🧠 Major Works of Karl Marx

📘 Early Writings

  • Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
    • Alienation of labor
    • Critique of private property
    • Human essence as productive activity
  • The German Ideology (1845–46)(with Engels)
    • Historical materialism: “life determines consciousness”
    • Critique of idealism (esp. Hegel)

📗 Political Writings

  • The Communist Manifesto (1848)(with Engels)
    • History as class struggle
    • Bourgeoisie vs. proletariat
    • Call for proletarian revolution
  • The Class Struggles in France (1850)
    • Analysis of 1848 revolutions
    • Development of class dynamics
  • The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)
    • Dialectical analysis of politics and class interests
    • Concept of political “farce” repeating history

📙 Economic Writings

  • A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)
    • Base and superstructure theory
    • Early formulation of surplus value
  • Capital (Das Kapital), Volumes I–III (1867–1894)
    • Volume I: Production of capital
    • Volume II: Circulation of capital
    • Volume III: Overall dynamics, profit rate, crises
  • Theories of Surplus Value (1862–63)
    • History of economic thought
    • Critique of classical economists (Smith, Ricardo, etc.)

🔢 Major Equations and Economic Concepts

1. Labor Theory of Value

  • Value of a Commodity:
    V=c+v+sV = c + v + s
    where:
    • cc = constant capital (means of production)
    • vv = variable capital (wages)
    • ss = surplus value
  • Surplus Value:
    s=m−vs = m – v
    where mm is the value produced by labor

2. Rate of Surplus Value (Exploitation Rate)

  • s′=svs’ = \frac{s}{v}

3. Rate of Profit

  • r=sc+vr = \frac{s}{c + v}

4. Organic Composition of Capital

  • OCC=cvOCC = \frac{c}{v}

5. Falling Rate of Profit (Tendency of the rate of profit to fall)

  • As cv\frac{c}{v} increases, rr tends to fall, assuming s′s’ is constant.

6. Simple and Expanded Reproduction

  • Capitalist accumulation through reinvestment of surplus value
  • Reproduction schemas:
    • Simple reproduction: ss consumed
    • Expanded reproduction: ss reinvested

🧩 Core Concepts Without Equations

  • Commodity fetishism
  • Alienated labor
  • Historical materialism
  • Class struggle
  • Base and superstructure
  • Capital accumulation
  • Crisis theory