Marxism is a socialist political ideology constructed by Karl Marx involving particular critiques of capitalism, depicting economic problems as stemming from a long history of class struggles.(Marx, Engels, 1848, p. 78) Marx suggests that over the course of human history there have always been class struggles; In the Roman times there were patricians, knights, plebeians, and slaves, and in the Medieval Ages there were feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, and serfs.(Marx, Engels, 1848, p. 79) In the modern day, Marx believes that capitalism has brought about the final class struggle between two classes that will exist, one between the bourgeois, the “ruling class” of capitalists, and the proletariat, the working class.(Marx, Engels, 1848, p. 80, 91, 93)
Eventually, according to Marxism, because of the contradictions of capitalism,(Marx, Engels, 1848, p. 109) the result would lead to the inevitable bottom-up rise of communism across all capitalist countries and overthrowing bourgeois authority.(Marx, Engels, 1848, pp. 94-95) The goal of this communist overthrowing of the status quo would result in what Marx considers the summarization of communist theory, the abolition of private property.(Marx, Engels, 1848, p. 96)
Marx makes a distinction between personal property and private property. Personal property is property that has no social power over others.(Marx, Engels, 1848, p. 97) Private property on the other hand is synonymous with capital,(Marx, Engels, 1848, p. 97) which exploits the working class and wage-labor.(Marx, Engels, 1848, p. 96)