Karl Heinrich Marx, a German philosopher and political economist, was one of the founders of the communist ideology. In his works, he denounced the shortcomings of capitalist in which the revolution which would lead to the establishment of the collective ownership of the means of production was inevitable. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the founders of the Communist League, the first international organization created in 1847 that promoted the ideas of communism. The two thinkers drafted the program of the League also known as the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” aka “The Communist Manifesto.” In this document, they put forward their views on the nature of capitalism that further became the cornerstone of Marxism. According to the …show more content…
This work contains the rudiments of some theories and ideas that were developed in his later publications. In one of these lectures, Marx presented his approach to the definition of capital, which is essential for the analysis of his further works. According to this definition, “capital is a social relation of production.” In the bourgeois society, these relations are influenced by new means of production that are concentrated in the hands of capitalists. At the same time, these are laborers who produce value, getting in return remuneration in form of wages needed to satisfy their basic needs. The author emphasizes the interdependence between labor and capital. To put it simply, capital cannot be multiplied without working class, while the latter needs the constant expansion of capital in order to assure a “tolerable life.” Nevertheless, the pleasures and luxury that derive from the expansion of capital are accessible mainly to the capitalists. This idea lies in the foundation of the theory of surplus value that had not been formulated by Karl Marx by this time. In this work he also addresses the issue of nominal and real wages in order to illustrate the increase of misery. He points out that it is important to keep in mind that this two indicators do not coincide since the real wage is defined as “the amount of commodities which are actually given in exchange for the wages,” while the nominal wage only represents the amount of money received by the workers. At the same time, Marx considers that the most relevant indicator is relative wage, i.e. the relation of wages of a worker to the share of capital he