Marxism is a social, political, and economic philosophy named after Karl Marx, a 19th-century German philosopher and economist. It is a theory based on the ideas of Marx, who examined the historical effects of capitalism and posited that the struggle between social classes, specifically between the bourgeoisie (capitalists) and the proletariat (workers), defines economic and social relations. Marxism encompasses Marxist class conflict theory and Marxian economics, and it was first publicly formulated in 1848 in the pamphlet The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which lays out the theory of class struggle and revolution.

Here are some key points of Marxism:

• Capitalism is a mode of production in which business owners (the capitalists) own all of the means of production (the factory, the tools and machinery, the raw materials, the final product, and the profits earned from their sale). Workers (labor) are hired for wages and have no ownership stake and no share in the profits.
• Marxism argues that capitalism as a form of economic and social reproduction is inherently flawed and will ultimately fail.
• Marxism is both a social and political theory, and encompasses Marxist class conflict theory and Marxian economics.
• Marxian economics focuses on criticism of capitalism, detailed by Marx in his book Das Kapital, published in 1867.
• Marxism is a philosophy, while communism is a system of government based on Marxist principles. Marx envisioned a society in which workers owned the means of production. In real-world communism, governments own the means of production.
• Marxism draws a differentiation between two groups of people in society: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. According to Marx, the bourgeoisie exploited the labor of the proletariat for profit.

Marxism is a growing/changing economic/sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry based upon a materialist interpretation of historical development, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis of class-relations within society and their application in the analysis and critique of the development of capitalism.