1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:07,200 Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, 2 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:11,959 Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum. Here one quick glance at Karl Marx's curriculum 3 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:18,480 Speaker 1: vitae says a lot economist, philosopher, journalist, sociologist, political theorist, historian. 4 00:00:19,079 --> 00:00:22,319 Speaker 1: Add to that socialist, communist in the original meaning of 5 00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:26,759 Speaker 1: the word, and revolutionary, and that's just a start. Karl 6 00:00:26,960 --> 00:00:29,720 Speaker 1: Heinrich Marks was one of the most respected minds of 7 00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:33,600 Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. His meditations on how societies work and 8 00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:36,600 Speaker 1: how they should work have informed and challenged humans for 9 00:00:36,640 --> 00:00:40,440 Speaker 1: more than a hundred and fifty years. Yet to the uninitiated, 10 00:00:40,720 --> 00:00:44,080 Speaker 1: Marks maybe only a bushy, mugged symbol of revolution, the 11 00:00:44,159 --> 00:00:48,160 Speaker 1: father of communism, the hater of capitalism. He's considered by many, 12 00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:51,000 Speaker 1: especially in the West, as the man whose ideas spurred 13 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:57,040 Speaker 1: authoritarian communist regimes in Russia, China and beyond. That again 14 00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:00,200 Speaker 1: is selling the man short, because it's not entirely right. 15 00:01:01,480 --> 00:01:04,640 Speaker 1: In his book Karl Marks, a nineteenth Century Life, author 16 00:01:04,800 --> 00:01:09,000 Speaker 1: Jonathan Sperber wrote, viewed positively, Marx is a far seeing 17 00:01:09,080 --> 00:01:12,080 Speaker 1: profit of social and economic developments and an advocate of 18 00:01:12,120 --> 00:01:16,800 Speaker 1: the emanspiratory transformation of state and society. From a negative viewpoint, 19 00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:19,880 Speaker 1: Marx is one of those most responsible for the pernicious 20 00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:23,960 Speaker 1: and evil features of the modern world. If nothing else, 21 00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:27,280 Speaker 1: Marx was a keen observer of the human condition. He 22 00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:29,440 Speaker 1: was a deep thinker with bold ideas about how to 23 00:01:29,480 --> 00:01:33,880 Speaker 1: make life better. We spoke with Lawrence Dollman, who teaches 24 00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:35,959 Speaker 1: a course on mars and philosophy at the University of 25 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:38,240 Speaker 1: Chicago and is the co author of a chapter on 26 00:01:38,319 --> 00:01:42,360 Speaker 1: Marx and Marxism in the Rootledge Handbook of Philosophy and Relativism. 27 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:46,440 Speaker 1: Dolman said Marx himself was first and foremost a kind 28 00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:49,480 Speaker 1: of scientist. He was a student of reality, but he 29 00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:53,000 Speaker 1: himself struggled throughout the course of his career how exactly 30 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:57,440 Speaker 1: to put his ideas to politics. It's important to note 31 00:01:57,480 --> 00:02:00,640 Speaker 1: that despite his one time lofty standing what was then 32 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:03,960 Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. Marx was born in Treer in the 33 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:07,440 Speaker 1: Kingdom of Prussia in eighteen eighteen. That's what's now known 34 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:11,040 Speaker 1: as the Rhineland area of western Germany. After the failed 35 00:02:11,080 --> 00:02:14,560 Speaker 1: German Revolution of eighteen forty eight, Marx fled to London, 36 00:02:14,680 --> 00:02:18,320 Speaker 1: where he eventually died in eighteen eighty three. He's buried 37 00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:22,080 Speaker 1: beneath a large tomb in London's Highgate Cemetery inscribed with 38 00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:27,240 Speaker 1: the words Workers of All Lands Unite. But Mars grew 39 00:02:27,320 --> 00:02:30,280 Speaker 1: up privileged, the son of well off and liberal parents 40 00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:32,880 Speaker 1: in an ancient town that had been wrapped for decades 41 00:02:32,960 --> 00:02:37,639 Speaker 1: before his birth by war and revolution. That upheaval, cultural, religious, 42 00:02:37,639 --> 00:02:40,600 Speaker 1: and political shaped his parents and was a big part 43 00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:45,840 Speaker 1: of young Marx's upbringing. Later, Mars attended universities studying law 44 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:48,919 Speaker 1: and philosophy, where he became engaged to and later married, 45 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:52,480 Speaker 1: a Prussian baroness. It was while studying philosophy in law 46 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:55,400 Speaker 1: that Marx was introduced to the works of German philosopher 47 00:02:55,600 --> 00:02:59,960 Speaker 1: George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whose ideas he used to later 48 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:03,880 Speaker 1: form his take on communism. Marx began a career as 49 00:03:03,880 --> 00:03:07,320 Speaker 1: a journalist in his early twenties, writing for radical newspapers 50 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:11,200 Speaker 1: in Cologne and Paris. Throughout he consorted with other liberal 51 00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:15,320 Speaker 1: minded philosophers, and by his mid twenties met and collaborated 52 00:03:15,320 --> 00:03:18,000 Speaker 1: with one of the major influences in his life, freed 53 00:03:18,080 --> 00:03:21,960 Speaker 1: Rich Angles. It was Angles who convinced Marx that society's 54 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:25,520 Speaker 1: working class would be the instrument to fuel revolutions and 55 00:03:25,560 --> 00:03:29,840 Speaker 1: bring about a more fair and just society. In eighteen 56 00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:32,240 Speaker 1: forty eight, the two published a pamphlet that would be 57 00:03:32,280 --> 00:03:36,120 Speaker 1: the basis for a new political movement, the Communist Manifesto. 58 00:03:37,520 --> 00:03:40,960 Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty three, after Marx's death, Angles summed up 59 00:03:40,960 --> 00:03:44,640 Speaker 1: the main idea in the Communist Manifesto like this quote, 60 00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:48,480 Speaker 1: that economic production and the structure of society of every 61 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:53,560 Speaker 1: historical epoch, necessarily arising therefrom constitute the foundation for the 62 00:03:53,560 --> 00:03:58,200 Speaker 1: political and intellectual history of that epoch. That consequently, ever 63 00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:01,440 Speaker 1: since the dissolution of the primeval communal ownership of land, 64 00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:05,280 Speaker 1: all history has been a history of class struggles, of 65 00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:10,400 Speaker 1: struggles between exploited and exploiting between dominated and dominating classes 66 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:14,000 Speaker 1: at various stages of social evolution. That this struggle, however, 67 00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:17,680 Speaker 1: has now reached a stage where the exploited and oppressed class, 68 00:04:17,880 --> 00:04:21,520 Speaker 1: the proletariat, can no longer emancipate itself from the class 69 00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:25,080 Speaker 1: which exploits and oppresses it, the bourgeoisie, without at the 70 00:04:25,120 --> 00:04:29,120 Speaker 1: same time forever freeing the whole of society from exploitation, 71 00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:35,839 Speaker 1: oppression class struggles. Dolman explained, Marx was always concerned to 72 00:04:35,920 --> 00:04:40,240 Speaker 1: understand the real underlying causes of social phenomenon, the events 73 00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:43,960 Speaker 1: and institutions that kind of shape the social world. Marx 74 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:46,960 Speaker 1: wanted to kind of dig down beneath the appearances and 75 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:49,760 Speaker 1: see what was really going on. Early on in his 76 00:04:49,839 --> 00:04:52,000 Speaker 1: career he thought that the best arena to do that 77 00:04:52,040 --> 00:04:55,359 Speaker 1: in was philosophy, and then as time went on he 78 00:04:55,440 --> 00:04:59,559 Speaker 1: transitioned more into the social sciences. What's most important about 79 00:04:59,600 --> 00:05:01,640 Speaker 1: Mars is that he very much had a kind of 80 00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:05,200 Speaker 1: engineering mentality about society. He wanted to know what makes 81 00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:07,760 Speaker 1: it work, and how if we want to change it, 82 00:05:08,040 --> 00:05:10,359 Speaker 1: do we change it? What are the levers that we 83 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:15,760 Speaker 1: have to pull. Marx's eighty seven economics work capital a 84 00:05:15,760 --> 00:05:20,160 Speaker 1: critique of political economy, a takedown of capitalism that decried 85 00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:23,920 Speaker 1: the exploitation of the working class, crystallized a debate one 86 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:27,400 Speaker 1: that continues today between the West's ruling social and economic 87 00:05:27,440 --> 00:05:32,200 Speaker 1: theory capitalism and Marx's idea of communism. Too many. It's 88 00:05:32,200 --> 00:05:36,159 Speaker 1: a fight that hits rich versus poor, bourgeois e versus proletariat, 89 00:05:36,440 --> 00:05:39,479 Speaker 1: ruling class versus workers. And it's even more than that. 90 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:42,120 Speaker 1: To those who debate it, it's right versus wrong, an 91 00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:46,719 Speaker 1: argument about the best path to a perfect society. But that, 92 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:50,920 Speaker 1: of course is very simplistic and doesn't get Marx's thinking right. 93 00:05:51,839 --> 00:05:55,159 Speaker 1: Dallman said, above all else, the association that people have 94 00:05:55,240 --> 00:05:58,039 Speaker 1: with Marx is that he's some utopian pie in the 95 00:05:58,080 --> 00:06:00,840 Speaker 1: sky dreaming of a perfect world that is free of 96 00:06:00,880 --> 00:06:04,040 Speaker 1: all the nastiness we live in now. Really, that couldn't 97 00:06:04,080 --> 00:06:06,520 Speaker 1: be further from the truth. Marx had a kind of 98 00:06:06,560 --> 00:06:10,039 Speaker 1: engineering mindset. He was probably, of all the major figures 99 00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:12,839 Speaker 1: in the history of political thought, the most practical, the 100 00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:15,800 Speaker 1: most realistic. He was the most concerned with what is 101 00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:20,200 Speaker 1: really possible in the real world. What marks to find 102 00:06:20,240 --> 00:06:23,880 Speaker 1: as communism but boiled down. A society that produces goods 103 00:06:23,880 --> 00:06:26,480 Speaker 1: only for human need, not for profit, and in which 104 00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:30,279 Speaker 1: there is no master slave, royalty, peasants, owner worker relationship 105 00:06:30,560 --> 00:06:34,719 Speaker 1: and therefore no need to overthrow anybody certainly clashes with 106 00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:39,120 Speaker 1: the materialism of capitalism, but it's a long way from 107 00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:43,839 Speaker 1: what many today see as communism too. After the Russian 108 00:06:43,839 --> 00:06:47,440 Speaker 1: Revolution of nineteen seventeen and later under Joseph Stalin's reign, 109 00:06:47,880 --> 00:06:50,640 Speaker 1: some of Marx's ideas, along with those of Vladimir Lenin, 110 00:06:50,920 --> 00:06:54,640 Speaker 1: were used to build a New Empire. Millions were killed 111 00:06:54,680 --> 00:06:58,120 Speaker 1: along the way. Similarly, millions died in China under the 112 00:06:58,200 --> 00:07:02,919 Speaker 1: rule of Malzadom's Communist Party. Dolman acknowledged it's hard to 113 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:05,960 Speaker 1: even talk about what Marks thought of communism without dragging 114 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:09,360 Speaker 1: in all the weight from Soviet Russia and communist China, 115 00:07:09,480 --> 00:07:13,080 Speaker 1: and obviously a lot of people hold Marks responsible for that. 116 00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:17,960 Speaker 1: Authoritarian rules like Stalins and Maus were not what Marx 117 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:20,920 Speaker 1: had in mind. It's important to note, too, that Marx 118 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:24,360 Speaker 1: did not hate capitalism. He actually saw some virtue in 119 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:28,800 Speaker 1: the system. He saw it as a necessary precursor to communism, 120 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:33,239 Speaker 1: and he envisioned some of the technological challenges automation unseating workers, 121 00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:38,400 Speaker 1: for example, that are true today. Doloman explained, Mars was 122 00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:42,360 Speaker 1: very impressed with the kind of progressive character of capitalism. 123 00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:44,960 Speaker 1: By forcing people from all different walks of life into 124 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:48,240 Speaker 1: the same workplaces, capitalism kind of breaks down the old 125 00:07:48,240 --> 00:07:51,680 Speaker 1: divides between communities, and so things like race and gender 126 00:07:51,680 --> 00:07:54,800 Speaker 1: and religion divide people less. The more people are forced 127 00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:58,520 Speaker 1: to see each other as equals in the workplace. Marks 128 00:07:58,640 --> 00:08:02,760 Speaker 1: recognized and marveled the economical and technological growth the capitalism 129 00:08:02,760 --> 00:08:06,360 Speaker 1: begets and saw it as an improvement from previous societies. 130 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:09,840 Speaker 1: Later in life, Dolman says Mark suggested that a growth 131 00:08:09,840 --> 00:08:12,960 Speaker 1: in capitalism might be a way to move toward communism 132 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:16,720 Speaker 1: instead of all out revolution, but he still saw communism 133 00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:21,280 Speaker 1: with no master slave dynamic as the end goal. In 134 00:08:21,320 --> 00:08:24,800 Speaker 1: that way and in others, Marx's idea of communism was 135 00:08:24,880 --> 00:08:27,080 Speaker 1: far from the atrocities that have been committed in the 136 00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:31,120 Speaker 1: name of communism elsewhere, and his ideas are still, perhaps 137 00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:33,800 Speaker 1: strangely too many a beacon in a search for a 138 00:08:33,840 --> 00:08:37,520 Speaker 1: better way of life, in that this practical and deep 139 00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:40,960 Speaker 1: thinker of the nineteenth century still has relevance in today's world. 140 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:45,400 Speaker 1: Dolman said, Mars was so committed to giving a kind 141 00:08:45,440 --> 00:08:48,760 Speaker 1: of rational criticism of everything, not just the enemy, but 142 00:08:48,880 --> 00:08:52,040 Speaker 1: to himself and everything. He was willing to criticize the 143 00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:54,640 Speaker 1: old modes of life and show how capitalism kind of 144 00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:57,520 Speaker 1: improved on them. But he was also willing to criticize 145 00:08:57,559 --> 00:09:01,240 Speaker 1: capitalism and show how we could foresee the improvement coming 146 00:09:01,240 --> 00:09:09,960 Speaker 1: in the future. That is still a hopeful vision. Today's 147 00:09:09,960 --> 00:09:12,520 Speaker 1: episode was written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang. 148 00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:15,000 Speaker 1: For more on this, lots of other curious topics, is it, 149 00:09:15,040 --> 00:09:17,599 Speaker 1: how stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I 150 00:09:17,679 --> 00:09:20,160 Speaker 1: heart Radio. For more podcasts of my heart Radio, visit 151 00:09:20,200 --> 00:09:22,720 Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 152 00:09:22,760 --> 00:09:23,960 Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.