ABSTRACT
Karl Marx is the most important intellectual figure of recent times. He is also the most controversial, although nearly always for the wrong reasons. A German philosopher, journalist, critic, and revolutionary, he arrived at stunning, innovative conclusions about class, capital, communism, revolution, ideology, economy, ecology, nature, idealism, materialism, humanism, and the state. Marx’s ability to make powerful connections between different aspects of life led to his investigation of capitalism. For Marx, capitalism is above all else a system of exploitation, prone to instability, and crisis. Marx’s most important work is Capital. It took eighteen years to write, went largely ignored when it was published, and Marx only finished the first volume before his death. Capital set out the laws of the motion of capitalism, revealing how and why it works. Capital is like a modernist novel, with hundreds of characters, open-ended symbols, and the juxtaposition of different voices and quotations.
