*Wage-Labour and Capital* by Karl Marx is a foundational text in Marxist economic theory that explores the exploitative dynamics of capitalist societies. Originally delivered as a series of lectures, the work delves into the relationship between wage laborers and capitalists, emphasizing how workers sell their labor power for wages that merely sustain their existence, while the capitalists appropriate the surplus value created by the workers. Marx unpacks the mechanisms of capital accumulation, the commodification of labor, and the inherent inequalities that sustain the capitalist system. Serving as a precursor to his seminal work *Das Kapital*, this concise and accessible text provides a critical framework for understanding the economic forces underpinning modern industrial society and the cyclical crises that arise from its contradictions.
