Continental · 1820–1895
Friedrich Engels
Manufacturer’s son who co-founded Marxism with Marx
Engels documented industrial poverty first-hand, financed and edited Marx’s work, and popularised Marxism as a scientific worldview, extending the dialectic to nature and to the origins of the family.
Life and thought
Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) was the eldest son of a cotton-mill owner in Barmen, Prussia. Sent in 1842 to the family firm’s mill near Manchester, he saw the industrial slums at first hand and wrote The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). He began his lifelong partnership with Marx in Paris in 1844, co-wrote The Communist Manifesto, and from 1850 worked in the Manchester business for two decades, partly to support Marx.
Engels was more than Marx’s patron. After Marx died he edited the second and third volumes of Capital from the manuscripts, and in Anti-Dühring and other works he presented Marxism as a scientific worldview, extending the dialectic from society to nature. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State argued that women’s subordination arose with private property and the patriarchal family, a thesis feminists later debated. Much of what the twentieth century called “Marxism” reached it through his popularisations.
Works
Shaped by
1818–1883Karl MarxAfter Marx’s death Engels edited volumes II and III of Capital.1770–1831Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelGerman philosopher of spirit, history and dialecticShaped
1818–1883Karl MarxLifelong collaborators; Engels’s study of Manchester workers shaped Marx’s picture of industrial capitalism.Meanwhile, in other traditions
1788–1860Arthur SchopenhauerGerman pessimist who saw a blind will behind all things1806–1873John Stuart MillEnglish philosopher of liberty, utility and women’s equality1839–1914Charles Sanders PeirceLogician and scientist who founded pragmatism and semiotics1842–1910William JamesPsychologist and philosopher who made pragmatism famous1848–1925Gottlob FregeJena mathematician who invented modern logic1859–1952John DeweyPhilosopher of education and democracy; lectured in China 1919–21On the record
Engels is described as a manufacturer’s son.
His father, Friedrich Engels Sr., was a prosperous cotton-mill owner in Barmen who co-founded the firm Ermen & Engels in 1837, later with a thread factory in Manchester. Engels worked for the firm in Manchester from 1842 and again from 1850, became a partner in 1864 and retired in 1869.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Friedrich Engels”