No tariffs. Ever. We ship locally from the US, Canada, the UK, or the EU + Free shipping over $80 / 70€ / £60 (equivalent in all other currencies).
The Philosopher's Shirt

Mad Marx - The Class Warrior

What a lovely day for the abolition of private property. Marx crosses the wasteland with nothing but a manifesto and extremely good hair.

Reads as a film poster first and a political statement half a second later. The whole range here, from apparel through to accessories, all printed to order. A Marxist gift for leftists. Oh, what a day. What a lovely day for class consciousness.

Questions about this design

What does the Mad Marx – The Class Warrior design show?
Karl Marx reimagined as a post-apocalyptic wasteland hero – beard, leather coat, flames and skulls behind him – under the title Mad Marx – The Class Warrior. The joke turns the 19th-century philosopher of class struggle into a road-worn action hero. It reads as a poster first and a piece of political philosophy half a second later.
What is class struggle according to Marx?
The conflict between social classes with opposed economic interests, above all between those who own the means of production and those who must sell their labour. The Communist Manifesto (1848) opens with it – the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. For Marx it is the engine of historical change.
What is the difference between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat?
In Marx's terms the bourgeoisie are the capitalists who own factories, land, machines and capital; the proletariat are wage workers who own nothing but their ability to work. Marx argued that capitalism simplifies society into these two great hostile camps and that their conflict would eventually transform it.
What does class consciousness mean?
A class's awareness of its shared position and interests. In The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) Marx describes workers who are already a class as against capital but not yet for itself – a contrast later summarised as class in itself versus class for itself. Georg Lukács developed the idea in History and Class Consciousness (1923).
What does abolition of private property mean in the Communist Manifesto?
The Manifesto says the theory of the Communists can be summed up in that single phrase, but it means bourgeois property in the means of production, not personal belongings. In its words, communism deprives no one of the power to appropriate the products of society, only of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation.
Did Marx call for violent revolution?
Partly. The Manifesto (1848) ends by declaring that communist aims can be reached only by the forcible overthrow of existing social conditions. Yet in a speech in Amsterdam in 1872 Marx said that in countries such as America and England workers might reach their goal by peaceful means. Scholars still debate how to weigh the two.
Who said Workers of the world, unite?
Marx and Engels, as the closing line of the Communist Manifesto (1848). The German original is Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch! The authorised 1888 English translation renders it Working men of all countries, unite!, and Workers of the world, unite! is the later popular version.
What is historical materialism?
Marx's theory that the way a society produces its material life – its technology and its relations of ownership and work – shapes its politics, law, religion and ideas, rather than the other way round. He sketched it most compactly in the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859).
Who is the Mad Marx design a good gift for?
For politics, sociology and economics students, union members, history buffs and anyone who likes their philosophy with a bit of action-poster swagger. It works as a funny Karl Marx gift without needing a speech. The design comes as a sweatshirt, premium hoodie, classic t-shirt, women's t-shirt, mug and sticker.