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Karl Marx (1818-1883) was an influential sociologist best known for his and analysis of labor and class struggle. Che Guevara said,
"The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in the history of social thought. He interprets history, understands its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition to predicting it (which would satisfy his scientific obligation), he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed. Man ceases to be the slave and tool of his environment and converts himself into the architect of his own destiny." (Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban Revolution, 1960)Economist Paul Samuelson said,
"From the viewpoint of pure economic theory, Karl Marx can be regarded as a minor post-Ricardian." (Economists and History of Ideas, 1962)Philosopher Ayn Rand said,
"[When] Karl Marx, the most consistent translator of the altruist morality into practical action and political theory, advocated a society where all would be sacrificed to all, starting with the immediate immolation of the able, the intelligent, the successful and the wealthy - whatever opposition he did encounter, nobody opposed him on moral grounds. Predominantly, he was granted the status of a noble, but impractical, idealist." (For the New Intellectual, 1961)The rest of this post is some quotes from Marx.
Analysis of labor
"The worker's existence is thus brought under the same condition as the existence of every other commodity. The worker has become a commodity, and it is a bit of luck for him if he can find a buyer... " (Paris Manuscripts , 1844)
"He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him." (The Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848)
Support for Communism
"Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals." (The German Ideology, 1845)
"Communism... is the genuine resolution of the antagonism between man and nature and between man and man; it is the true resolution of the conflict between existence and essence, objectification and self-affirmation, freedom and necessity, individual and species. It is the riddle of history solved and knows itself as the solution." (Paris Manuscripts , 1844)
"The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win." (The Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848)
Analysis of money
"Money does not arise by convention, any more than the state does. It arises out of exchange, and arises naturally out of exchange; it is a product of the same." (Grundrisse, 1857)
"The circulation of commodities is the original precondition of the circulation of money." (Grundrisse, 1857)
Philosophy of science
"The philosopher, who is himself an abstract form of alienated man, sets himself up as the measure of the alienated world." (Paris Manuscripts , 1844)
"Ideas do not exist separately from language." (Grundrisse, 1857)
"The product of mental labor - science - always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production." (Relative and Absolute Surplus Value, 1861)
