‘Under Capitalism we become “playthings of alien forces”. Almost like a monster we have created.’ ibid. Professor Jonathan Wolff
He witnessed the poverty of the urban classes. ibid.
In August 1849 Marx set sail for England. ibid.
I think as a Marxist and probably always will. Christopher Hitchens, Hitch in Washington, interview 2005, Youtube 48.51
Marxism, born of the social upheaval produced by the combined effects of the industrial and nationalist revolutions provided a unique intellectual tool for understanding and harnessing the fundamental forces of our time. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era ch3
Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included. Karl Marx, Marx to Kugelmann in Hanover, cited Marxists online
Capital is dead labour which vampire-like lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. Karl Marx
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. Its organisation is, therefore, essentially economic, the material production of the conditions of this unity; it turns existing conditions into conditions of unity. The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independently of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves. Karl Marx, The German Ideology 1845
Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence. Karl Marx, 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. Karl Marx, Private Property and Communism p43
Definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations. Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production. Karl Marx, The German Ideology 1845
Democracy is the road to Socialism. Karl Marx, disputed quotation
England has to fulfil a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating – the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia. Karl Marx, The Future Results of British Rule in India, Daily Tribune 10th June 1853
For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic and must remain so if he does not wish to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic. Karl Marx, The German Ideology 1845
For real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time. Labour time as the measure of value posits wealth itself as founded on poverty, and disposable time as existing in and because of the antithesis to surplus labour time; or, the positing of an individual’s entire time as labour time, and his degradation therefore to mere worker, subsumption under labour. The most developed machinery thus forces the worker to work longer than the savage does, or than he himself did with the simplest, crudest tools. Karl Marx
Freedom and slavery constitute an antagonism. There is no need for me to speak either of the good or of the bad aspects of freedom. As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America ...
All that modern nations have achieved is to disguise slavery at home and import it openly into the New World. Karl Marx, letter to Pavel Annekov December 1846
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme
History is not like some individual person, which uses men to achieve its ends. History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends. Karl Marx, The Holy Family ch6, 1845
If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist. Karl Marx, The Programme of the Parti Ouvrier preamble
If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all bonds? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties? Is it not, therefore, also the universal agent of separation? Karl Marx, Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society – the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
It is a bad thing to perform menial duties even for the sake of freedom; to fight with pinpricks, instead of with clubs. I have become tired of hypocrisy, stupidity, gross arbitrariness, and of our bowing and scraping, dodging, and hair-splitting over words. Consequently, the government has given me back my freedom. Karl Marx, letter to Arnold Ruge 1843
Political Economy regards the proletarian ... like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
Private property has made us so stupid and partial that an object is only ours when we have it, when it exists for us as capital ... Thus all the physical and intellectual senses have been replaced by ... the sense of having. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. Karl Marx
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, the spirit of the spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy
Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand. Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy
The capitalist gets rich, not like the miser, in proportion to his personal labour and restricted consumption, but at the same rate as he squeezes labour power out of others, and enforces on the labourer abstinence from all life’s enjoyments. The drive is always to go on accumulating and exploiting long after the individual capitalist has stashed away a million times more cash than he can hope to spend on himself in ten lifetimes. His motto is: ‘accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and all the prophets!’ Karl Marx, Capital I
The circulation of capital realizes value, while living labour creates value. Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy
The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison. Karl Marx, Capital II
The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. Karl Marx, clause 1 article The International Working Men’s Association
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas. Karl Marx, The German Ideology 1845
The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope. Karl Marx, variations