Karl Heinrich Marx (1818 - 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist and revolutionary of the

19th Century, who wrote about money (economics) and power (politics). Marx thought that if a place that
works together runs on wage-labor, then there would always be class struggle. According to Marx, it is class
struggle (the evolving conflict between classes with opposing interests) that is the means of bringing about
changes in a society's mode of production, and that structures each historical period and drives historical
change. He believed that the Capitalist mode of production enables the bourgeoisie (or owners of capital) to
exploit the proletariat (or workers) , and that a socialist revolution must occur in order to establish a
"dictatorship of the proletariat" with the ulimate goal of public ownership of the means of production,
distribution, and exchange, and the self-emancipation of the working class.

Marx's most popular theory was his "Materialism". He believed that religion, morality, social structures and
other things are all rooted in economics. In his later life he was more tolerant of religion.

Marx thought that this class struggle would result in workers taking power. His ideas are called Marxism.

His most important work is Das Kapital, or The Capital. Das Kapital describes how "capitalism" works and
the problems this creates, such as division of labour and exploitation.

Politics to Marx, like religion, is a manifestation of economics and the material world. All of history and the
governance of humanity was a struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In the beginning,
people bartered and traded and lived in collective communities. Then, with farms came personal property.
With currency came capitalism and the exploitation of workers for the profit of the property owners.
Workers unjustly sold pieces of their lives (hours worked) for less than it was worth, creating surplus value
which equates to profits for owners.

This horrible injustice was the basis for Marxs revolutionary philosophy. He called for real, violent action
against owners and the political systems that supported them. He said things like:

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways: the point, however, is to change it.5

And:

Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their
chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!6

What would come after the revolution, according to Marx, is a government, society, and economy ruled
completely by the workers themselves. They would create an economic utopia where all labor was
exchanged for equal value, where no-one and everyone owned all property, and humanity would reach its
full potential as a single, cooperative unit.

It didnt really work out.

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