Although time has inevitably outdated some of the ideas and concepts of Karl Marx; the ideals expressed in Marxism still remain relevant. Karl Marx concentrated on the struggle of the classes as a way of leading society from socialism into a new form of government: communism. Marxism focuses mainly on the clash between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, or the capitalist and the laborer. The bourgeoisie own the means necessary for production, such as the factories and the machines. In contrast, the proletariat owns no means of production, only providing his labor. The bourgeoisie pays the proletariat for his labor, then pockets the difference between the value of the labor and the value of the product, or the surplus value. Due to this, Marx referred to them as the exploiter and the exploited, and the oppressor and the oppressed.
Marx saw the classes as being in constant conflict with one another and
depended on this conflict to lead into a revolution. This revolution would pave
the way for a new socialist system that would abolish the private ownership of the
means of production. When there is private ownership the individual works in his
own interest. While with equal distribution of income, people
newspaper the Rhineische Zeitung, in which he could express his views and his
world as a succession of class struggle for economic and political power. In order