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Joseph Gonzales
Philosophy 121
When people think of political and social philosophy their minds will often gravitate to certain
individuals. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels contributed to one of, if not, the most influential pieces of
political philosophy. While they examined class struggle from the perspective of the oppressed citizens,
another man by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. also emphasized a struggle on an oppressed people
on the basis of race. While each of these works prompted a look at the struggles that oppressed
individuals were facing, the works varied in many different areas.
I: Summary
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were Prussian philosophers that wrote the document “Manifesto
of the Communist Party.” Within this document they two outlined a class struggle between individuals
who were oppressed and those who were doing the oppressing. Marx and Engels explain that “society as a
