Development of Karl Marx’s Political Economy Thoughts: an Essay on Historical Materialism

Abstract

Karl Marx’s thoughts have not only been widely accepted among thinkers , scholars and revolutionists in Socialist countries , but the result of Voting for the greatest philosophy of all time organized by BBC Radio 4 indicated the influence of Karl Marx’s thoughts. This article aims to survey his biography and his background which influenced Karl Marx‘s thoughts on political economy as well as influence from other thinkers ‘thoughts. He had been exiled from time to time, from Germany to France and from France to England, as a result of his progressive idea. He spent his time at the British Museum Library in London to research about political economy until he crystallized the Philosophy of Dialectic Materialism which later was improved to be the Philosophy of Historical Materialism. Such philosophy shook the world through social revolution in many countries in the World. These social revolutionists implemented Historical Materialism to analyze their society’s character which led to determination of strategies and means to achieve social change for justice of the poor. This article briefly shows the main points of both philosophies which will be very fruitful for political economy students who should clearly understand such philosophies in order to lay the basis for studying of other political economy thinkers in the future.