Capital (Vol I, II & III - Set of 3 books). an economist, sociologist, philosopher, journalist, historian and revolutionary, Karl Marx was born to a middle-class Jewish family in Trier on may 5, 1818. Marx completed his doctoral thesis, titled the difference between the democritean and epicurean philosophy of nature, in 1841 and submitted it to the University of jena. He was awarded a ph.Br>d in April 1841. In 1844, Marx befriended Friedrich Engels, the German socialist and became a revolutionary Communist.