ABSTRACT
Karl Marx was trained as a philosopher. His early works are philosophical. Later, along with Friedrich Engels, his work took a practical turn and advocated the political/economic system of revolutionary communism. This adaptation of his philosophy to a practical account was, at its height, the most dominant ideology in the world. One of Marx's key concepts is historical materialism. Under this account social systems flourish or flounder according to their impact upon human productive power. Marx believed that history would progress through a series of stages that would end in communism. Marx was a revolutionary. Hegel created an idealistic theory of "spirit" in history that Marx turned upside down into a history dominated by materialism rather than spirit. Also, Marx changed Hegel's key notion of dialectic. Marx also had an interesting relationship with the writings of G. W. F. Hegel. Marx used different parts of Hegel's methodology but generally with a much different objective.
