Tao Te Ching
Karl Marx
1818 – 1883 CE
A journalist, philosopher, scientist, and “true founder of modern sociology” and social science; both critics and followers rate Marx as one of the most influential people in all history with a profound impact on world politics, intellectual thought, sociology and economics. A philosopher for the poor and middle classes, he described the economic conflicts of interest that alienate and polarize society between the working classes and the plutocracy. Distorted, corrupted and used by Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, and many other totalitarians; appreciated, developed, and applied by progressive political parties, labour unions, intellectuals, and artists; he brought the scientific method into politics and social theory as well as a powerful alternative to the dehumanizing aspects of capitalistic industrialization. Though questionable in many ways, his work produced a practical and powerful balancing of economic extremes, the exploitation of labor, and the corruption of politicians by the rich. Though more known for his critiques of capitalism, he also appreciated its positive impact on increased productivity, technological progress, and scientific breakthroughs.
Eras
Western
Romantacism (1800 – 1850 CE)Post-Romantic Age (1850 – 2018 CE)
Gilded Age (1860 – 1900 CE)
Victorian (1837 – 1901 CE)
American Civil War (1861 – 1865 CE)
Chinese
Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912 CE)Sources
Das Kapital; Capital: Critique of Political Economy
Unlisted Sources
Communist Manifesto
Critique of Political Economy, 1859
Crititique of Hegelian Philosophy, 1844
Herr Vogt, 1860
Introduction to a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law
Letter to Joseph Wedemeyer (1852)
Letter to Lincoln, 1865
Letter, 1856
Letter, 1868
On the Jewish Question (1844)
On the Jewish Question, 1944
Reflex, 1917
Wage-Labour and Capital/Value
Quotes by Karl Marx (38 quotes)
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.”
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“It is a bad thing to perform menial duties even for the sake of freedom.”
Chapters:
72. Helpful Fear
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“Slavery has existed in all nations since the beginning of the world. All that modern nations have achieved is to disguise slavery at home and import it.”
Chapters:
77. Stringing a Bow
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“Social progress may be measured precisely by the social position of the fair sex”
Chapters:
3. Weak Wishes, Strong Bones
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“If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist”
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“Private property has made us so stupid and partial that an object is only ours when we have it, when it exists for us as capital … Thus all the physical and intellectual senses have been replaced by … the sense of having.”
Chapters:
68. Joining Heaven & Earth
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“Everything great glitters, glitter begets ambition, and ambition can easily have caused the inspiration or what we thought to be inspiration.”
Chapters:
12. This Over That
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“ideas that revolutionize society keep an even pace with external conditions as they change and become obsolete”
Chapters:
48. Unlearning
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“In spite of their fancy words, politicians only barter truth, love, and honor for wool, beet-root sugar, and potato spirit profits.”
Chapters:
17. True Leaders
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“war is robbery, commerce is generally cheating”
from Das Kapital; Capital: Critique of Political Economy
Chapters:
31. Victory Funeral
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“money may be dirt but dirt is not money”
from Das Kapital; Capital: Critique of Political Economy
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“Perseus wore a magic cap that the monsters he hunted down might not see him. We draw the magic cap down over eyes and ears as a make-believe that there are no monsters.”
from Das Kapital; Capital: Critique of Political Economy
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“The most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest”
from Das Kapital; Capital: Critique of Political Economy
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“the 'productive' worker cares as much about the crappy shit he has to make as does the capitalist himself who employs him, and who also couldn't give a damn for the junk.”
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“The battle for democracy will not be won until the working class raises the proletariat to the position of the ruling class. Otherwise, 'democracy' will permit, condone, or even promote social and economic inequalities.”
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“Religion is but the false sun that revolves around those who are not fully aware… it is the sigh of the oppressed, the kindliness of a heartless world, the soul of soulless circumstance, the opiate of the people.”
from Introduction to a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law
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“The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.”
from Herr Vogt, 1860
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“The method of production of material things generally determines the social, political, and spiritual currents of life.”
from Critique of Political Economy, 1859
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“The imaginary flowers of religion adorn our chains. We must throw off the flowers, and also the chains.”
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“Religion is the soul of soulless conditions, the heart of a heartless world, the sigh of the oppressed, the feeling of a heartless world, the spirit of unspiritual conditions, the opium of the people.”
from Crititique of Hegelian Philosophy, 1844
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“The emancipation of the Jews in its last significance is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.”
from On the Jewish Question, 1944
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“Great social changes are impossible without feminine ferment. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex (ugly ones included).”
from Letter, 1868
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“All our inventions have endowed material forces with intellectual life, and degraded human life into a material force.”
from Letter, 1856
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“From the beginning of the titanic struggle in America, the working men of Europe felt instinctively that the Star Spangled Banner carried the destiny of their class.”
from Letter to Lincoln, 1865
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“To see the dastardly, most miserable and meanest of blackguards described as Napoleon I was altogether too much. Bolívar is a veritable Soulouque.”
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“Lincoln is not the product of a popular revolution. This plebeian, who worked his way tip from stone-breaker to Senator in Illinois, without intellectual brilliance, without a particularly outstanding character, without exceptional importance-an average person of good will, was placed at the top by the interplay of the forces of universal suffrage unaware of the great issues at stake. The new world has never achieved a greater triumph than by this demonstration that, given its political and social organization, ordinary people of good will can accomplish feats which only heroes could accomplish in the old world!”
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“Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities…. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange…. The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.”
from On the Jewish Question (1844)
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“To sum up: the more productive capital grows, the more it extends the division of labour and the application of machinery; the more the division of labour and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together... the more he works, the more he competes against his fellow workmen, the more he compels them to compete against him, and to offer themselves on the same wretched conditions as he does so that, in the last analysis, he competes against himself as a member of the working class.”
from Wage-Labour and Capital/Value
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“The history of all previously existing societies is the history of class struggles.”
from Communist Manifesto
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“The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns... It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. It creates a world in its own image.”
from Communist Manifesto
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“What strikes one here above all is the crudely empirical conception of profit derived from the outlook of the ordinary capitalist, which wholly contradicts the better esoteric understanding of Adam Smith.”
from Das Kapital; Capital: Critique of Political Economy
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“Law, morality, religion, are to him (the proletarian) so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.”
from Communist Manifesto
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“The traditions of all the dead generations weighs like an incubus on the brains of the living.”
from Letter to Joseph Wedemeyer (1852)
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“Our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other's wives.”
from Das Kapital; Capital: Critique of Political Economy
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“Combine agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country... An establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.”
from Das Kapital; Capital: Critique of Political Economy
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Quotes about Karl Marx (13 quotes)
“The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true.”
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“Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history. Because he was an active revolutionist, he was the best hated and most calumniated man of his time… yet he has gone down to his death honored, loved, and mourned by millions… His name and his works will live through the centuries.”
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“science fiction tends to confuse intelligence with consciousness. As a result, it is overly concerned about a potential war between robots and humans, when in fact we need to fear a conflict between a small superhuman elite empowered by algorithms and a vast underclass of disempowered Homo sapiens... Karl Marx is still a better guide than Steven Spielberg.”
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“Darwin and Marx ignored the man-made environments in their theories of evolution and causality in favor of the 18th century and romantic idea of nature as environment.”
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“Marxism is a flight from the magic of the person and the mystique of hierarchy. It distorts the character of western culture, which is based on the charismatic power of person. Marxism can work only in pre-industrial societies of homogeneous populations. Raise the standard of living, and the rainbow riot of individualism will break out. Personality and art, which Marxism fears and censors, rebound from every effort to oppress them.”
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“It is, I claim, nonsense to say that it does not matter which individual man acted as the nucleus for the change. It is precisely this that makes history unpredictable into the future. The Marxian error is a simple blunder in logical typing, a confusion of individual with class.”
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“Karl Marx made a man of me. Socialism made a man of me. Otherwise I should be like so many of my literary colleagues...”
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“Marxism is too uncertain of its grounds to be a science. I do not know a movement more self-centered and further removed from the facts than Marxism.”
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“It is evil to think history is to end with a return to Zion, or with the classless society, or with the Islamization of all living infidels...”
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“Considered purely as a philosopher, Marx has grave shortcomings. He is too practical, too much wrapped up in the problems of his time… It is only because of the belief in the inevitability of progress that Marx thought it possible to dispense with ethical considerations… Marx professed himself an atheist, but retained a cosmic optimism which only theism could justify… He hopes for little from persuasion, everything from the class war. He is committed in practice to power politics.”
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“Books are our link to the great ideas of the past... great books, great ideas, and great individuals make history. This concept runs counter to the Marxist idea that social and economic forces make great ideas. Such great men as Socrates, Napoleon, and Lincoln all built on ideas of the past. In truth, great ideas propel people to become great in themselves.”
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“The influence of Darwin is still greater than the influence of Marx... The basic phenomenon of our time is not Communism; it's the decline of religious belief, which has all sorts of effects on morals and even on politics because religion has been a tool of politics.”
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