Karl Marx was voted the greatest thinker of the millennium in a BBC News Online poll. This poll, part of their “Your Millennium” series, took place in 1999. While other influential thinkers were nominated, Marx secured the top spot.
Here’s why Marx was chosen:
• Influence on Political and Economic Thought:
Marx’s writings are foundational to understanding capitalism, socialism, and communism.
• • Analysis of Capitalism:
His critique of capitalism continues to be relevant in analyzing economic systems.
• • Theory of Historical Materialism:
This theory, which explains social change through economic structures, is a core part of Marxist thought.
• • Revolutionary Socialist:
Marx’s ideas have inspired numerous social and political movements worldwide.
• • Impact on Global Thought:
His work has shaped intellectual discourse for over a century.
Revolutionary writer Karl Marx has topped a BBC News Online poll to find the greatest thinker of the millennium.
The nineteenth century writer won September’s vote with a clear margin, pushing Albert Einstein, who had led for most of the month, into second place.
The top 10 included philosophers Immanuel Kant and Rene Descartes as well as twentieth century scientist Stephen Hawking.
The vote was the ninth of BBC News Online’s monthly Your Millennium series. In October you can vote for the greatest explorer of the last thousand years.
To inspire you, two record-breaking British explorers, Brian Jones and David Hempleman-Adams, have contributed their personal top-10 lists.
Karl Marx is probably the most influential socialist thinker to emerge in the nineteenth century and one of the founders of communism.
Although dictatorships throughout the twentieth century have distorted his original ideas, his work as a philosopher, social scientist, historian and a revolutionary is respected by academics today.
Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) was born into a middle-class family in Germany, but he became a revolutionary in Paris, Brussels and London.
He met the like-minded Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) in France. Together they wrote The Communist Manifesto, which outlined the theory of the class struggle. Marx was exiled from Paris and Brussels for his revolutionary activities and settled in London where he lived until his death.
Amongst Marx’s other influential works are the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, which remained unpublished until the 1930s, and the monumental work Das Kapital.
BBC News Online readers from across the world took part in the millennium poll.
Dag Thoresen from Norway, said: “Karl Marx has inspired thousands of liberation struggles. He was the father of modern political thinking.”
And Jyotsna Kapur from the USA said: “Marx analysed best the working of capitalism. Given that that is the system that characterises the world at the end of the twentieth century his work is as relevant to understanding the world we live in as it was for understanding the nineteenth century.”
Click here to see the full results of September’s vote.
Here’s why Marx was chosen:
• Influence on Political and Economic Thought:
Marx’s writings are foundational to understanding capitalism, socialism, and communism.
• • Analysis of Capitalism:
His critique of capitalism continues to be relevant in analyzing economic systems.
• • Theory of Historical Materialism:
This theory, which explains social change through economic structures, is a core part of Marxist thought.
• • Revolutionary Socialist:
Marx’s ideas have inspired numerous social and political movements worldwide.
• • Impact on Global Thought:
His work has shaped intellectual discourse for over a century.
Revolutionary writer Karl Marx has topped a BBC News Online poll to find the greatest thinker of the millennium.
The nineteenth century writer won September’s vote with a clear margin, pushing Albert Einstein, who had led for most of the month, into second place.
The top 10 included philosophers Immanuel Kant and Rene Descartes as well as twentieth century scientist Stephen Hawking.
The vote was the ninth of BBC News Online’s monthly Your Millennium series. In October you can vote for the greatest explorer of the last thousand years.
To inspire you, two record-breaking British explorers, Brian Jones and David Hempleman-Adams, have contributed their personal top-10 lists.
Karl Marx is probably the most influential socialist thinker to emerge in the nineteenth century and one of the founders of communism.
Although dictatorships throughout the twentieth century have distorted his original ideas, his work as a philosopher, social scientist, historian and a revolutionary is respected by academics today.
Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) was born into a middle-class family in Germany, but he became a revolutionary in Paris, Brussels and London.
He met the like-minded Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) in France. Together they wrote The Communist Manifesto, which outlined the theory of the class struggle. Marx was exiled from Paris and Brussels for his revolutionary activities and settled in London where he lived until his death.
Amongst Marx’s other influential works are the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, which remained unpublished until the 1930s, and the monumental work Das Kapital.
BBC News Online readers from across the world took part in the millennium poll.
Dag Thoresen from Norway, said: “Karl Marx has inspired thousands of liberation struggles. He was the father of modern political thinking.”
And Jyotsna Kapur from the USA said: “Marx analysed best the working of capitalism. Given that that is the system that characterises the world at the end of the twentieth century his work is as relevant to understanding the world we live in as it was for understanding the nineteenth century.”
Click here to see the full results of September’s vote.