The Society of the Spectacle

Karl Marx is perhaps best known for being one of the co-authors of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, which is typically referred to as the Communist Manifesto. Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in Trier, Germany. He originally began his university studies in law but soon switched to philosophy. During his time in university, Marx met Jenny Von Westphalen and in 1843 the two were married. Alongside his marriage, Marx’s time at university was significant since it was there where he would encounter the philosophical works of the German Idealist tradition, and especially the writings of Hegel.

It was the Hegelian system that would leave a lasting impression on Marx and serve as the basis for his later writings on war, society, history, politics, and economics. After his time at university (which saw him move from Trier to Berlin), Marx worked as the editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, publishing articles and news stories that were heavily critical of the Prussian government. Due to his journalistic endeavors at the newspaper, Marx was harassed and ultimately was stripped of his Prussian citizenship. It was under these conditions that Marx would meet his lifelong friend and collaborator, Friedrich Engels, and move to Paris and then, ultimately, to London, where he would spend the rest of his life. After a series of failed attempts at political organizing, Marx turned to what became a decades long study of the economic foundations of capitalist society. This was already seen in his collected notebooks, the Grundrisse, written between 1857-1861 and published in 1861.

The years of intensive research ultimately gave rise to the text that Marx’s name is also associated with, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, whose first volume was published in 1867. While intended to consist of upwards of twenty volumes, Marx only lived long enough to complete the first three volumes. Marx died of poor health on March 14, 1883, at the age of 64.