In 1848, the world was viewed through the lens of steam engines and clockwork. When Marx and Engels formulated their critique of capital, they did so within a “Newtonian” universe ~ a world of solid, ...

Before the revolution triggered by Nicolaus Copernicus, a 16th-century cleric, the Earth was the unmoving centre of the cosmos. Afterwards, it was one of a family of planets swinging through space.