Karl Marx was one of the founders of sociology and his ideas on society are still very relevant. Marx believed that as societies grew, people began to move further apart in the economic class due to their place in the hierarchy. Marx even predicted a coming protest among workers due to the extreme disparities between owners and workers. “Marx also believed that the fall of capitalism would cause the rise of communism which would be fairer to everyone in society” (Openstax 1.2). Marx had many theories that did not come true during his lifetime, but he predicted that it was the only solution to the process of events that were leading to the death of capitalism. Marx identified as a supporter of conflict theory, according to which society is in constant competition with individuals struggling for power and time. Inequalities emerge at the extremes but are certainly fair in the middle, so it is the individual's responsibility to push upwards, regardless of the cost. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in a small town in southwestern Germany, where he was the eldest surviving boy of a family of nine children. He was born into an upper middle class family, his father was a lawyer and his mother was rich. Both of his parents were Jewish, but his father converted to Lutheranism due to some laws that prevented him from reaching a higher position in society. Marx often identified himself as an atheist, even though he had many experiences with the rabbis, from whom he descended. Marx was described as an energetic child who often got into trouble, even though his father was home-schooled until the age of twelve. He then began high school, where his principal became involved in his early philosophical ideas and urged him to continue. Its principal, however, was in favor of teaching liberal ideas to his students and only employed teachers who supported the same ideology. The school began to gain a reputation and the authorities took notice and decided to investigate the principal and his teachers. People thought that his way of teaching was dangerous for students and could influence their children's results. Marx graduated at the age of 17 and decided to continue his studies at university. He attended the University of Bonn as a law student in late 1835. Marx, however, had difficulty completing all his homework and even had trouble showing up. The following semester didn't go any better for him as he rarely showed up to school, as he was out drinking at local bars instead of doing his homework. Things got so bad for Marx that he was actually arrested for public drunkenness. This continued for about a year, and Marx continued to fail classes or barely pass them. His father was extremely angry that Marx would waste his life instead of studying to be a lawyer. He then transferred Marx to the University of Berlin as punishment and told Marx that he had better get serious about his education otherwise there would be serious consequences. Instead of following her father's advice, she insisted on going to philosophical meetings with her new boyfriend whom she had met in her hometown. He became extremely interested in the ideas of many earlier philosophers and began studying their articles and treatises. Later, in 1838, Marx's father died and this put a strain on him. He had lost his father, whom he respected very much, and he had lost the financial benefits his father had given him. He soon discovered that he was alone with his boyfriend. Marxhe decided to change his major from lawyer to philosopher as he decided that was his true passion in life. Remembering that he had no money to study and become a philosopher, Marx became a journalist. He joined a very radical newspaper company called RhinelandNews, which expressed their radical ideas about the occupation of Prussia. Luck, however, was on his side, for Marx had worked his way up and become editor-in-chief of the newspaper company. This is where I believe Marx began to convey his philosophical ideas in a text that others could read. He began writing about communism and the effects it had on governments and the people living under the government. Although many sided with his ideology, he criticized one of the Russian monarchs who then had his newspaper shut down and his ideology cut off by the authorities. Marx was once again unemployed and broke. However, this did not stop him and his financiers from marrying soon after. Moving on from Marx's early life and difficulties as an aspiring philosopher, Marx began to wonder what it meant to be free. Marx surprised many philosophers and other people around him when he asked this question, since no one had ever thought about it that way before. Marx ironically laid the foundation for conflict theory. He focused on power, inequality, and what it meant to be free. Marx believed that everyone had to work together to survive as a species and that this would create a hierarchy in society. A sort of natural hierarchy, where the most powerful, or the most skilled, were at the top and the useless at the bottom. Marx and many other philosophers already knew this theory, but Marx believed that it was up to the individual to do whatever it takes to get to the top, regardless of the cost. He often thought of prehistoric societies as communist societies because everyone was equal and worked together toward a common goal. However, later in society, Marx noticed that the people who were at the top of the hierarchy did not have to work at all to be well fed and that the people at the bottom were not even remotely equal to those at the bottom of the hierarchy. the top and those people had to work and provide for the upper class group. This is where Marx drew the line between natural hierarchies and social hierarchies. Because natural hierarchies are due to skill and strength, while social hierarchies are determined by class or money. Marx believed this was due to labor and the way a society's resources were distributed everywhere. Basically, in modern terms, this can be described as basic economics and this was for him the most important aspect of life. “Although Marx did not write much about gender, it was an essential category for understanding the division of labor, production, and society in general” (Matwijkiw 83). He wanted to understand how a change in the economy impacted the hierarchy or even control of government. He soon discovered how the economy impacted social class: if you were at the top of society then you owned the factory and the resources in that factory, but if you were at the bottom of society then you essentially sold your labor to the owner for a salary you lived on. This was a shocking surprise to Marx as this was not natural at all and this is how capitalism can be exploited to benefit the top of society. This means that the upper class can make all the choices in terms of profit. They can lower their employees' wages and create a larger profit margin whenever they want. This is a good theoretical explanation of why Marx believed the fall of capitalism would leadultimately to communism, which is what I emphasized in the first paragraph. In another analogy, Marx believed that the fall of a society would be a crisis or economic collapse, which would cause mass panic and be harmful to the lower class. This could only be possible when economies became too distant from each other in terms of social class. Where the resources produced could not be accessible to the lower classes of citizens and this would cause a surplus and ultimately economic collapse. Another way to bring down a social hierarchy would be for citizens to rebel and demand higher pay or more important positions in society, this would also cause many problems. The only way for capitalism to survive is to “overcome challenges by remaking itself through relentless innovation” (Marks 198). I learned a lot about this topic in History class as we studied the Industrial Revolution and how it failed many times due to workers' refusal to work in dangerous conditions or for too low a wage. Solutions to their problems came soon, as new laws were designed to benefit the lower classes and to protect them in society so that the economy would not collapse and destroy everything. Marx influenced sociology in a way that no other philosopher had before him, particularly in the 19th century. He asked that people question their freedom and what it meant to live in a hierarchy. He also explained the dangers of exploitative capitalism and the greed of the upper classes. He had many followers who soon believed in his ideologies. Marx believed that history repeats itself, as many others do, but in a more personal way. He believed that certain social patterns will never disappear unless we live in a true communist society. These patterns include the social conflict between the lower class and the upper class that I explained before. I often think of Marx as a historian and philosopher because instead of just understanding and expressing his ideas, he looked back into our society to really understand where we all came from and how these patterns developed. “Some scholars even reduce Marxism to historicism” (Blyukher 531). It makes perfect sense to me, especially if you think about prehistory when there were no social hierarchies. It was just a question of who will go get food today and who will take care of the children. No one in the middle and no one above them, and I assume we can agree that these two roles are almost equally valuable. However, when machines were invented and work became the norm, capitalism began to emerge and take control of the people themselves. Then it was no longer about who got the food and who took care of the children, it became about people generating resources for the people above them and not for themselves. They instead exchanged their work for a wage to take care of themselves and their family. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay Marx died on March 14, 1883 in London, where he later lived and worked as a philosopher. He was plagued by poor health throughout his life, some due to his poor food or leisure choices, but others were natural. He eventually died of pleurisy, an inflammatory condition of the lungs and chest. However, this has not impeded his role in modern society, as his basis for conflict theory and his desire for communism are brought up whenever one wants to talk about rational change in a capitalist society. It's everywhere in our books.