Historical Background To "Animal Farm" Karl Marx was a German scholar who lived in the nineteenth century. He sp most of his life studying, thinking and writing about history and economics. A many years of study, much of it spent in England, he believed that he understo more deeply than anyone who had ever lived before him why there is injustice i world. He said that all injustice and inequality is a result of one underlying conflict in society. He called it a 'class struggle', that is, a conflict bet the class of people who can afford to own money- producing business