Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore View Post
There's Marx the economist and sociologist, and there's Marx the communist. While the latter is his own conclusion of the former, you can of course adopt the former without the latter(although I don't think you can adopt communism while rejecting his social analysis).

Marx' academic writings make up a hefty portion of the material in the disiplines he engaged in even today, he is definitely one of the greats. For example, while an economist can create theories of economic growth without employing Marx' focus on production, it's hard to to do so without being aware of that theory's existance(at least its modern form).
Marx's analysis of the capitalist process is still not been bettered in it's scope. His description and prognosis regarding capitalism is as significant now as it ever was. However the prescription of what to do was later, and in my opinion, a weak reflection of the earlier work.