The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is, to change it.
~~ Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach

No other thinker has probably matched the influence that Karl Marx (1818-1883), also known as The Red Doctor, had upon 20th Century socioeconomics and radical politics. Marx's humanist critique of mercantile Capitalism and one-dimensional Consumerism, unlike his Ivory Tower counter-parts, influenced the political climate that he lived in. Along with sociologist August Comte and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, Marx exemplified the "Masters of Suspicion" who flourished in the twilight of the 19th Century and the French scholarly tradition of the philosophe who seeks to proactively change society. The various forms of Marxist ideology have been the subject of diverse books and articles.

With the Bolshevik Experiment in ruins and the specter of the Communist political system waning as the European Union gathers momentum, perhaps it is time to reappraise The Red Doctor. Contemporary political activists draw inspiration and guidance from Marx's journalism and philosophy, which was later obscured by his sociology. In their confrontation with global Capitalism, many people look to the prophet of Communism (a communal form of society) for answers.

Marx developed an ever-maturing vision that lay beyond over-simplifications and popular stereotypes. While at the University of Berlin, he explored Hegelian philosophy, and later became foreign correspondent for the New York Daily. Georg Hegel, Bruno Bauer and Ludwig Feuerbach heavily influenced Marx, especially Feuerbach's comment that institutional religion was "the opiate of the masses." Marx's fusion of Continental salon philosophy and advocacy journalism led him, after completing a dissertation on Post-Aristotelian Hellenic Atomism (1841), to edit the Rheinische Zeitung newspaper (1841-3).

Marx resigned in 1843 and began his lengthy manuscripts, On the Jewish Question and Toward a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. In the second work, Marx critiqued Hegel’s Idealism and became increasingly drawn to Feuerbach's philosophy, which was anthropocentric. Unlike Hegel's abstract notion of a Spirit or Overmind that guided the trajectory of History (Dialectical Materialism), Feuerbach created a worldview from observable sociological conditions and historical human nature. This emphasis on humanity's physical conditions and existential problems, rather than an aesthetic or spiritual Ideal, was formative in Marx's development of Historical Materialism. When he married Jenny von Westphalen in 1843 and moved to Paris, then the center of European political life and intellectual debate, Marx's worldview underwent further transformations.

Marx began his long association with workers organizations and deepened his study of sociology and the political economy. He wrote the Paris Manuscripts, published posthumously as the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844). He began collaborating with Frederich Engels in 1844, but was forced to leave Paris in 1845 and relocate to Brussels (Belgium), where he began work on The German Ideology (1845-6). He then wrote The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), a critique of the anarchist philosopher Proudhon.

Marx's formal association with European Communists did not begin until 1847, when the Communist League (a London based German worker's organization) commissioned Marx to write their Communist Manifesto, which became Marx's most famous work. Its publication in 1848 sparked revolutionary social movements across Europe. Marx relocated to Cologne to begin publishing the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. His disenchantment with German revolutionary movements became apparent after a year, however, and Marx relocated to London, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Throughout the 1850s, Marx could be found at study almost daily at the British Museum: his readings were primarily in history and economics. Marx was financially supported by serving as foreign correspondent for The New York Daily Tribune, and by Engels, who was running his family's textile mill in Manchester. Marx began the three volumes of Capital, and by 1858, he had finished what would be published almost a century later as Grundrisse, his notebooks on Capital. A Contribution to Political Economy (1859) was self-published while Marx worked on Capital.

The First International (First International Working Men's Association) was formed in 1864, spearheading the growth and revitalization of labor organizations throughout Europe during the 1860s. Marx became one of the most influential intellectual proponents during the first eight years of the International's existence. Although he published his first volume of Capital and continued research, Marx would not live to complete these texts, which were organized and published posthumously by Engels. Due to internal tension, such as between Marx and Michael Bakunin, the First International fell apart by 1876.

Jenny died in 1881. Of their six children, only three survived Marx and his beloved wife. Marx died in 1883. He never did see the workers' revolution that he so fervently wrote about, yet, because of him, labor movements grew in complexity and sophistication. Only after his death did Marx become the messiah of Leninist and Maoist Communism. The Robber Barons and proponents of the Protestant Work Ethic demonized Marx’s communal model, which was mistakenly equated with Josef Stalin’s brutal kulak-ization pogroms and show-trials during the 1930s.