Marx, Karl

(May 5, 1818 - March 14, 1883): Karl Marx was a Prussian-German economist and philosopher, whose ideas and teachings played an important role in the development of socialism. Marx’s political, economic and social theories are derived from the belief that society experiences distinct class struggles between an elite ownership which controls production and a proletariat class which provides the labour for production, a system seen as inherently unfair and flawed. He fought for the introduction of a classless, stateless society called communism and along with Fredrick Engels wrote seminal communist works including The Communist Manifesto.