College of Education

School of Continuing and Distance Education 2014/2015 – 2016/2017

SOCI 301/321

Foundations of Social Thought

Session 7 – Karl Marx 1818-1883

Lecturer: Dr. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, UG

Contact Information: ddzorgbo@ug.edu.gh

godsonug.wordpress.com/blog

Session Overview

Slide 2 Dr. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, Sociology Dept. UG

Overview This session and the next two examine the works and ideas of Karl Marx Goals and Objectives At the end of this session, you should be able to: • give an biographical account of Karl Marx • identify the major books he published • Explain his leading ideas and views about the nature of the historic

transformation of society • Explain the structure and function of modern capitalist society • compare and contrast his ideas and views with the earlier founders you

have studied • apply his ideas and theories to understand society, aspects of it and

human behavior • Identify his contribution to sociology

Session Outline

Slide 3 Dr. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, Sociology Dept. UG

The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:

• Karl Marx: Biography

• Mardž aŶd EŶgels’ PuďliĐatioŶs

• Intellectual Influences on Marx

Reading List

Slide 4 Dr. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, Sociology Dept. UG

• ALLAN K. (2005) EXPLORATIONS IN CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY: SEEING THE SOCIAL WORLD, LONDON: PIN FORGE PRESS

• ASHLEY D. AND D. M. ORENSTEIN (2001) SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY: THE

CLASSICAL STATEMENTS, BOSTON: ALLYN AND BACON.

• DZORGBO, D-B. S. (2013) SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY: CLASSICAL IDEAS AND THEIR

APPLICATION IN THE AFRICAN CONTEXT, ACCRA: WOELI PUBLISHING SERVICES

• DZORGBO D-B. S. (2009) SOCIOLOGY: FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL THOUGHT:

LEGON-ACCRA: CENTER FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF GHANA.

• RITZER G. (20O8) SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY, BOSTON: MCGRAW HILL

• RITZER G. & DOUGLAS J. GOODMAN, (2004) CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL

THEORY, BOSTON: MCGRAW HILL

Karl Marx (1818-1883):Biography • Karl Marx was born on 5th May 1818 in Trier, a small

town in the German Rhineland of Prussia.

• At the age of 17 Marx entered the University of

Bonn to read law.

• The following year his father transferred him to the

University of Berlin because of fighting a duel and getting wounded and for running into debt.

• At the University of Bonn he came into contact with

the thoughts of idealist philosopher Georg Hegel (1770-1831) l.

• Marx later abandoned his legal studies and focused

on philosophy. Four years later Marx received his doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of Jena.

• Because Marx was a radical scholar he was

blacklisted by the Prussian Minister of Education and that prevented him from pursuing academic career.

Slide 5 Dr. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, Sociology Dept. UG

Karl Mardž: BiographLJ ;ĐoŶt’dͿ • He consequently turned to journalism and in 1842

became chief editor of the liberal-radical newspaper Rheinische Zeitung (Rhenish Gazette).

• Marx wrote many critical articles against the

government in Berlin was censored and his paper closed down

• But through his association with Rheinische Zeitung

that he met his true life long friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels (1820-1895).

• Engels was the son of a wealthy German

manufacturer who owned textile factories in Barmen in Germany and Manchester in England. He supported Marx and his family financially and both collaborated and wrote many books.

• In October 1843, he moved to Paris where he took

up the study of political economy by reading the works of Adam Smith and David Ricardo and thus became interested in economic issues.

• .

Slide 6 Dr. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, Sociology Dept. UG

Karl Mardž: BiographLJ ;ĐoŶt’dͿ

• In 1845, Marx left Paris for Brussels. Towards the end of his stay in Brussels Marx became ŵore iŶǀ olǀ ed iŶ the ǁ orkers’ ŵo ǀeŵeŶt and in 1848, the Communist League asked Marx and Engels to draw up a workers charter.

• This charter became The Communist

Manifesto of 1848 which had an enormous impact on workers movement throughout Europe, former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and other revolutionary struggles and governments throughout the world.

• In 1849 Marx left Brussels and settled in

London where he devoted his time to intellectual work. Marx died at his desk in 1883 at the age of 65

Slide 7 Dr. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, Sociology Dept. UG

Karl Marx: Major Works

Slide 8 Dr. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, Sociology Dept. UG

Mardž’s works include:

1. The Holy Family (with Engels, 1845) 2. The Poverty of Philosophy (1846) 3. The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844) 4. The German Ideology (with Engels, 1846) 5. The Manifesto of the Communist Party (with Engels, 1848) 6. The Class Struggle in France, (1850) 7. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) 8. The Grundisse (1858) 9. The Critique of Political Economy (1859) 10. Three volumes of Capital (Vol. 1, 1867 and Vols. 2&3, 12 years later) 11. The Civil War in France (1871) and 12. The Critique of the Gotha Program (1875)

Intellectual Influence: Georg Hegel

Slide 9 Dr. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, Sociology Dept. UG

• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was the idealist philosopher whose ideas influenced Marx tremendously

• Hegel and Dialectics. Dialectical thinking involves three interlinked processes of thinking: thesis,

anti-thesis, and synthesis.

• Hegel’s argument is that for every idea or thesis that can be conceived an apposing idea or anti-

thesis ĐaŶ also ďe ĐoŶĐeiǀ ed. IŶ other ǁ ords, if idea A edžists, theŶ its opposiŶg idea -A ĐaŶ also exist.

• Every thesis comes anti-thesis—a contradiction. The contradiction would be resolved by the

thinking process and this would lead to the development of a new idea or synthesis. Synthesis emerges from the decomposition of the thesis and anti-thesis. At this point, the synthesis becomes the thesis and another dialectical process begins whereby the new thesis encounters its antagonistic anti-thesis thus resulting in yet another synthesis and on and on the dialectical process continues.

• This process leads to the development of new forms of ideas that humans use to change society or

to organize society into newer progressive levels

• The Dialectics thus occurs in the human mind

Intellectual Influence: Georg Hegel ;ĐoŶt’dͿ

Slide 10 Dr. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, Sociology Dept. UG

• Marx agreed with Hegel’s dialeĐtiĐs of thesis, aŶti-thesis and synthesis but disagreed that it takes place in the human mind.

• For Marx the dialectics takes place in the material world, in the real world in which humans live, especially in the economic institution where humans enter into relations with each other to produce for their material existence.

• According to him it is in the economic realm that we find the contractions of life and when these contradictions are resolved, new socioeconomic formations and for that matter society emerges.

Intellectual Influence: Georg Hegel ;ĐoŶt’dͿ

Slide 11 Dr. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, Sociology Dept. UG

• Marx the development of the concepts: dialectical materialism—the notion that societal development depends on class of contradictions and the subsequent creation of new, more advanced structures.

• He developed the concept of historical materialism: Marx took the dialectic from the level of metaphysical abstraction and utilized it to explain the dynamics of concrete socioeconomic life.

• From dialectical thinking to dialectical materialism and finally to historical materialism