Examines the economic, political, and philosophical thought of Karl Marx, placing it in the context of his predecessors in the classical German tradition and his successors (and critics) in the twentieth century. Themes may include the development of historical materialism; Marx�s analysis of estranged labor; the critique of utopian socialism; the categories of Marxist economic analysis; the relation between politics, philosophy, and economics; theories of labor, surplus value, and exploitation; and the fate of communism. Same as PHIL 4250.