Marx and the family.(Karl Marx saw the family as an obstruction to communist goals)

Canada and the World Backgrounder, March, 1997

Karl Marx was the revolutionary thinker whose ideas gave rise to communism. In common with many revolutionaries he saw the destruction of the family as the first step in the achievement of his goals. Why? Because the family is key to passing the social, cultural, and religious ideals of the established order on to the next generation.

Families tend to curb antisocial behaviour and block radical changes. Marx saw the family as the means by which the establishment defended what he called "outmoded" and "oppressive" ideas. Friedrich Engels was a friend and colleague of Karl Marx. He wrote about the oppression within families: "The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife, and modern society is a mass composed of...

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