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The Philosopher's Shirt

Philo Fiction - Marx & Engels

Two bearded revolutionaries, one Tarantino poster. The Communist Manifesto always did have the pacing of a crime thriller.

Film buffs and Marxists both stop walking, usually for different reasons. Available across tees, women's tees, sweatshirts and hoodies, printed to order. A Marxist gift for leftists. A spectre is haunting Europe, and it has excellent taste in cinema.

Questions about this design

What does the Philo Fiction – Marx & Engels design show?
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as a high-contrast black-and-white stencil, standing shoulder to shoulder in dark suits and aiming pistols out of the frame like a pair of hardboiled partners. The joke casts the two authors of the Communist Manifesto as the most famous double act of the 19th century – which, intellectually, they were.
How did Marx and Engels meet?
Their first meeting, in 1842 at the offices of the Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne, was distinctly cool. The friendship began in August 1844, when they met again at the Café de la Régence in Paris and discovered how closely their views agreed. From then on they worked together for almost forty years, until Marx's death in 1883.
Who was Friedrich Engels?
Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) was a German philosopher, social scientist and the son of a textile manufacturer from Barmen. Working in his family's firm in Manchester, he studied industrial poverty first-hand and published The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1845. He co-wrote the Communist Manifesto and was Marx's closest collaborator.
Did Engels support Marx financially?
Yes. For about two decades Engels worked in the family cotton business in Manchester and sent the Marx family in London regular sums of money, which made the work on Capital possible. After he left the firm in 1869, he settled a regular annual allowance on Marx. It is one of the most consequential friendships in intellectual history.
What is the Communist Manifesto about?
Written by Marx and Engels for the Communist League and published in London in February 1848, it opens with „A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism.“ It argues that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, describes how capitalism revolutionises production, and ends with the call „Workers of all countries, unite.“
Who wrote volumes two and three of Capital?
Marx published only the first volume of Capital, in 1867. He left the rest as extensive, unfinished manuscripts. After his death Engels spent years deciphering and editing them, and published volume two in 1885 and volume three in 1894, a year before his own death.
What is historical materialism?
The theory of history developed by Marx and Engels. It holds that the way a society produces its material life – its forces and relations of production – shapes its politics, law, religion and ideas, not the other way round. Marx summarised it in the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859). Engels later popularised the term.
Is Philo Fiction – Marx & Engels a good gift for history and politics students?
Yes – for students of history, politics, sociology and philosophy, film-loving leftists and anyone with a soft spot for great collaborations. The design is available as a T-shirt, women's T-shirt, sweatshirt, premium hoodie, mug and sticker.