by Hannah Curtis

Created on: July 20, 2008

Karl Marx left an important legacy behind him in his theory of Marxism and has been extremely influential over the years. This article will explore his theory of religion; that religion is the opium of the people.

The idea that religion is the opium of the people is a key aspect of Karl Marx's critique of religion found in the introduction of his book "Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right". Marx is essentially a sociologist; he was interested in social theory, how society is managed. He believed that all the institutions in society, including religion, revolve around the workings and production of society. His critique was greatly influenced by three other major German philosophers, G.W.F. Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach and Immanuel Kant.

Feuerbach believed that religion is not based around a theistic God; it is merely a form of self awareness. We create this perfect transcendent Being and he becomes the root of all goodness instead of mankind. Marx was also an atheist, and reflects Feuerbach's beliefs in his theory of religion being an opium. Marx developed Feuerbach's theory further; he examined the existence and connection of religion within the context of the whole of society, including the labour, class and economic sectors.

He studied the social economic structure of society, and concluded that there within that structure lay the reason why there is a need for religion in the first place. Marx believed that once the cause had been dissolved, then the effect, namely religion would also disappear. In order to understand fully the reason why Marx describes religion as the opium of the people, it is necessary to describe his model of the structure of society. For Marx, the base of society is the economic structure which consists of the productive forces and the relations of production (the dialectic). When these two are in a steady relationship then the status quo remains constant, however when they are in conflict with one another, social change occurs. The superstructure (the political structure of society) is supported by the base and is controlled by the owners of productions; and it involves society's ideologies and institutions, which includes religion.

Marx soon concluded that the class system too, being so interconnected with the economic structure of society, was responsible for the existence, and society's need for religion. He saw that the system forces the working class to be kept inflexibly in their place, subjected to the bourgeois,

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