History of economic thought died, Engels completed the second volume of "Das Kapital" from his notes. Marx wrote his magnum opus "Das Kapital" (1867) at the British Museum's library in London. Karl Marx begins with the concept of commodities. Before capitalism, says Marx, production was based on slavery – in ancient Rome for example – then serfdom in the feudal societies of medieval Europe. The current mode of labor exchange has produced an erratic and unstable situation allowing the conditions for revolution. People buy and sell their labor as people buy and sell goods and services. People themselves have become disposable commodities. As Marx
Karl Marx Year prominent renovations/reopenings of the Karl Marx House in 1968 and 1983. In 2018, Trier launched its own Karl Marx Year for the 200th anniversary of his birth. Karl Marx Year Karl Marx Year () was a series of anniversaries of Karl Marx commemorated by East Germany in 1953, 1968, and 1983. The most promininent was in 1953, for the 70th anniversary of Marx's death, and included the renaming of Chemnitz as Karl-Marx Stadt and of Leipzig University as Karl Marx University, the founding of the Order of Karl Marx, and the initiation of the project of Marx and Engels' works.