1867: Das Kapital

"Painting to Hammer a Nail" (1966) by Yoko Ono

In 1863, the editors of the New York Herald Tribune reverse their position that slavery must be outlawed in the American South.

Their 45-year-old German-born correspondent in London strongly opposes this change and is forced to withdraw.

Four years later, he finishes volume one of his lifework: an analysis of why it is so often the case that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.

In 1867, Karl Marx publishes Volume One of Das Kapital.

As Marx sees it, the rich get richer either by stealing from someone else or by paying their workers less than they deserve for the value of their work.

Marx insists that the world is changed not by ideas, but by actual, physical activity and practice.

He urges workers of the world to abandon national and ethnic hatreds because they have more in common with each other than they do with the wealthy men they work for.

Marx believes governments should encourage citizens to cooperate with, not compete with, each other.

Capital is dead labor that, like a vampire, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
-Chapter Ten of Das Kapital

From each according to ability, to each according to need.
-Critique of the Gotha Program (1875)