Yesterday was Karl Marx's 200th birthday. He was one of the most effective and influential persons in Human modern era and the most controversial person I have ever known in my life. To many people he is the righteous guy showing the way of happiness and some think he was an obsessive guy just hated rich people!
To me he is a prophet of his time who could change a lot and made some mistakes but most of all has been mistaken because of his fans' historical mistakes. Here I try to repeat some interesting facts I've known about him:
1- Most of people believe that "socialism", "communism" and "Marxism" are one thing or a unique school of thought, but the reality is even though you need to be a good socialist to become a Marxist, being a socialist doesn't make you a Marxist.
2- Was Marx an anarchist? My answer is "no". Nowadays most of people forgot the meaning of anarchism and think anarchy means chaos. The truth is the way Marx looked at "individualism" makes his philosophy not compatible to anarchy. Reading about his strong disagreement with Mikhail Bakunin may help you understand my point.
3- Did Marx invent socialism? The answer is no. Young Karl Marx was a liberal. He became interested in socialism after meeting with French socialists.
4- He saw suffering and poverty of working class and decided to free them. It's false too. He was a young Hegelian. Like another famous young Hegelian Ludwig Feuerbach, he believed Hegel's philosophy needed some reforms. He believed that history had an ultimate goal, but also believed Hegel's suggestion was too mystic and has lots of God acts involved –who has lost his position among young Hegelians. Marx thought of money as the new God of his era and because of that he decided to learn economy and bang! That was the moment he found Proletaria as the sacred class who could guide humanity to the ultimate goal of history.
5- Marx was creator of the idea of "minimum income". It's false again. The idea was first introduced by first Muslim Caliph, Abu Bakr, in 7th century and later by one of founder fathers of the USA, Thomas Paine. It's Irony; both are founders of societies later became Marxism sworn enemies.
6- Marx suggested revolutionizing immediately and by any means. It is false too. According to Marx revolution was inevitable and one of the phases of ultimate goal . He believed any revolution in Russia (first country to have revolution) would benefit capitalism!
7- Some living standards are normal now but we really owe them to Marx without exactly knowing the fact are children's mandatory education, weekend and holidays for workers, retirement with salary, concept of job satisfaction, having right to demonstrate or strike, and most of all the danger of mainstream media when capitalism and governments take control of them and believe me, it would be a long, long list!
Zero Euro bill celebrating Marx's 200th birthday
