Editing Karl Marx (section)

=== Influences ===
{{Main|Influences on Karl Marx}}
Marx's thought demonstrates influence from many sources, including but not limited to:
* [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]]'s philosophy{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=20–23}}
* The classical political economy (economics) of Adam Smith and [[David Ricardo]],<ref name="Sherman1995"/> as well as [[Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi]]'s critique of laissez-faire economics and analysis of the precarious state of the proletariat<ref name="Paresh">{{cite book |last1=Chattopadhyay |first1=Paresh |title=Marx's Associated Mode of Production: A Critique of Marxism |date=2016 |publisher=Springer |pages=39–41}}</ref>
* [[History of the Left in France|French socialist thought]],<ref name="Sherman1995"/> in particular the thought of [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], [[Henri de Saint-Simon]], [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]] and [[Charles Fourier]]<ref name="Beilharz1992"/>{{sfn|Clark|1998|pp=57–59}}
* Earlier German philosophical materialism among the [[Young Hegelians]], particularly that of [[Ludwig Feuerbach]] and [[Bruno Bauer]],<ref name=et/> as well as the French materialism of the late 18th century, including [[Diderot]], [[Claude Adrien Helvétius]] and [[d'Holbach]]
* [[Friedrich Engels|Friedrich Engels']] analysis of the working class,<ref name="Bottomore1991"/> as well as the early descriptions of class provided by French liberals and Saint-Simonians such as [[François Guizot]] and [[Augustin Thierry]]
* Marx's Judaic legacy has been identified as formative to both his moral outlook<ref>Eagleton, Terry. ''[[Why Marx Was Right]]''. Yale University Press, 2011, p. 158</ref> and his materialist philosophy.{{sfn|Seigel|1978|pp=112–119}}

Marx's view of history, which came to be called [[historical materialism]] (controversially adapted as the philosophy of [[dialectical materialism]] by Engels and Lenin), certainly shows the influence of Hegel's claim that one should view reality (and history) [[dialectic]]ally.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=20–23}} However, whereas Hegel had thought in [[idealist]] terms, putting ideas in the forefront, Marx sought to conceptualise dialectics in [[materialist]] terms, arguing for the primacy of matter over idea.<ref name=sep/>{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=20–23}} 

Where Hegel saw the "spirit" as driving history, Marx saw this as an unnecessary mystification, obscuring the reality of humanity and its physical actions shaping the world.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=20–23}} He wrote that Hegelianism stood the movement of reality on its head, and that one needed to set it upon its feet.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=20–23}} Despite his dislike of mystical terms, Marx used [[Gothic fiction|Gothic]] language in several of his works: in ''The Communist Manifesto'' he proclaims "A spectre is haunting Europe&nbsp;– the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre", and in ''The Capital'' he refers to capital as "[[necromancy]] that surrounds the products of labour".<ref name="autogenerated2">{{cite web|url=http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/0604/att-0138/01-PoliticalEconOfTheDead.pdf |first=Mark |last=Neocleous |title=The Political Economy of the Dead: Marx's Vampires |access-date=1 November 2013 |archive-date=12 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150412205331/http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/0604/att-0138/01-PoliticalEconOfTheDead.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

Though inspired by French socialist and sociological thought,<ref name="Sherman1995"/> Marx criticised [[utopian socialists]], arguing that their favoured small-scale socialistic communities would be bound to marginalisation and poverty and that only a large-scale change in the [[economic system]] could bring about real change.{{sfn|Clark|1998|pp=57–59}}<ref>{{cite web |last1=Leopold |first1=David |title=Marx, Engels, and Some (Non-Foundational) Arguments against Utopian Socialism |url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ba0c49a8-6592-4961-9d54-3a805c564272/files/m1c8aee21e160b7ea7c6e728719ba7a69 |website=ORA - Oxford University Research Archive |access-date=August 22, 2024 |archive-date=22 August 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240822025856/https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ba0c49a8-6592-4961-9d54-3a805c564272/files/m1c8aee21e160b7ea7c6e728719ba7a69 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Other important contributions to Marx's revision of Hegelianism came from Engels's book, ''[[The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844]]'', which led Marx to conceive of the historical dialectic in terms of [[class conflict]] and to see the modern working class as the most progressive force for revolution,<ref name="Bottomore1991"/> as well as from the social democrat [[Friedrich Wilhelm Schulz]], who in {{lang|de|Die Bewegung der Produktion}} described the movement of society as "flowing from the contradiction between the forces of production and the mode of production".<ref name="Levine">{{cite book |last1=Levine |first1=Norman |title=Divergent Paths: The Hegelian foundations of Marx's method |date=2006 |publisher=[[Lexington Books]] |page=223}}</ref><ref name="autogenerated144">{{cite book|first=Jonathan |last=Sperber |author-link=Jonathan Sperber |title=Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life |page=144}}</ref>

Marx believed that he could study history and society scientifically, discerning tendencies of history and thereby predicting the outcome of social conflicts. Some followers of Marx, therefore, concluded that a communist revolution would inevitably occur. However, Marx famously asserted in the eleventh of his "[[Theses on Feuerbach]]" that "philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it" and he clearly dedicated himself to trying to alter the world.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=23–24}}<ref name="wh1"/>

Marx's theories inspired several theories and disciplines of future, including but not limited to:
* [[Critique of political economy|Contemporary critique of political economy]]
* [[Kondratiev wave]] and [[Kuznets swing]]
* Theory of [[Underconsumption]]
* [[Creative destruction]]
* [[Crisis theory]]
* [[Quantitative Economic History]]
* [[World-systems theory]]