno, Benjamin, Chris Arthur, etc.? The structure of the Phenomenology is also crucial to understanding Marx's Das Kapital and to understanding the non-historical "development" of the commodity-form. Read this comprehensive commentary for help. Or, read it alone as a synopsis.
Money and Crisis: Marx as Correspondent of the New York Daily Tribune, 1856-57 - Sergio Bologna
Sergio Bologna on Marx's writings on capitalism and crisis in the world recession of 1856-58.
Editorial Note: This article was written in 1973. It was a key article in developing the theoretical base of the newly emerging politics of working-class autonomy. This translation is taken from a forthcoming volume to be published by Red Notes: Selected Writings of Sergio Bologna. For further details, write to Red Notes, BP15, 2a St Paul's Road, London N1.
Marx House
The House in Trier, Germany that Marx was born in. Within one mile of the residence is a roman bath, a roman amphitheater, a basilica (now a church) that used to house a colossal marble head of Constantine, and a gaudy, pink, white and gilded baroque palace.
Back to the future - The continuing relevance of Marx - Martin Glaberman and Seymour Faber
Article by Martin Glaberman and Seymour Faber discussing the ongoing relevance of much of Karl Marx's work to the contemporary class struggle
In the Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx and Engels wrote: "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society" [1] Marx thought enough of these words to reproduce them in Capital.
Karl Marx and the Iroquois - Franklin Rosemont
Franklin Rosemont delves into Marx's Ethnological Notebooks and examines their significance and relevance towards today's communist movement.
There are works that come down to us with question-marks blazing like sawed-off shotguns, scattering here and there and everywhere sparks that illuminate our own restless search for answers.
Introduction to Marx's early writings - Lucio Colletti
The late Lucio Colletti discusses the content of Marx's early writings and how their late emergence influenced Marxism and the reinterpretation of Marx.
Written as an introduction to the Early Writings volume of the Penguin Marx Library; London, 1975.
Stirner, Feurbach, Marx and the Young Hegelians - David McLellan
A summary of Stirner's ideas and their strong impact on his fellow Young Hegelians. McLellan asserts that Stirner's influence on Marx has been under-estimated and that he "played a very important role in the development of Marx's thought by detaching him from the influence of Feuerbach", his static materialism and his abstract humanism. Stirner's critique of communism (which Marx considered a caricature) also obliged Marx to refine his own definition. Stirner's concept of the "creative ego" is also said to have influenced Marx's concept of "praxis".
Source; originally a chapter in The Young Hegelians and Karl Marx; David McLellan, MacMillan Press, UK, 1980.
MAX STIRNER
1. STIRNER'S LIFE AND WORKS
Marx, theoretician of anarchism
Maximilien Rubel's 1973 article highlighting the libertarian elements within Marx's work and its importance to anarchism, regardless of Marx's lengthy critiques of famous anarchist theoreticians.
Marx has been badly served by disciples who have succeeded neither in assessing the limits of his theory nor in determining its standards and field of application and has ended up by taking on the role of some mythical giant, a symbol of the omniscience and omnipotence of homo faber, maker of his own destiny.
