SELECTED WRITINGS

In 1848 a wave of revolutions broke over Europe. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the Communist Manifesto, urged the workers of all countries to unite. But the movement collapsed, and Marx became an exile in London, where he spent the next twenty years developing his great critique of the capitalist system. His monumental Capital was constructed as a scientific study of the political economy, but its driving force was Marx’s sense of the burning injustices imposed on the working classes by the Industrial Revolution, and their alienation from the society that their labour made possible. Today, with the rich western countries relying increasingly on low-wage production in the Third World and the instability of the capitalist banking system, many features of Marx’s analysis remain disturbingly relevant.