ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part addresses the absence of the "middle class" from Karl Marx's analytical framework in Capital. It shows that the absence is for purposes of abstraction, enabling Marx to investigate the features of capitalist society in pure form, where there is no class intermediate between capital and labor. In contrast, when Marx examined actual social formations the class structure invariably was more complex and indeed the middle class was quite present. The Marx of the Manifesto and the philosophical manuscripts of the 1840s are not identical with the Marx of Capital or later works. The part concludes that Marx may have underestimated the long term political significance of the middle class, their absence from Capital did not mean that Marx was dismissive of their existence or importance.
