Presents a critique of private property and the social relations it generates. This book argues that capitalism would create an ever-increasing division in wealth and welfare, predicting its abolition and replacement by a system with common ownership of the means of production.

The first volume of a political treatise that changed the world

One of the most notorious works of modern times, as well as one of the most influential, Capital is an incisive critique of private property and the social relations it generates. Living in exile in England, where this work was largely written, Marx drew on a wide-ranging knowledge of its society to support his analysis and create fresh insights. Arguing that capitalism would cause an ever-increasing division in wealth and welfare, he predicted its abolition and replacement by a system with common ownership of the means of production. Capital rapidly acquired readership among the leaders of social democratic parties, particularly in Russia in Germany, and ultimately throughout the world, to become a work described by Marx friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels as "the Bible of the working class."

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