Karl Marx

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a philosopher and revolutionary writer whose work joined history, political thought, and the critique of political economy. He examined labor, class relations, ideology, the state, and the organization of capitalist production as connected historical problems. Written with Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto condenses an argument about class struggle and political transformation into a programmatic form. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy develops a far more detailed analysis of commodities, value, wages, and accumulation. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte shows Marx testing political concepts against a specific historical crisis, while A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy marks another route into his economic method. Reading Marx means following not only his conclusions but also the way he makes hidden social relations available for criticism.