A communist society or communist system is the type of society and economic system postulated to emerge from technological advances in the productive forces in Marxist thought, representing the ultimate goal of the political ideology of Communism. A communist society is characterized by common ownership of the means of production with free access to the articles of consumption and is classless and stateless, implying the end of the exploitation of labor. In his Critique of the Gotha Programme Karl Marx referred to this stage of development as upper-stage communism.