Why did Marx and Engels support public ownership of mines, factories, and railroads?

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels advocated for the public ownership of the major means of industrial production—such as mines, factories, and railroads—because they viewed private ownership under capitalism as the root cause of systemic exploitation and human misery.12

According to their critique, capitalism functions by allowing a dominant class, the bourgeoisie, to control these means of production to extract surplus value from the proletariat, or industrial working class. Marx and Engels argued that this system leads to several critical issues:13

• Exploitation: Capitalists reap profits while workers receive only a fraction of the value they create through their labor.3
• Poverty and Inequality: The concentration of wealth in the hands of owners leaves the working class in a state of poverty, disease, and squalor.13
• Alienation: Workers are estranged from the products of their labor, the production process itself, and their own human potential.3

By transitioning to public ownership, Marx and Engels believed that production could be operated for the benefit of all, effectively ending class divisions and freeing humanity from the necessity of exploitation.12