Everything On Marx That I May Have Forgotten

Marx believed that money was the dominant factor in determining ones social class. Marx came to England in 1849, which was the height of the industrial revolution and at that time, most English men were either jobless or worked in factories. The Bourgeoisie ran the factories, which was the first problem for Marx because he believe this is where power became an issue. The Bourgeoisie had power and control over the proletariat (working class), which means they controlled how many hours they would work in a day and also, their pay –which was often very little when the amount of hard labour they did was taken in to consideration. Marx believed that the factory workers were alienated from the Bourgeoisie and from each other. He believed this because in the factories, each worker was told to work at a station on an assembly line, for example, if ones job was to put a wheel on the product, one would come to work every day and all one would do for the whole day, would be screwing the wheel on, then most likely never see the product again. Marx believed this would lead to ‘Alienation’, because one would be alienated from their co-workers at other stations and also from the final product.

In the time of Karl Marx, England was (and still is) a capitalist society, run by the Bourgeoisie. This was what Marx was against. He wanted England to become a communist society. He believed that in order for this to happen, the proletariats would have to overthrow the Bourgeoisie. He thought that this would happen by way of the factory workers finally getting frustrated with their working conditions enough to form trade unions, eventually growing large enough to overthrow the Bourgeoisie. He believed that once this had been achieved, we would finally have a communist society and that the power and social class issues would be eradicated.