According to the philosopher Karl Marx, the capitalist system carried within itself the seeds of its own destruction. One day, he predicted, a violent revolution would eliminate all social classes and result in a society of plenty for all. Marx believed history was moving inevitably toward a goal. But for Marx this goal was purely economic, the result of a struggle between industrial workers and owners. In his writings, Marx argued that the true cost of any product is the labor employed in building it. But the factory owner, he said, doesn't labor to create a product; he just buys the labor and raw materials and sells the resulting product. Although laborers contributed the full