His best-known works are the pamphlet The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels and his three-volume Das Kapital — ; the latter employs his critical approach of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism , in the culmination of his intellectual endeavours.
Marx's ideas and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism , have had enormous influence on modern intellectual, economic and political history.
Born in Trier in the Kingdom of Prussia , Marx studied at the universities of Bonn , Berlin , and Jena , and received a doctorate in philosophy from the latter in A Young Hegelian , he was influenced by the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , and both critiqued and developed Hegel's ideas in works such as The German Ideology written and the Grundrisse written — While in Paris in , Marx wrote his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts and met Engels, who became his closest friend and collaborator.
After moving to Brussels in , they were active in the Communist League , and in they wrote The Communist Manifesto , which expresses Marx's ideas and lays out a programme for revolution. From , Marx was involved in the International Workingmen's Association First International , in which he fought the influence of anarchists led by Mikhail Bakunin.
In his Critique of the Gotha Programme , Marx wrote on revolution, the state and the transition to communism. He died stateless in and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. Marx's critiques of history, society and political economy hold that human societies develop through class conflict.
