Marx philosophy of history position paper

Position paper #5 (Karl Marx)

The prophecy

While reading the idea of Marxism by Karl Marx, I was astonished about the coverage of his theory. Especially the idea that communism is the answer to the problem of history sounded very absurd to me. This is because in my own understanding, the problem of history can’t be just answered by one theory.

These are the three main problems of history according to Marx.

1. Man the producer
2. Division of Labor (Gender based)
3. The problem of Scarcity

The first issue untangles the idea of homo faber; man as a producer. In Latin, this means “workman.” In fact, man is the only being that makes constant changes in the environment and produce materials for better living.

“Humans are the only animals that manipulate and change their environment constantly. Refashion it to fit their evolving historical needs and desires. In other words man, homo faber is the only species that produces with cognitive forethought. And in fact that’s his key to cognition and consciousness.” (Kant, 2002)

The second issue basically states the division of labor among people. The great example is the primitive man. In primitive society, which was a patriarch, man was the hunter of the food while woman was the cooker of the food. When male went hunting for the food woman waited for her man while taking care of her children.

The third issue is the problem of scarcity. What if there isn’t enough food to eat for the people living in the community? Some people are rich enough to afford good foods to nourish themselves while others are starving to death. The problem of scarcity in my opinion actually leads us to the problem of class struggle.

I can’t deny the fact that there are class struggles happening all around the world. In fact I believe that it is happening in every nation while the size of the struggle differs. But doest that mean that the answer to this class struggle is to impose communism? I strongly disagree with this idea.

I would like to quote a sentence that I came upon while researching for communism.

“The collapse of communism in east central Europe and the Soviet Union marked the end of the Cold War.” (US Department of States, 1989)

The question that I truly want to ask is “why did communism in east central Europe collapse?” “How in the world is it possible for a communism to collapse when Marx said that the communism is the answer to the problem of history and scarcity?”

I believe that the one sentence that I’ve quoted is more than enough to say that communism is a dream. A prophecy that Marx made but it won’t happen as long as we have greed and selfishness inside us.


Marx, K. (2002) Das kapital (Vol. 1, 4th ed.). (Ehrbar, H.G., Trans.)
(Originally published in 1890).


U.S. department of state. (1989) Fall of communism. Retrieved (July 25, 2008)