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
Das Kapital Democritus (circa 460–370 BC) and Epicurus (341–270 BC). The logical architecture of "Das Kapital" is derived in part from the "Politics" and the "Nicomachean Ethics" by Aristotle, including the fundamental distinction between use value and exchange value, the "syllogisms" (C-M-C' and M-C-M') for simple commodity circulation and the circulation of value as capital. Moreover, the description of machinery, under capitalist relations of production, as "self-acting automata" derives from Aristotle’s speculations about inanimate instruments capable of obeying commands as the condition for the abolition of slavery. In the nineteenth century, Marx’s research of the available politico-economic literature required twelve years, usually