Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) was a monumental figure in European history and social philosophy. He was concerned with exploring the transition from feudalism to capitalism as it was happening in Germany in the 19th Century. He primarily focused on how the process of modernisation was having a huge impact on German agrarian society at that time. Changes were made to this feudal economy as a result of transitions processes and industrialisation. This meant that the agrarian society was replaced with a capitalist one, which Marx argued the processes central to capitalism are creating unequal, problematic conditions and the severity of the systems mean that they will eventually collapse and a new system would come to replace it. This essay will primarily …show more content…
The expansion of capitalism and its need to have bigger global markets for its commodities generate capitalist societies whose progression is determined by the extent of their bourgeois capitalist culture. For example, their flexibility to meeting the desires of capitalism by producing commodities for domestic and global consumption. While many people enjoy the range of consumer goods, Marx emphasises the inequality that exist in capitalism. Capitalism is a way of organising production to obey the needs of our continuance; it is the mode of production that distinguishes our organisation of society. Capitalism is a mode of production based on unequal classified possession of the means of production. Under capitalism, the bourgeoisie, who possess the means of production, for example, property, assemble profit based on the labour of the proletariat, who must work diligently to meet production requirements in factories, cooperate offices, mines and more to change raw materials into commodities that are sold by the capitalists for profit. Capitalists then use this profit to expand their ownership of private property while the property-less workers continue to struggle on minimum wage. This maintains Marx’s argument – the ever-growing economic and social gap between capitalists and workers. (Dillon, 2013) One of many modern examples of a company practicing capitalism is