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Marx: An Introduction to His Life, Ideas, and Legacy

Course
31 Lessons

Demystify Karl Marx. This course unpacks his core ideas on capitalism, alienation, and class struggle. Understand his powerful critique of the modern world and discover why his thought remains essential for debates on power and inequality today.

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Course Description

Welcome to the Course!

Section 1: The Man and His Times

Lecture 1.1: Who Was Karl Marx? A Biographical Sketch

Lecture 1.2: The World That Made Marx

Lecture 1.3: Intellectual Roots: Hegel and the Young Hegelians

Lecture 1.4: The Fateful Partnership: Friedrich Engels

Lecture 1.5: From Theory to Practice: The Activist

Section 2: The Philosophical Foundations

Lecture 2.1: The Concept of Alienation

Lecture 2.2: The Break with Philosophy: Theses on Feuerbach

Lecture 2.3: Human Nature and "Species-Being"

Lecture 2.4: Ideology and False Consciousness

Lecture 2.5: The Road to Historical Materialism

Section 3: The Materialist Conception of History

Lecture 3.1: Historical Materialism: The Core Idea

Lecture 3.2: Base and Superstructure

Lecture 3.3: The Engine of History: Class Struggle

Lecture 3.4: The Sequence of Historical Epochs (Modes of Production)

Lecture 3.5: Revolution and Social Transformation

Section 4: The Critique of Capital

Lecture 4.1: The Commodity: The DNA of Capitalism

Lecture 4.2: Commodity Fetishism

Lecture 4.3: The Labor Theory of Value and Surplus Value

Lecture 4.4: The Process of Exploitation

Lecture 4.5: The Contradictions and Crises of Capitalism

Section 5: Politics, Revolution, and the Future Society

Lecture 5.1: The Theory of the State

Lecture 5.2: The Proletariat as a Revolutionary Agent

Lecture 5.3: The Path of Revolution

Lecture 5.4: The Transition: Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Lecture 5.5: The Vision of Communism

Section 6: Legacy and Contemporary Relevance

Lecture 6.1: Marxism After Marx: A World of "-isms"

Lecture 6.2: The Great Critiques of Marx

Lecture 6.3: Marx in the Age of Globalization

Lecture 6.4: Reading Today's World Through Marx

Lecture 6.5: Conclusion: Why Read Marx Today?