*In April 2841 Marx received a doctorate on the differences between the "Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature."
*However the increasing conflict between the Prussian state and young Hegelians put paid to any hopes that he might have had of an academic career.
*Marx returned to Trier and turned instead to journalism where he began writing for Rheinische Zeitung in April 1842. It had been set up by Rhineland industrialists but had fallen under the control of Young Hegelians.
*A turning point in terms of Marx's politics came when he had to report on debates in the local Rhenish estates (parliament) on the tightening of the wood theft law. Marx baulked at the criminalisation of impoverished Rhenish peasants.
*Marx was now adamant that the state was NOT above classes. He made this clear in his CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT, written in 1843 whilst he was on honeymoon.
*By now Marx, who'd resigned from Rheinische Zeitung, just before the censors finally shut it down, was now very much under the wing of the most radical of the Young Hegelians, Ludwig Feuerbach.