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To understand Marx you have to read him in its time, when late feudalism turned into the early industrial revolution. Ownership of land was necessary for both agriculture and factories, which was most of the economic activity. Ownership at that time guaranteed a rent without much work.

However Marx failed to understand a market future of 'creative destruction' (Schumpeter) where static ownership and do-nothing accumulation of capital didn't work anymore. Marx also dismissed small businessmen as small bourgeois or petty capitalists, because they didn't need much capital, like service based businesses which are about 80% of our modern economy.