ABSTRACT
The world "socialism" is relatively new, first used in England in the 1820s. The word "communism" first appeared in France in the 1830s, when it referred to secret, underground societies. The pivotal figure in the evolution of socialism is Karl Marx. But socialism does not begin and end with Marx. There is socialism before Marx and there is socialism after Marx. The operative difference between socialism and capitalism in this regard is that socialism has an organic view of the community in which the whole is greater than the sum of the individual members. By contrast, capitalism has a mechanistic view of the society in which the whole is merely a summation of the individual parts. German universities at this time were hotbeds of intellectual and political activity, in which Marx had become totally immersed.
