Karl Marx
AUTHOR

Karl Marx

Politics & Social Sciences | Money & Finance | Literature & Fiction
Tap the gear icon above to manage new release emails.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist, and revolutionary, whose ideas played a significant role in the development of modern communism. Marx summarized his approach in the first line of chapter one of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Marx argued that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, he believed socialism would, in its turn, replace capitalism, and lead to a stateless, classless society called pure communism. This would emerge after a transitional period called the "dictatorship of the proletariat": a period sometimes referred to as the "workers state" or "workers' democracy". In section one of The Communist Manifesto Marx describes feudalism, capitalism, and the role internal social contradictions play in the historical process: We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged...the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on before our own eyes.... The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring order into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.Marx argued for a systemic understanding of socio-economic change.
Read more Read less
Not an Audible member?
From £7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Start your free 30-day trial

Best Sellers

Product list
  • Capital: Volumes 1, 2, & 3 cover art

    Regular price: £159.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £159.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Capital cover art

    Regular price: £20.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £20.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • The Communist Manifesto cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • The Communist Manifesto cover art

    Regular price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Capital: All Volumes & The Communist Manifesto cover art

    Regular price: £159.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £159.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Capital: Volume 2 cover art

    Regular price: £44.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £44.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Capital: Volume 1 cover art

    Regular price: £42.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £42.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • The Communist Manifesto cover art

    Regular price: £7.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £7.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Das Kapital cover art

    Regular price: £10.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £10.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • A Collection of Marxist Writings cover art

    Regular price: £14.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £14.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • The Communist Manifesto (1888 Translated Edition) cover art

    Regular price: £6.49 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £6.49 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • 50+ Classic Collection. Political Science cover art

    Regular price: £16.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £16.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Collected Works of Marxism, Anarchism, Communism cover art

    Regular price: £9.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £9.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings cover art

    Regular price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • The Civil War in France cover art

    Regular price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • The Finance Collection: 6 Essential Books on Wealth and Economics cover art

    Regular price: £49.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £49.99 or 1 Credit

    Pre-order: Try for £0.00
  • El capital [Capital] cover art

    Regular price: £37.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £37.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • 15+ Political Science. Classics Collection cover art

    Regular price: £16.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £16.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Wage-Labor and Capital cover art

    Regular price: £8.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £8.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Karl Marx - The Communist Manifesto cover art

    Regular price: £6.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £6.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00

Are you an author?

Help us improve our Author Pages by updating your bibliography and submitting a new or current image and biography.
Visit Amazon Author Central