Karl Marx is the founding father and revolutionary of communism and Marxism, while Niccolò Machiavelli expounded the concept of realism through his work The Prince. These two concepts have been the foundations that various countries and governments have tried to use in hopes of building a utopian society. Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Trier, Germany, studying history, philosophy and law at the universities of Berlin, Jena and Bonn. Karl Marx didn't like the productive part of capitalism; he found it a sign of great difficulty. Marx believed that the production phase of capitalism worked in such a way that the wealthy owners of these companies benefited while the poor workers did not. So the rich will become richer and richer and the poor poorer. (Marx 1994, p119-142) Marx believed that the need to satisfy the desires of individuals in society leads to production, that practical activity in a practical world leads to the desire to satisfy the needs of people in society. This economic philosophy is linked to Marxism; the concept that any given political development was the result of class conflict, in which the exploiting class included the rich and powerful who would eventually come into conflict with the exploited, creating revolutionary change. From this revolutionary change would appear a new set of exploiters and exploited, where the cycle would continue again and again until there were no more classes but everyone was equal, creating a utopian communism where everyone enjoys the results of their hard work equally. (Taylor 2011, pg 104) Karl Marx believed that the driving factor that would allow Marxism to work was that each individual played a vital role in supporting society. If a piece is missing, then all pro... middle of paper... we have human flaws that lead to the corruption that power brings with it. I believe there is no such thing as a perfect government; only one whose benefits outweigh the costs. References Cropsey, Joseph and Strauss, 1987. History of Political Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Hausman, Daniel. 2007. The philosophy of economics. Cambridge University Press."Karl Marx", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/marx/. (accessed 3 March 2014).Marx, Karl, “Ideology and Method in Political Economy”, in The Philosophy of Economics, 2nd ed., ed. Daniel M. Hausman (New York: Cambridge UP, 1994), 119-142. Political realism. International encyclopedia of philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/polreal/ (accessed March 3, 2014). Taylor, Steven. 30 second policy. New York: Subway Books, 2011