What kind of society did Karl Marx grow up in to make him have this kind of ideology?

Question

What kind of society did Karl Marx grow up in to make him have this kind of ideology?

Answer 1

In a society that needed change.

Answer 2

He grew up in a period when there was a gigantic population of farmers and factory workers whose lives were miserable.  They worked long hours in dangerous conditions.  Children were forced to work, too.  Education was mostly denied to them, except in the churches where the idea of acquiescence to suffering in this life and hoping for paradise after death was preached.  

At the same time, there was a middle class of shopkeepers, craftsmen, clergy and civil servants.  Marx was born into this sort of home and was given a pretty rigorous education.  There was a ferment at this time of utopian thinking, as many philosophers in Europe wrote in specific terms about how best to improve the lot of the suffering many.  

Already there had been the failure of the French Revolution, which had aspired to a more just economic arrangement which did not entail such misery for the laboring multitudes.  But philosophers and statesmen continued to write about and think about how to create a more economically just society.  

Marx's work was to delve into the exact numbers and describe the structure of capitalism as it existed in his day.  He believed that because the laboring masses had superior numbers and were capable of understanding (with his help) their true place of disadvantage in the capitalist system that eventually they would overthrow it.

Answer 3

Marx was born in 1818 to a Jewish family living in Prussia. He died in 1883. Marx lived through one of the most transformational periods in human history, the industrial revolution. The transition from agriculture to industry meant that thousands of people who lived in the country moved to the city to work. This resulted in over crowding, and the over crowded living conditions led to crime, poverty, starvation, disease, and much human suffering. The factories were dangerous and many people were mangled and left unable to work. There was no support system to assist people who needed help. Europe during the industrial revolution had no state supported social services, no compulsory education, no help for the disabled, no help for the sick or old, and no regulation of housing, industry, and child labor. There was the wealthy, a very small middle class and an ever increasing class of poor. This situation was worse in England but happened all over Europe during the 19th century. America's industrial revolution produced similar results but to a lesser degree than the European pesantry experienced.

This is a snapshot of the world Marx experienced. It was this gulf between rich and poor that concerned Marx and influenced his political and economic philosophy.

In terms of education, Marx earned a doctorate in 1841. He lived in Prussia, Germany, France, Belgium, and England.

Marx was also influenced philosophically by such thinkers as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel;  Adam Smith and David Ricardo; Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier; Ludwig Feuerbach and Friedrich Engels.