Question

1) What were the main economic influences on Karl Marx? 1a) How did the time period Karl Marx lived in influence his ideas?

Answer 1

Influences on Karl Marx are derived from 3 sources:

1.German philosophy-Immanuel Kant had the most influence over Marx.The structure of marxism is believed to be based on Kantian philosophy.Other than Kant,G. W. F. Hegel,and Ludwig Feuerbach had influenced Marx.

2.English and Scottish political economy-Marx conceived the idea that the grounds of property is labour,from Adam Smith.Marx critiqued Smith and Ricardo for not realizing that their economic concepts reflected specifically capitalist institutions, not innate natural properties of human society, and could not be applied unchanged to all societies. He proposed a systematic correlation between labour-values and money prices. He claimed that the source of profits under capitalism is value added by workers not paid out in wages. This mechanism operated through the distinction between "labour power", which workers freely exchanged for their wages, and "labour", over which asset-holding capitalists thereby gained control.

3.French socialism-Rousseau was one of the first modern writers to seriously attack the institution of private property, and therefore is sometimes considered a forebear of modern socialismand communism, though Marx rarely mentions Rousseau in his writings. He argued that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority. From Jean-Jacques Rousseau came the idea of egalitarian democracy.

Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and his work has been both lauded and criticised.His work in economics laid the basis for much of the current understanding of labour and its relation to capital, and subsequent economic thought. Many intellectuals, labour unions, artists and political parties worldwide have been influenced by Marx's work, with many modifying or adapting his ideas. Marx is typically cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science.