Biography

Marx was born of Jewish parents in Trier, Germany. He received his PhD from Jena University in 1841, and was one of the most consequential influences of the 20th Century.

As a writer he is remembered for his Manifesto of the Communist Party, which was in fact written with his friend Frederick Engels; the last of several versions was published in 1847. The most famous of his other books is Capital (1867-1894), which was never finished and has some additional text by Engels.  

For Schumpeter, Marx, while being a great intellect, was wrong with his theories. Schumpeter's contrary position arises because what was important for him was that Marx "asked the right questions".  

Drucker opposed Marx's political ideas and rejected him as an economist, while agreeing with Schumpeter regarding his intellect.  For Drucker, Marx's economics failed because they considered only manual power, and failed to consider the contribution of capital, equipment, energy and productivity separate from that of labour. Drucker later added that it also did not consider management's contribution to output.  

Although Marx believed that the workers should own the means of production, he never identified where the original capital was to be obtained to build the factories.

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