Karl Marx (1818–83)

German philosopher, economist and political thinker, usually portrayed as the father of twentieth-century communism.After a brief career as a university teacher, Marx became increasingly involved in the socialist movement.Finally settling in London,he worked for the rest of his life as an active revolutionary and writer, supported by his friend and lifelong collaborator, Friedrich Engels (1820–95). At the centre of Marx’s work was a critique of capitalism that highlights its transitionary nature by drawing attention to systemic inequality and instability. Marx subscribed to a teleological theory of history that holds that social development would inevitably culminate in the establishment of communism. His classic work was the three-volume Capital ([1885, 1887, 1894] 1969); his best-known and most accessible work, with Engels, is the Communist Manifesto ([1848] 1967

   ‘Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation … All that is solid melts into air.’ K. MARX and F. ENGELS, The Communist Manifesto (1848)