Thus, they made proposals about how a government should raise the funds necessary to pay for these and other goods. At a later time, the work of these economists became the basis for a sub-field of professional economics called public finance . An early writer on the market economy who stood apart from the rest was Karl Marx, whose writing appeared around the mid-19th century. Marx wrote that the institution of private property was destined toward self-destruction. To him, the market economy contained a natural conflict between capitalists and workers.
Workers transform the other resources into material goods.
Yet the capitalists who finance the ventures receive most of the gains. This inequity, which Marx believed would increase over time, would ultimately result in a highly dissatisfied and expanding laboring class. When the time was ripe, this class would rise up in revolution against the oppression of the class of capitalist employers. The resulting political conflict would usher in a new society of socialism. Neoclassical Reaction to Marx Marx and other advocates of socialism had a major influence on political economy.