Karl Marx

Karl Marx was an analyst of critiicism. He went to the University of Berlin and became absorbed in Hagel's (one of the most important German philosophers of the time) beliefs. He wrote books about his beliefs and became famous for his ideas. He came up with the theory of base and superstructure, labor theory of value, the dialectic, crashing of capitalism, and alienation.

His theory of base and superstructure was about the basics of capitalism. He said that the most important part of any society was the relationship between the producers and the expropriators. From there we see the superstructure lead to wealth for the capitalist.

The labor theory of value is stating that labor is the source of all wealth. Marx said that capitalists suck the labor out of workers just like vampires suck the blood out of people. A worker works to make a product for a capitalist that ends up being worth more than what they actually work for. The surplus goes to the capitalist which in turn creates more capitalism. An example of this would be if you work at McDonald's. Your job is to make chicken nuggets that cost $1.50. You get $.75 for every order of chicken nuggets you make. The other $.75 go to the owner of that McDonald's. Not only does he get the surplus from your work but also the surplus from your coworkers. With all the money made from you guys he will eventually open another McDonald's and have to hire more people. This becomes capitalism.

The dialectic is the process of becoming. In simpler terms, it means that when you combine something with something else it becomes something greater. This was actually Halo's theory but Marx believed it too. For example, if there is a book club and a writing club. Both clubs read books and write stories according to that author's style. The book club however, doesn't share their stories out loud but discusses the books. The writing club doesn't discuss the books but share the stories. If these two clubs join together they would become a reading and writing club which would be a greater something because they would talk about both the books and the stories.

Crashing of capitalism happens when capitalists can no longer grow their capital. This happens when competitions lowers the rate of return which causes capitalist to have to lower their costs. In order to keep making money the capitalist have to make the workers work harder to make more products. What will happen sooner or later is that there will be too many supplies and not enough profit. When there is not enough profit people start to drop out. People dropping out leads to more people having no jobs. This in turn leads to a recession.

Alienation is when something that was you becomes not you. Like labor. If you are working at a job that yu hate but you are doing it in order to survive, you become alienated from your job. You are doing it because you have to and you having to just benefits the capitalists you are working for because they make money off of you.