Karl Marx

In the 19th century, a German philosopher named Karl Marx began exploring the relationship between economy and the workers within that system. Over his lifetime, Marx developed a theory that human societies progress though a struggle between two distinct social classes. The proletariat, the workers, are the lower class. They perform the labor, but the upper class managers, bosses, and rulers, called the bourgeoisie, get the profits. In this system, which became known as Marxism, governments existed to protect the wealthy, not the common good.

Marx's theories formed a sociological perspective called conflict theory, which stated that capitalist societies were built on conflicts between the workers and the rulers. In this theory, society relies on class conflict in order to keep the wealthy in power and the poor as subjects to the government.

Key Ideas: Dialectical Model, The Communist Manifesto, Marxism