The degree to which his works have been dragged through the mud by a bunch of people who insist on calling everything they don't like "capitalism" can't be overstated. The majority of people complaining about capitalism don't even have a coherent definition of it, it's a disgrace.

Reducing everything to a few sets of variables that you can keep in your mind is quite reassuring. Ask me how I know. Do take the time to assimilate this sentence though:

"But one should not succumb to the illusion that with an analysis of the fundamentals of the capitalist mode of production that everything decisive has already been said about capitalist societies"

Michael Heinrich, Introduction to the three volumes of Capital

Can you break down the participants in this story in Marxist terms?

huh?

Except most marxists.