Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State is one of the few texts by Marx or Engels not to focus on economics, although its analysis does rest on the economic studies that they conduct in other key tracts such as “The Communist Manifesto” or The German Ideology. Writing in the mid-to-late 19th century, Marx and Engels were reckoning with what is now called the First Industrial Revolution, during which the explosion of manufacturing turned cities like London and Paris into massive metropolises crammed with factories and workers, many of whom worked long and grueling hours for low pay and endured hazardous conditions both at work and at home. There had long been calls for reforms to this system, such as trade unions which could negotiate for better conditions, or democratic movements which would give the majority a greater say in government. Marxists went a step further by arguing that the system could only be changed through a revolutionary upheaval, whereby the oppressed (the workers, or the “proletariat”) would seize power from the oppressors (generally called the “bourgeoisie”) and rule in their own interest.

A complete change in social power might seem a daunting task, but Marx and Engels insisted that such change was inevitable, because capitalism (the name given to a system where the holders of private property could extract wealth from those who did the actual labor) bore the seeds of its own destruction.