Karl Marks’ Controversial Conceptions

Speaking about philosophical ideas regarding social life order, it is impossible not to mention a remarkable personality of a famous social thinker Karl Marx. His ideas and dogmas direct the development of all the socialistic countries. Marx’s main conceptions provide and extraordinary illustration on political, social and economic life. A famous philosopher of the revolution time attains a huge success and respect because of his non-traditional approaches to social life with a quite ordinary conservative order. Indeed, one should appreciate and pay special attention to his proclaimed tendencies and dogmas. However, they should be analyzed from the perspective of history. Born in the period between two remarkable revolutions and under the influence of his teacher, he reflected all needs of social, politic and economic life in his theory. Although, the Marx’s controversial conceptions of proclaimed the formation of utopian society, the European states of the 20th century have based their politic, economic and social life on his philosophy.

Marx rejects religious points of view, which significantly affect his political and social activity. However, he was born in the Jewish family. Later, not so simple and poor life conditions of a young philosopher influenced his future social and political activity. In other words, his philosophy reflects a mercurial character, which was formed in the circumstance of social and economic difficulties. Thus, he does not reject the religion totally, since for him it is a way to attain a new social status. Eventually, philosopher becomes a protestant. Certainly, it is a part of his career development as he admits that religion is the opium of the people (Elster 180). A perfect socialistic society must refuse from religion manipulations as it is a certain ideology. Despite the popularity of religious tendencies, Marx’s ideas attained a firm position, and majority of socialistic countries accept his attitude toward the religion. Karl Marx has found a quite appropriate explanation, which convinced the population that religion is a natural necessity to connect with the divine dimensions in the destructed and heartless world. Thus, it is a spontaneous phenomenon for oppressing the freedom of humanity. Therefore, Marx develops complicated philosophical conceptions, which totally invalidate the essence and necessity of religion in society. The main idea refers to economics since only economical situation dictates the religious issues. He is confident that faith is like an illusion, which keeps the society in some frames for justifying the social dysfunctions. The famous Prussian thinker proposes three important reasons for disliking religion. The first reason is connected with the disarrangement of reality through an unnecessary worship. The second reason is that this ideology does not accept the human consciousness as the highest aspect of existence. Writing some scholarly papers, he applies certain mythological examples where gods are extremely furious and evil toward the humanity. In addition, the last reason is a hypocritical character of the issues. Actually, the philosopher is not interested in religion or ethics at all (Fuchs). Marx is sure that these norms and doctrines are arranged for poor people in order to make them believe in illusion that they would be happy in some other reality. However, philosophical ideas dictate that the true essence of happiness depends on work. Religion is like drugs, people take them, when  they suffer from something, and feel some relief concerning the idea of eternal life. However, humanity can be happy without such illusions and be responsible for its own success and prosperity.

Karl Marx is a creator of a materialistic theory. It is a proclamation of social development of a society is directed by the communistic aspects of view and social issues. The utopian character of his philosophy achieves the highest status as the major ideology in the communistic countries. Actually, after Marx’s death his conceptions attained the strongest influence on the socialist’s states, though their doubtful character contradicts the reality. It is possible to conclude that historical materialism is a theory of Marx about the society and its development. Certainly, it is a primary stage of his social philosophy, which proclaims the necessity of material things. Moreover, it serves as  a basis for economical and political development. Economics, however, is the most essential factor that regulates and influences other fields of activity. This theory is called historical because of its direct relation to the evolution of the human being. Human evolution has brought some changes to the social one performed through the applied labor. The process is based on economic and material issues. The notion of materialism is associated with a material reality as the possibility for future changes.

In other words, it is a materialistic structure of society, which depends on economic infrastructure. The famous thinker viewed the history of society from the materialistic perspective. he stated that similarities in different social communities were associated with common materialistic foundations. Marx also suggested that all of them have experienced unilineal evolution. He proposed such structure of evolution where a primitive form of communism was a primary stage in development, than followed slavery and feudalism as a complicated form of the latter, and capitalism. However, he admitted that only a highly organized structure of socialism leads to the most valuable form of social relations – communism. Nevertheless, he recognized that none of his ideas appeared accidentally, that is why close friendship with Engels was also reflected in his philosophical conceptions. Even when being a student, Marx appreciated the theory of Hegel. It should be admitted that all his beliefs concerning the materialistic development of society are utopian in their nature. However, it does not make them less popular in the socialistic countries. The reason of their absurd logics is obvious. They look like an absolute opposition to all possible and known conceptions. Maybe, the hardships that he experienced in his childhood and life made him to try a new approach. It did not bring him much success and popularity, but many states accepted his ideas as the strongest ideologies ever existing. Based on evolution investigations, he develops a plan for attaining an ideal society in the frameworks of communism. By the way, his followers did not achieve an ideal communistic structure, but they accepted all his propositions in order to approximate to the essence of this theory. Thus, they also admitted that driving force for changes has been labor activities.

According to Karl Marx, philosophical domains of labor and society are the main mechanisms of life. He recognized the idea that the existence of society is possible when people work hard there and produce the things for their well-being. These Marx’s conceptions seemed to be the most controversial and debatable. It is impossible to assess whether the socialistic countries with the communistic order could achieve the highest level of development and become successful if they followed and adhered to his conceptions. The problem is that all his ideas contradict the natural social development. The world development is influenced by different factors, but Karl Marx is firmly confirmed that main engine of social society development are labor and labor relations without recognition of any moral and mental issues. Personal efforts in this case are helpless, as the success depends only on social process. Society is a main mechanism of life, Marx admitted. Only collective power can change the direction of social development and improve it. The evolution of mental activity is an absurd thing according to Marx, as only labor relations are essential. Furthermore, he stated that social diversity led to chaos and anarchy. Nevertheless, it will always exist in the society as people tend to  dominate over each other. Thus, Marx proposed to destruct this structure and create a universal working class as a single unit of the society. In other words, it must be formless and identical social community without obvious differences. All his ideas about society and labor relations he described in the most fundamental work “Capital”. The communistic countries, which supported the ideas of Engel and Karl Marx, as their main followers could not preserve the utopian socialistic structure from destruction and only few countries in the world can be called socialistic now. However, it is rather a hybrid form, but not a pure Marx’s concept. For instance, John Spargo has investigated the ideas of Marx and noticed that their multiple defects resulted in collapse of his theory. He insisted on the readjustment of his ideas since they were created on the basis of mistaken theoretical premises (23). It is necessary to admit that he was a famous socialistic thinker of the 20^th century, but his ideas are still relevant for debates and investigations, though they sound quite controversial (Ilegbinosa 5). Nevertheless, his conceptions cannot be appropriate for contemporary society.

Thus, religious and social life of the philosopher was rather hard and challenging, formed his philosophy and had a great influence on political life of people in the 20th century. Actually, he created a theory, which contradicts all possible conceptions of social development. In essence, Marx based his ideas on the process of evolution caused by labor relations and materialistic dogmas. However, his contribution to the world philosophy is still crucial and relevant for further debates and investigations. The social stratification is impossible as it is a part of evolution and social order. Marx proposes a scheme for attaining the equality and presents a single working class. Nevertheless, his thoughts seem to be quite doubtful, as they contradict the nature of humanity. He also proposed the structure of utopian state, which is unfortunately, very weak and has many drawbacks. At the same time, European countries of the revolution period have been supporting his philosophy even long time after his death.