In this essay, I intend to address how Marx's ideas were formulated, after which I will move onto an outline of his theory of historical materialism which in turn relates to his theory of history, the focus of this work, starting with the idea of feudalism then moving onto the change to capitalism (and a critique thereof) and eventually the future move towards communism.
Karl Marx, son of lawyer Heinrich, was born and educated in Prussia, Germany. He was educated at the University of Bonn where he studied Law, later moving on to the University of Berlin, upon the request of his father. It was in Berlin, that Marx became involved with a group known as the ?Young Hegelians' and Bruno Bauer under who's influence, Marx "seized on orthodox religion as the chief illusion standing in the way of human self-understanding."
From this, Marx and the other Young Hegelians formed a critique of religion based on Hegel's ideas in the ?Phenomenology', although they came to somewhat more radical conclusions, "to criticise religion and show human beings that God is their own creation, thus ending the subordination of humanity to God and the alienation of human beings from their own true nature." This critique was seen as an attempt to combat organised religion and to liberate humanity.
1841 saw the publication of ?The Essence of Christianity', a work by Ludwig Feuerbach who argued that God is the creation of man (the essence of the human species) and that God's qualities including wisdom, love and benevolence are in fact, attributes of humanity, yet we attribute them to God. So by creating God in our image, humanity had alienated itself from itself, (leaving humanity as a lower, lesser version of the image of God) what we believe of God is re ...