.

Marx viewed history as the product and process of human labor in material production. Human beings make and create themselves through labor; they create and reproduce themselves and the societies in which they live through their physical and mental labor. Marx believed that capitalism is a stage in human "pre-history," which, like slave and feudal societies, would be transcended. Marx believed that the new society created after the fall of capitalism would be democratic, egalitarian, non-sexist, non-racist, communal and free from exploitation.

MAJOR WORKS

• ECONOMIC AND PHILOSOPHIC MANUSCRIPTS OF 1844
• POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY
• CAPITAL (3 VOLUMES)
• GRUNDRISSE
• A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
• THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY

NOTABLE QUOTES

"The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world unite!"

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please... [t]he tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living."

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

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce."

"I am speaking of a ruthless criticism of everything existing, ruthless in two senses: The criticism must not be afraid of its own conclusions, nor of conflict with the powers that be.... Thus communism, to be specific, is a dogmatic abstraction. I do not have in mind here some imaginary, possible communism, but actually existing communism.... This communism is only a special manifestation of the humanistic principle which is still infected by its opposite -- private being."

"[O]ne thing is certain, that I am no Marxist."