section_path: History of economic thought/Marxian economics
section_name: Marxian economics
paragraph_text: Marxian economics
  
  Marxist (later, Marxian) economics descends from classical economics and it derives from the work of Karl Marx. The first volume of Marx's major work, Das Kapital, was published in 1867. Marx focused on the labour theory of value and theory of surplus value. Marx wrote that they were mechanisms used by capital to exploit labour. The labour theory of value held that the value of an exchanged commodity was determined by the labour that went into its production, and the theory of surplus value demonstrated how workers were only paid a proportion of the value their work had created.
  
  Marxian economics was further developed by Karl Kautsky (1854–1938)'s The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx and The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program), Rudolf Hilferding 's (1877–1941) Finance Capital, Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924)'s The Development of Capitalism in Russia and Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, and Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919)'s The Accumulation of Capital.