This past week, leftists all over the globe commemorated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, the grandfather of leftist politics that have influenced political and academic debates for more than 100 years. I fondly remember in one of his writings when he said, “philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”
In this week’s piece that celebrates the 200 th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, I will focus on Marx as a political activist, rather than what he is best known for, an economist and philosopher who wrote some of the most important analyses explaining capitalism and putting forward an alternative economic model. In the “Communist Manifesto”, Marx wrote, “The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.” This sentiment shows explicitly that Marx believed that political change stems from the history of conflicts between people who are exploited against the people who are exploiting them. This exploitation leads to conflict and revolt. Marx posited revolution as “the driving force of history.” The root of the political struggle for Marx was the economic system creating a struggle between classes. This conflict has varied throughout history, e.g. the serfs vs. the lords in the Feudal Era, the slaves vs. their owners in the era of slavery and today between workers and their bosses or capitalists.
