Karl Marx

Karl Marx was born in 1518, in a small city situated in the southern part of the German Rhineland. He grew up in a middle class Jewish family whom had converted to Protestantism in order to escape the persecution faced by Jews within the German society. At the age of 17, Marx enrolled at the University of Bonn to study law in order to possibly become a lawyer like his father, however shortly after enrolling at Bonn Marx left for the University of Berlin. It was at the University of Berlin that Marx first read the works of Georg Hegel a German Philosopher, whose theoretical work would influence Marx throughout his lifetime works. After University Marx went back to Bonn but was unable to find academic employment, so he tried journalism. It was through his journalism that he Arnold Ruge an editor who would eventually help Marx to produce his future work. After having some of his articles published Marx moved to Cologne in 1843, where he then studied the work of Ludwig Feuberach. During this time period Marx's work was heavily shaped by his criticism of Hegel and Hegel's dominance within German philosophy at that particular time. It was also in this year that Marx wrote his first two major pieces of critical writing, which criticised Hegel's conception of the state. Shortly after these critiques, Marx began to develop an outline of theory of history and economic life; it would be a theory that would later become Marx's most important contribution to the world of sociology.

Towards the end of 1843, Marx moved to Paris where he then studied the political economy, it was while Marx was studying this that social and political questions began to arise and Marx himself became involved in the socialist movement. It was in the following year, 1844 that Marx drafted some notes relating to classical economics and alienated labour entitled the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts.