Marx thought that value is created through the labor of working people. He thought that they should democratically control how that value was created, distributed and what gets made.
He thought this was not just a good idea but that it would be possible, though not inevitable, because it is in the material interests of working people, and because collectively they keep society running they potentially have a lot of power.
He argued against the utopian socialists who thought that socialism should be implemented from above by benevolent leaders. He thought that the transformation of society would have to be carried out by the working class themselves. During this process they would develop a class consciousness which would overcome other divisions, such as racism, religious hatred, the oppression of women and other forms of oppression which split working people.
Today, there are many people who would claim to speak in the tradition of Marx. Indeed even in his time there were many who misrepresented his thoughts such that he was led to proclaim "I am not a Marxist." However despite how the other people have answered this question, he was an internationalist and a revolutionary. He eneded the Communist Manifesto withe the famous slogan: "Workers of the world unite!" That is now written on his grave in London along with another famous quote of his: "Philosophers have tried to interpret the world, the point however is to change it!"
Today I believe that he would still stand by those words. Who can say his ideas are not being vindicated as we watch this major crisis in world capitalism unfold.
There is a new edition of the Communist Manifesto out from Haymarket books which is annotated by Phil Gasper and well worth getting for an engaging study.
To see what some contemporary socialists are saying about what should be done today, it is worth looking at the Socialist Worker website.
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