In What Ways Was Marx a Product of the 19th Century

In what ways was Marx a product of the 19th Century, and in what ways was he a rebel against it?

Karl Marx was a product of the 19th Century by virtue of birth, into a family that by all means had and was living comfortably during this period. His father was, at the time of Marx'’ birth, a counselor-at-law to the High Court of Appeal in Trier; he also practiced in the Trier County Court, and for many years was President of the city lawyers association and occupied a respected position in civic society. The Marx family had enough money to live fairly comfortably. The family had two maids, owned a vineyard in the city and his father was a self-made man.

The Marx family at this time signified the bourgeoisie who according to Marxist theory, was a member of the property-owning class or simply a capitalist.

Had it not been for his father’s position, as a lawyer, I don’t think it would have been possible for Karl to attend university. Had it not been for university studies, I don’t believe Karl would have been exposed to different views, which could make a person totally reject the way a person has been raised and taught.

This “enlightenment and expansion of the mind” made Karl Marx become a rebel to the bourgeoisie and what they stood for, according to him, in the 19th century. This rejection is highlighted in Marx and Engles Announce That “A Specter Is Haunting Europe, “1847. Marx states “In a word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation”. He blames this “exploitation” directly on the bourgeoisie. He blames them for converting “the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, and the man of science into its paid wage-laborers”. He blames them for reducing “the family relation to a mere money relation” and for developing a cycle that the proletariat-“the modern working