Karl Marx 2

From Geography

Latest revision as of 16:15, 9 October 2011

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher who was born in Trier in 1818. Besides a philosopher, Marx was also a historian, political economist, sociologist and communist revolutonary. Much of the characteristics of what we know today as communism and socialism, are based on the ideas of Marx. The main theme in Marx's works is the challenging of capitalism. According to Marx, capitalism would, just like previous socioeconomic systems as for example feudalism, necessarily produce internal tensions which would lead to its own destruction. Marx believed that after this selfdestruction, capitalism would be replaced by socialism, just like feudalism was once replaced by capitalism. After this, a transitional period would take place which Marx called 'the dictatorship of the proletariat', sometimes also referred to as 'workers democracy' or 'workers state'. According to Marx this transition would finally lead to a classless and stateless society, which Marx called 'pure communism'.

Contributions to Human Geography: Marxist Geography

As Marx's theories were applicable on much of different scientific disciplines, they were also implemented in human geography. Marxist Geography came, at least partly, into being in critical response to the Spatial Analysis that had dominated the discipline during the sixties. Marxist geography has been committed to apply the classical Marxist thoughts to Human Geography, in order to redefine classical geographical concepts as space and place. Furthermore, Marxist Geography also focused on issues like geographically uneven development, territorial struggle, colonialism, and many others (Cox, 2005). Marxist Geography tries to seek deeper insights into how different social formations create social as well as material landscapes in their own context. It gives a clear view of how capitalism changes and creates nature as a new productive force which causes irreversible and damaging processes of ecological change. It tries to find out why people in one place are exploited by those in another in a social formation dominated by capital and labor. In Marxist geography the traditional geographical relations, like natural environment and spatial relations, are reviewed as the results of the mode of material production. To understand these relations, Marx argued that it's important to first examine the social structure in which these relations emerge. One of the key points of Marxist geography is to change this basic social structure(Dictionary of Marxist Thought, 1983). In line with this, Marxist geography radically criticised the positivist spatial science and it's methodologies, which, according to Marx, failed to account the underlying mechanisms of capitalism and exploitation that form the basics for human spatial arrangements.

Published by Marijn Termorshuizen & Gert Gerritsen.