The author says readers should not expect a defense of communism from the book.
Munich's Roman Catholic Archbishop Reinhard Marx says his work is to some extent "an argument with Marxism."
Marx wrote the first chapter of his "Das Kapital: A Plea for Humanity" as a letter to his "dear namesake" — the 19th century ideologist Karl Marx.
The archbishop writes that "the consequences of your thinking were in the end disastrous." Marx says he intends with the book to highlight the value of Catholic social teaching in a globalized world. The book was presented Wednesday.