karl marx 1818 1883 was a philosopher author social theorist and economist he is famous for his theories about capitalism socialism and communism 
marx in conjunction with friedrich engels published the communist manifesto in 1848 later in life he wrote das kapital which discussed the labor theory of value the first volume was published in berlin in 1867 the second and third volumes were published posthumously in 1885 and 1894 respectively investopedia joshua seongearly life and educationborn in trier prussia now germany on may 5 1818 marx was the son of a successful jewish lawyer who converted to lutheranism before marx s birth marx studied law in bonn and berlin where he was introduced to the philosophy of g w f hegel he became involved in radicalism at a young age through the young hegelians a group of students who criticized the political and religious establishments of the day marx received his doctorate from the university of jena in 1841 his radical beliefs prevented him from securing a teaching position so instead he took a job as a journalist and later became the editor of rheinische zeitung a liberal newspaper in cologne after living in prussia marx lived in france for some time and that is where he met his lifelong friend friedrich engels he was expelled from france and then lived briefly in belgium before moving to london where he spent the rest of his life with his wife marx died of bronchitis and pleurisy in london on march 14 1883 and was buried at highgate cemetery in london his original grave was nondescript but in 1954 the communist party of great britain unveiled a large tombstone including a bust of marx and the inscription workers of all lands unite an anglicized interpretation of the famous phrase in the communist manifesto proletarians of all countries unite marx s theoriesmarx was inspired by classical political economists such as adam smith and david ricardo while his own branch of economics marxian economics is not favored among modern mainstream thought marx s ideas have greatly impacted societies most prominently in communist projects such as those in the ussr china and cuba among modern thinkers marx is still very influential in the fields of sociology political economy and strands of heterodox economics in general marx claimed there are two major flaws inherent in capitalism that lead to the exploitation of workers by employers the chaotic nature of free market competition and the extraction of surplus labor ultimately marx predicted that capitalism would eventually destroy itself as more people become relegated to working class status inequality rose and competition would lead the rate of corporate profits to zero this would lead he surmised to a revolution where production would be turned over to the working class as a whole marx s work on understanding capitalism as a social and economic system remains a valid critique in the modern era in das kapital capital in english marx argues that society is composed of two main classes capitalists are the business owners who organize the process of production and who own the means of production such as factories tools and raw materials and who are also entitled to any and all profits the other much larger class is composed of labor which marx termed the proletariat laborers do not own or have any claim to the means of production the finished products they work on or any of the profits generated from sales of those products instead labor works only in return for a monetary wage marx argued that because of this uneven arrangement capitalists exploit workers this exploitation is the reason according to marx that employers can generate profits they extract a full day s worth of effort and production from workers but only pay them a smaller fraction of this value as wages marx termed this surplus value and argued that it was nefarious like the other classical economists karl marx believed in a labor theory of value ltv to explain relative differences in market prices this theory stated that the value of a produced economic good can be measured objectively by the average number of labor hours required to produce it in other words if a table takes twice as long to make as a chair then the table should be considered twice as valuable marx understood the labor theory better than his predecessors even adam smith and contemporaries and presented a devastating intellectual challenge to laissez faire economists in das kapital if goods and services tend to be sold at their true objective labor values as measured in labor hours how do any capitalists enjoy profits it must mean marx concluded that capitalists were underpaying or overworking thereby exploiting laborers to drive down the cost of production 1while marx s answer was eventually proved incorrect and later economists adopted the subjective theory of value his simple assertion was enough to show the weakness of the labor theory s logic and assumptions marx unintentionally helped fuel a revolution in economic thinking another important theory developed by marx is known as historical materialism this theory posits that society at any given point in time is ordered by the type of technology used in production under industrial capitalism society is so ordered with capitalists organizing labor in factories or offices where they work for wages prior to capitalism marx suggested that feudalism existed as a specific set of social relations between lord and peasant classes related to the hand powered or animal powered means of production prevalent at the time marx s written worksduring his lifetime karl marx wrote and published no less than fifteen complete multi volume books along with numerous pamphlets articles and essays he could often be found writing in the reading rooms at london s british museum 2perhaps his most famous work the communist manifesto summarizes marx and engels s theories about the nature of society and politics and is an attempt to explain the goals of marxism and later socialism when writing the communist manifesto marx and engels explained how they thought capitalism was unsustainable and how the capitalist society that existed at the time of the writing would eventually be replaced by a socialist one das kapital was a full and comprehensive three volume critique of capitalism by far the more academic work it lays forth marx s theories on commodities production labor markets the social division of labor and a basic understanding of the rate of return to owners of capital marx died before the third volume was finished which was published posthumously by engels based largely on marx s notes today many of the ideas and critiques of capitalism remain relevant such as the emergence of monopolistic mega corporations persistent unemployment and the general struggle between workers and employers the exact origins of the term capitalism in english are unclear and certainly marx was not the first to use the word capitalism in english however he contributed to the rise of its use and interest in the concept 1according to the oxford english dictionary the english word was first used in 1854 in the novel the newcomes by author william thackeray who intended it to mean a sense of concern about personal possessions and money in general while it s unclear whether either thackeray or marx was aware of the other s work both men meant the word to have a pejorative ring adam smith also famously wrote about the capitalist economic system in his 1776 masterpiece the wealth of nations and marx was well aware of smith s writings contemporary influencemarx s work laid the foundations for future communist leaders such as vladimir lenin and josef stalin operating from the premise that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction his ideas formed the basis of marxism and served as a theoretical base for communism nearly everything marx wrote was viewed through the lens of the common laborer from marx comes the idea that capitalist profits are possible because the value is stolen from the workers and transferred to employers marxist ideas in their pure form have very few direct adherents in contemporary times indeed very few western thinkers embraced marxism after 1898 when economist eugen von b hm bawerk s karl marx and the close of his system was first translated into english in his damning rebuke b hm bawerk showed that marx failed to incorporate capital markets or subjective values in his analysis nullifying most of his more pronounced conclusions still there are some lessons that even modern economic thinkers can learn from marx though he was the capitalist system s harshest critic marx understood that it was far more productive than previous or alternative economic systems in das kapital he wrote of capitalist production that combined together of various processes into a social whole which included developing new technologies 3he believed all countries should become capitalist and develop that productive capacity and then workers would naturally revolt leading to communism whereby the workers would become the dominant social class and collectively control the means of production but like adam smith and david ricardo before him marx predicted that because of capitalism s relentless pursuit of profit by way of competition and technological progress to lower the costs of production that the rate of profit in an economy would always be falling over time dr james bradford brad delong professor of economics at uc berkeley wrote in 2011 that marx s primary contribution to economic science actually came in a 10 paragraph stretch of the communist manifesto in which he describes how economic growth causes shifts among social classes often leading to a struggle for political power this underlies an often unappreciated aspect of economics the emotions and political activity of the actors involved a corollary of this argument was later made by french economist thomas piketty who proposed that while nothing was wrong with income inequality economically it could create blowback against capitalism among the people thus there is a moral and anthropological consideration of any economic system the idea that societal structure and transformations from one order to the next can be the result of technological change in how things are produced in an economy is known as historical materialism 