Das Kapital sciences published before 1950. In "Das Kapital" (1867), Marx proposes that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labor, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value. The owner of the means of production is able to claim the right to this surplus value because he or she is legally protected by the ruling regime through property rights and the legally established distribution of shares which are by law only to be distributed to company owners and their board members. The historical section shows how these rights were acquired in the first place chiefly through
Karl Marx short essays on capital, landed property, wage labour, the state and foreign trade and the world market, though this work did not appear in print until 1939 under the title ""Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy"". Finally in 1859, Marx published "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy", his first serious economic work. This work was intended merely as a preview of his three-volume "Das Kapital" (English title: "Capital: Critique of Political Economy"), which he intended to publish at a later date. In "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy", Marx expands on the labour theory of