Few thinkers have influenced world history as profoundly as Karl Marx. After the collapse of communism, he seemed to have faded into obscurity, but in recent years he has been rediscovered. The smoke over the ruins of failed socialist experiments has cleared, yet the discomfort regarding the inequalities in this world remains—along with the interest in a thinker who sought to analyze their causes. As Urs Marti-Brander demonstrates in this book celebrating the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth, the most important theorist of the communist movement was, contrary to popular belief, a philosopher who valued the freedom and potential of the individual more than the ideal of equality. Shaped by the English and French Enlightenment, he fought against political and religious paternalism. Those who delve into his writings will become aware of this.